Fruchee's World-Sec 4 To JC2

Secondary 4-Final Year in Secondary School
Maybe it was all the inferiorty complex I 'suffered' during the Europe tour had gave me the unprecedented strength to work extra hard in Sec 4. I started to mug and mug, and my effort was well paid off. In my first class test I scored A1s in Chinese, Geography, Physics, E Maths and A Maths(Surprise!!), Bs in English and Biology and a C6 in Chemistry.

Somehow I ran out of steam and of course, the momentum could not last long and so were my good results. My English, Biology and Geography results started to dip while strangely I took a sudden great interest in Chemistry. Soon I was able to grasp the concepts easily and I was able to interlink the relationships between each topic. After a few more months of hard work, I did well enough in my Prelims for a 3 month honeymoon in JJC.
Here's my Prelim results:
A1: Chemistry, E Maths
A2: A Maths, Physics, Chinese
B3: Geography
B4: English, Biology

Honeymoon
The first 3 months proved to be the 'honeymoon' period for JC newbies like me. The Orientation was really fun as we had games, mass dances, a mini campfire and most importantly, new friends. We rarely studied and practically all we did was play, enjoy and have fun. I can join my friends for bowling like, say, 3 times per week and a tennis session with my new friends Kenny and Charles every Friday. I can count myself extremely lucky for picking up an abandoned tennis racquet in the tennis court. I tried it out during my PE lesson, then left it in the tennis court to see if anyone claimed it back. When I returned with Kenny and Charles in the afternoon no one claimed the racquet back. Oh boy, the racquet was just so fantastic!! I can ace my friends with ease and since they already have their own racquets, I got to keep it for myself(haha save $$).
Then came the fateful day-28th February, the day when JC wannabes crossed their fingers hoping that they would do well enough to stay in JC, while some just hoped for a place in poly.
That's it--The 'O' Level results were out.
Well I must have counted my eggs too early, as I had estimated that I would A1s in Chemistry, Physics and E Maths while scoring A2s in Chinese(confirmed last August) and hopefully A Maths or Geography. In the end that's what I got:
A1: E Maths(one and only!!)
A2: Chinese, Chemistry(heard that only 7 students got an A2 in Chemistry , no A1s)
B3: The rest(5 of them!!)

What the?! I really felt like banging my head against the wall because I knew that I would have been a straight As student if I scored 5 more points in each paper, or better still straight A1s if it's 10 points per paper. However my form teacher congratulated me for my 'good' results (probably because I didn't score B4 and below in any subjects). While most of my friends from HKSS had left JJC for poly life, a handful of us remained in JJC to continue our studies.
In the end I still chose Chemistry, Physics and Maths C as my core subjects.

Start of REAL JC Life
Except for my friend YC whom I knew from the first orientation, I can tell you that I made zero new friends during the second JJC orientation. I'm not sure if it's because the new people weren't as sociable or was it because the orientation package was too boring, I simply find this orientation a waste of time. There was no way I could stay in school the whole day and enjoy the fun. So I would just purchase a new set of JJC uniform, changed into it, disguised myself as a JC2 student and walked out of school.

Days later I got posted into 99S5 with my friend Charles, and together we made a few great buddies like Teck Soon, Tze Hao, Stephen, June Li, Daniel, XinZhan, Henry etc.... With the exception of Henry and XinZhan(as they are such bright students), the rest of us can skip lectures, fail Physics together etc. While scoring As in Chemistry and Maths C, my Physics was a disaster and I got an F for it. Frankly speaking, I did not know what I did during Promos, I got an A in Chemistry, B in Physics(by luck?) and C for Maths C(what the?) and borderline passes for both GP and AO Chinese.

Finally it's time for a break and this time I'm off to Japan with my family friend Dawn and her family.

JC2-Final Year in School Uniform
Just 2 months had passed and now I'm a JC2 student....Happy 2000!! Yeah the new millenium had came. 99S5 had became 99S4 because the triple science class(99S3 and 99S4) had merged into 99S3 as some students opted to drop one of their subjects in order to concentrate on their studies. There's this one guy who joined our class and immediately he became an outcast. To those from 99S4 you all should know who I'm refering to.

As usual, we bunch of guys had spent almost the whole year sleeping or drawing(at the back of our notes) during lectures, flunked our Physics test again and again, or just make jokes about the outcast 2625.

Soon the Prelims were over (my results were the same as my Promos, except this time my Maths C had dropped to D and I did not have AO Chinese paper as I had already got an A2 in August). This time it was no longer compulsary to come to school for lessons and now only Tze Hao, Stephen, Teck Soon and I were still on about coming back to school to revise for the 'A' Levels. Somehow it's always the same 4 of us (now I'll call ourselves G4)studying together, and this was the most frequent scenario:
1. Tze Hao would always listen to songs in his mp3 player while practising Maths C questions.
2. Stephen would either fell asleep, or concentrate for a few minutes before drawing cartoon crocodiles to make jokes about 2625.
3. Teck Soon and I would try out Chemistry or Physics questions.

Mind you we are not muggers ok? We know what moderation means and usually after 2-4 hours(depending on our mood) of study we would end up eating at Jurong Point, watch a movie, or just play with water at Jurong East Swimming Pool.

A Level Nightmare
GP has always been one of my greatest headaches and it didn't just end during the A levels. For Paper 1 I wrote a 1000+ essay on the Topic "How to reduce the gap between the rich and poor countries" and I should say I'm pretty confident that I would do well in this paper. My Paper 2 was a complete disaster, as I'm always poor in comprehension and this time there was no difference. I could not understand the passage very well and the vocabulary section did not help much to alleviate my plight. So the only way out was to consult my sister (GP A1 student) whether my essay was ok. After telling her what I wrote in the essay, she said....

"I think it was a bit out of point...."

That's it man, of all the sudden I felt as if my brain had been blown away by a tornado. I could not sleep well that night fearing that I might have to repeat a year in JC for failing my GP. Soon I got over it and tried my best for other papers.

Class Outing Overseas?
Long before the A Levels exams we guys had started planning for an overseas trip after the 'A' Levels and we even used the school library's internet to search for information about various overseas tourist resorts. Finally we chose Langkawi(3D2N) as our destination and the booking for flight tickets were already in progress just before the end of the 'A' Levels exams. Sad thing is, one by one my friends backed out from the plan and leaving G4(again) really on about going to Langkawi. We spent about $500+ in flight, accomodation, food and expenses and I can tell you that it was worth every single cent I spent! For more information about the Langkawi trip click here.

Another Big Day-Release of 'A' Levels Results
3rd of March 2001, the big day for JC graduates. It was a bad thing I could not meet up with my friends on that day to collect my results because I had my driving test that day and so my sister collected my results on my behalf. An hour later she called me and told me about my results which I found it hard to believe....
Chemistry: A
Physics: B
Maths C: A
AO Chinese: A2
GP: B3

I couldn't believe my ears.... that was the one and only time I managed to score a B3 in GP. It didn't matter that I failed my driving test at the end of the day.