Thursday, September 30, 2004

No need to go to college tomorrow, we can stay home to study.
What can we do with one day? Oh well, better than nothing.
Two of us will almost certainly be promoted. The other one has a rather high possibility of getting retained, but he's already mentally prepared for the worst, wants to quit school if he can't make it. So it doesn't really make much of a difference. But we sure hope all three of us make it, otherwise there'll be only two of us left, then "The Three Musketeers" will become "The Two Musketeers". Hope he will be able to maximise this one day.
Once again, we've made a change. This time, no one was credited since there was no SC dialogue session. Now the SC will not be made up to seem to be so great...

To all Meridians: Good luck for the promos!

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/30/2004 08:36:00 pm

***

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Just a few more days to the promotional examinations but the lecturers have only just completed teaching the syllabus. What is this?! Shouldn't we be given at least one week to revise and consolidate what we've learnt?
Once again, we've decided to take action. We wrote a letter, explaining the need to have time to go through what we've just learnt. How can we be expected to do well in the promos in a few days' time, when we've just completed the syllabus? We don't even have time to complete our tutorials and assignments for the last chapter, how to revise? Maybe the promos could be postponed for one week?
We sent the letter through e-mail to our Civics Group Tutor, and she forwarded it to Mrs Crossley.
Will the letter be useful? We don't know. Probably not, the promos are already a few days away, what can possibly be done? Let's just hope...

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/29/2004 10:22:00 pm

***

Friday, September 17, 2004

The SC gets credited again today for the improvements to the timetables.
During PCCG period, Ms Ee said: "Are you all happy with the changes to your timetables? You all have to thank the councilors for these changes. They worked very hard for you..." Yeah, right! The SC is getting all the undeserved credit again. And they were so proud of their "contributions" to MJC. It really pissed us off.
Fuck the SC! We don't need them. What's the point of having the SC, when they're not doing their job? They're supposed to be the voice of the student body, but we had to take things into our own hands.
We will try to put up with those thick-skinned SCs, but there's a limit to our perserverance...
We will wake the SC up some day...

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/17/2004 09:15:00 pm

***

Monday, September 13, 2004

During morning assembly today, Mrs Crossley announced that all periods after 11.45 AM, instead of 12.35 PM, will be reduced by 5 minutes. Woo hoo... Even better. Looks like we really played a significant role in shaping MJC.

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/13/2004 10:39:00 pm

***

Saturday, September 04, 2004

After our Mathematics Lecture Test today, the Principal came to Lecture Theatre 4 to make an announcement. She said: "Do not underestimate the power of the SC. The feedback that you give them will reach me. They can do a lot of things for you, so don't think that there's nothing they can do for you." Then she announced that there have been amendments to our timetables. "All periods after 12.35 PM will be reduced by 5 minutes. All afternoon PE lessons have been removed. Tutors cannot end their lessons and remedials later than 5 PM." "So don't underestimate the influence of the SC..."
Weren't these the changes that we negotiated for yesterday with her in her office? We already knew all these before yesterday's dialogue session even ended. So what does this have to do with the SC?
She probably credited the SC because after we wrote the petition to her, she probably figured out that the SC has lost their credibility. She had to do that to make the students look up to the SC again.
Nevermind who gets the credit. We've made a difference, and that's that.
But we couldn't believe how thick-skinned the councilors are. Some SCs could actually boast to their friends that they fought for the welfare of the student body.
Forget it, seldom do they get credited for anything anyway...

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/04/2004 08:15:00 pm

***

Friday, September 03, 2004

There was going to be a dialogue session between the Students' Council and the student body today during PCCG period. It was to discuss about our long school hours. But we know it's going to be another wayang show. After all, the SC has never taken any action despite all the feedback the students give them. Months before today, we had constantly urged the SC to do something about our long timetables. With our long school hours, we don't even have sufficient time to complete our assignments, let alone study and do revision. However, their response? "Cannot lah, Ms Lai very stubborn wan. She won't give in to us. She'll say we're not suited for JC life..." Rather than wait for the SC to do something, which will never happen, we decided to take our own action.
A few days ago, we wrote a petition regarding the timetable issue. We targeted to get at least 100 signatures, but only managed to gather 62. However, we've got no more time to spare. There's only 1 month left before promotional examinations. If we want to take action, it's now or never.
During recess, we passed the petition to the clerk in the General Office and asked her to pass it to Ms Lai, preferably before the dialogue session. We were hoping that after reading the petition, she would 'drop in' during the dialogue session to address our unhappiness.
During Biology lecture, we were told to go down to the Principal's Office during the dialogue session. We went down, prepared for a big scolding. However, we were surprised when she told us to sit down and discussed our unhappiness with us. She said: "The college exists because of the students. So if you're unhappy about the college, it's of our concern." Besides the timetable issue, we didn't know what to say because we didn't expect this. So we were basically talking through our hats, giving crappy suggestions on how to improve the college. Many of these suggestions were rejected of course, but we've made improvements to the main problem, the timetable, and that's the important thing. She said that she may remove our afternoon PE periods, make all lessons end before 5 PM, and will look into whether it is possible to do away with 1 GP and 1 Mother Tongue period per week. However, no promises. She also said that by next year when we, or at least most of us, are in JC2, there will only be 2 MT periods per week, so that we have more time to study for our 'A' level subjects.
We left the Principal's Office and returned to Lecture Theatre 4 for the dialogue session. Though the session is still going on, we know that the outcome is more or less confirmed. We felt a sense of satisfaction that we made a change for ourselves, for MJC.

leaving school SPCS (MJC) at 9/03/2004 10:32:00 pm

***