I have received this in my mail and have been told to pass it around. I have also heard many people wanting to join it. So, here is the info!
Dear all excited buskers,
The moment you have been waiting for is finally here!
Science Buskers Festival 2009 is now open for registration!
BUT WAIT. What is Science Buskers Festival? This is a festival whereby you can perform any topics related to science creatively to the public – be it quirky, fun or extraordinary! It is also a chance to demonstrate the beauty of science and bring it alive!
Don’t forget to spread the electrifying news and bring your friends along to join this exciting event too! Have a set of cool parents that you wanna show off? Invite them along and form your own family team! Parents can also encourage your children to participate and have a family bonding time.
And feel free to explore our exclusive blog and videos posted online to know more about Science Buskers Festival!
For more enquiries, please do not hesitate to email us at upstream@science.edu.sg or call us at 64252590.We hope to see you soon!
Yesterday, about three quarters of the class gathered at Downtown East, E! Hub, for our class outing. Yes, a class outing! And to do what? The best thing I could ever imagine: Bowling! I jumped for joy (literary) when I heard the news and told myself that i could not miss it. It took quite a long time to finalise the class outing but hey, it worked out in the end right?
Anyway, I have the honour to say that I, Joejyn Wan and family, reached E! hub first. My family followed to bowl too, and I must say, that we are quite serious bowlers. Why? It is because my brother is in the Bowling CCA in St Hilda's Primary and thus, we practise every Friday if we are free. Both my brother and mother already have their own bowling balls, and I hope to get my own ball soon too!
Moving on, we booked the lanes first and as the person behind the counter knows us (we go there often), he gave us 4 to 5 lanes, and later extended it to 6 lanes. I played with my family first as I waited for the rest of the class, my warm-up round. And soon, everyone was crowding in and the game started! Well, it started 30mins late, but never mind.
I started off badly, my ball curving when it was not supposed to. I guess it is because I was not used to the long wait in between my turns, my family usually getting two lanes for the four of us. But in the end I still got a score of 95, which to most people's standard is very good. But for me, my average is about a hundred, but it was not so far off so we can't complain, can we?
The score for my first game
My second game however, picked up a lot, and my final score was 135! I owe it all to the "spare, strike, spare" combo that I got, pushing up my scores by a lot. And in case you were wondering, the "glove" that I was wearing is actually my brother's (bought by my uncle whose average score is 200! WOW!) but he does not like it too much. And so, he lent it to me. I feel it helps to support by ball a lot, I using a 10 pound for my small size.
Now, for my score in the second game
But it being a class outing, there ought to be a class spirit right? And I dare say that the class spirit was there for that 2 hours and it was strong! People were cheering for one another, teaching one another and most importantly, having fun with one another. We did not care who lost and won, but just had fun playing with one another.
And after the class bowling, I continued to bowl another 2 games, in which the last game was an interesting one. My brother and I challenged each other in which the loser would have to do push-ups. How many? That was determined by the difference between our scores. And guess what? I won! He now owes me 20 push-ups! But don't go around telling people that I am a bully. Because I gave him a ten points handicap!
Overall, I personally had a lot of fun and I am sure that the whole class had as much fun as me. We really should organise more of these outings as it bonds and brings the class together. Go 2A!
See, E! Hub is so helpful! They tell you where to hit to spare!
Throughout these few days, every chinese family will visit their relatives all over Singapore, including me. This is the chinese's tradition and the children would of course receive red packets, or "hong baos". But for us peranakans, there is a slight twist in it. We have to "soja" to our elderly, starting from the eldest sibling.
"Sojaing" is one step before you can get your red packets. You just have to kneel down, wish them a very happy chinese new year and give them two oranges. It is only then you could receive your red packets.
But before we could even go visiting, we have to "soja" to our parents first. Here are some pictures of me and my brother doing just that to our parents.
My brother giving oranges to our parents
We receiving our Hong Baos
And then, when we went visiting my grandfather, our parents would then in turn do that to their own parents, from the eldest sibling, then to their garndchildren. Here are the photos of the whole event in order.
My father's eldest siter went first...
Followed by my father...(he was playing around giving my grandfather very small oranges)
And then came my father's third sister...( his second sister was overseas) And finally, my father's youngest brother Don't forget me!
And then, it was my grandmother's turn. We went to her house(she was staying with my aunt), and started the whole process again...
"Happy new year!"
And here is my father playing a fool again. This time, with a pillow!
And, me again!
And now, for the grand finale, some family photos!
My grandmother with her grandchildren
My father's side
And finally a picture taken together with my mother's godparents. Don't you think the grandmother looks familar?
Ok, got to go now. Got to go to my mother's sister's house now! Enjoy your chinese new year!
As all of you should have known, (if you were paying attention during assembly) the Three Busketeers won the CHAMPIONS! I feel that we winning this is a surprise to many and I consider us the underdogs. Why do I say so? This is because even the Science Centre did not think that we would win as they left the three best teams for the last to let the minister see them and we were not in it. Due to that, the minister did not manage to catch our performance. How sad... ...
I think maybe the reason why we might have won is due to us being in a very relaxing mode. We did not expect to win and did not aim to be the top three. All we wanted to do was to do our best and have fun.
Another reason might be because we used very simple items that are available at home, allowing people to relate better to them.
Visual is always better than words so why not take a look at our video? Notice our family members cheering like crazy at the background.
But anyway we won it and I feel ... happy. I could not stop smiling that day and I felt as if all our efforts were not wasted at all. And as you would also have known, we won one thousand dollars in cash, another $150 for the 'Stage Presence' award + a renewable one year Science Centre contract. Now, what is this contract? This contract allows us to perform for Science Centre at per need basis. The best part? They pay us!
I personally feel that this contract is a good platform for character building as we have to communicate with various people during our "busking sessions" which can't be gained in a classroom setting. It also provides us with good exposure as we are dealing with the public and not only our fellow classmates.
Thus, I feel that it will certainly help us not only in our many years of studying but also in the future when we are required to conduct presentations for our companies in the work force.
Me busking! Notice the BIG crowd! (including a "fake audience". Can you spot him?)
As all of you would have already known, I participated in the Science Buskers Festival with Bok Woon and Jia Peng. We passed the Autition Round quite easily, getting 5 passes from the judges. But the competion was not going to be as easy as expected.
The next round, also known as the Busking Round, comprised of two catogories, the online and the offline. For the online, we had videos posted on youtube and were scored on both the ratings and the viewings. I am absolutely sure that almost everybody had viewed these two videos already, but for those who forgot what they were, here they are.
Moving on, there was the offline busking, which was to "busk" in Science Centre and get as much votes as possible from the public. It was very fun, although extremely tiring. We had to shout at the top of our voices for people to hear us, and even had to attract crowd. The first day of busking went badly, we being able to get only 6 votes. We were greatly demoralised. However, the next two days went better, getting about 100 votes for the whole day. After the second day, we were the 5th out of the 25 teams!
The third day was extremely important as the judges would be there. Their votes were very critical, so, it was very important and we thus gave our best performance ever! In the end, out of 5 judges, 3 voted for us, which brought us to 4th position!
And so, we got into the finals, and were prepared to meet the toughest opponents of the lot, and were ready to give the performance of our lives!
This, my first blog post, is going to be about a special day to me and my whole family. I would never forget this day, and neither will my parents.
It was on the 22nd of November, a long awaited day. It was my parents' 15th anniversary! It was a really big event as family and friends gathered at Changi Village Hotel. Everyone was early, just as planned, and the event started on the dot. This might be an ordinary wedding or anniversary for you, but not for me. I was the amcee together with my uncle!
That was the first time I hosted in front of nearly 200 people, in which i was on the stage and I was in the "spotlight". I was extremely nervous, and kept practicing my lines during the reception. Going up on stage was a challange in itself, but I had an added challange. Speaking in Mandarin!
And so, it started. When everybody knew that I was the amcee, they cheered for me at almost every sentence I said, making me feel as if I was a star. My mother's side could not understand English at all, so when I spoke mandarin, they were very shocked and cheered even louder! At that point, I knew that the many months practicing for this very moment was all worth it.
The walk-in (my brother and I were in it too) and dinner followed after that, and the main event of that night soon arrived. On my parents' wedding 15 years ago, because they were so confident that they would be forever together, they created something they called the "time capsule box" in which they put everything they gave each other during their courtship days into the box. They promised everyone that they would open it 15 years later. And so, they kept their promise.
They opened it up and my mother showed an extremely long and complicated poem which my father wrote for her. It was beyond comprehension! My mother on the other hand wrote a short and simple poem, which went straight to the point. It was actually also very humourous but its contents would not be said here to avoid embarrassment (unless on special request).
On the overall, I enjoyed myself thoroughly on that day, and had a sense of achievement as I am proud to be the amcee, and personally think that I did quite a good job that day.
