>Short Post<

Just to prove someone wrong. Hee hee.

Lowell you remember a lot of things hor. ;) An A for grammar!

To all who are going for Childrens' camp, please start to pray for God's annointing and His power. Pray for spiritual and physical protection in the days that lead up to the camp. Pray for a loving heart, that you may be able to talk to and make friends with other kids who are not from our church. Pray for opportunities to bring those non-believers to Christ.

Hope you made it till the fourth paragraph. Cheeky grin.

Don't mind me.

TY

♥ 10:49 AM

Ok i guess I shall post to keep the ball rolling, or rather the blog moving.
Please everybody tag or give me ur email so i can invite you to blog and contribute to the classs blogg! you know you want to (:

anyhow, thanks alot isabelle and faith for all ur effort to help the html incompatible teachers do up the blog design. i noticed though that there is a lost elmo above the right column who simply keeps bouncing back and forth inside his little square. please be kind to puppets and let him out already.

also i'd like to share this hilarious clip. ok for some reason if i stuff it here it overlaps into the right column. so ill just give u the link! haha. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7fkAF4nElA

so it seems, given that you all just got back ur PSLE results and haf kinda "graduated" pri sch, that is the topic most pertinent on your minds now. that and of course the choices for secondary school. well i dont really have any good analogies (refer to caleb korkor's post below on the train ticket analogy) to share so i'll just share my personal story of me going through primary school.



as i think back to a time not so long ago, when i was in pri 6 in the military school of TAO NAN, i manage only to remember certain glimpses of my primary school life. certain events that sparked off deep rooted memories, for better or for worse, that would probably stay with me for years to come.

i remember our vice principal then, the fierce "THUNDER" lui who liked to shout at us for doing wrong things and of course caning us personally. i personally was caned once for i forgot wad reason but i remembered he caned by hand, and he was rather nice about it. i still remember he was the first guy to introduce to me the word moron when he called our entire school a bunch of morons during silent reading to which i went home to ask my parents what it meant and got really upset and angry that he called all of us morons! and i remember i was quite angry with him for quite some time.

i remember my pri 1-4 class 4H when we had such joyous innocent times.

i remember charles lim the singer/guitar/aussie dude was in my class and i remember he was quite close to this girl prefect.

i remember he lost his wallet and i remember all of us being involved in some extremely detailed plan to bait the wallet thief during recess by us placing a fake wallet and lunchbox at the steps next to the basketball court and all of us running around pretending to be playing but actually playing police and secretly staking out the wallet. but the thief didnt show.

i remember there was this really disgusting guy in class who would do disgusting stuff to gross out all the girls and guys, shawn his name was i think, and he would snort out mucus all over his hands and short or eat grass and lead and go mucus attack the other pupils in class.

i remember in pri4 some boy in my class was too scared to ask for permission to go to the toilet he pooed on the class floor.

i remember all our teachers, whose names i have forgotten and i remember all my chinese and moral ed teachers were old and grouchy except in pri 1 or 2 which was a nice young lady.

i remember my class was quite smart and alot of my classmates did well in the school overall rankings and made it very pressurising for the rest of us.

i remember the long afternoons spent writing my PETS coursebook penmanship or xi zhi cos my mom will sit me down and cane me if i didnt write it properly. but that didnt stop me from becoming a doctor XD

i remember sitting in front of the class cos i couldnt see the board well and had to get my parents to write me a letter so i can sit right in the front row

i remember the first day of school when i went to school, couldnt bear to leave my mom and then waved to her from the 2nd floor down some hole where all the parents were gathered on the first floor.

i remember being in the TAF club for 5 out of 6years of my life in primary school. where all our food in our lunch boxes had to be screened by the teachers to be wholemeal bread or healthy food. and i remember the fatter ones rushing down after dismissal from TAF club to go down to the canteen to stuff a plate of fried rice in 3mins.

i remember sadly that my 1 year out of TAF club i didnt have many friends to play with cos i didnt know what to do without TAF club.

i remember playing erasers alot, spending loads on buying country erasers and shooting other people's erasers off the stonetable.

i remember stapling the bottom of my eraser to make it slide better.

i remember then graduating to pri5K and getting the nicest form teacher on earth mrs choo who really made an impact in my life.

i remember she taught me how to do the model method which i totally fell in love with and used it for the rest of my primary school life.

i remember i sat right in front in the middle of class with another girl joan choo who was very tomboyish and always talked to me during class. but i remember before her was another guy called weikiat who was from my kindergarten, but cos 2 of us boys were talking too much, she made a girl sit next to me.

i remember us making armies out of paper and playing paper war right in front of the class and trying not to get caught doing it.

i remember the ruler and colour pencils we used to make catapults and rocket launchers to destroy each other's armies.

i remember they made us guys sit with girls and made us talkative and naughty guys sit with especially good and well-behaved girls, preferably prefect so that we would have no one to talk to.

i remember being called talkative and very mischevious alot in primary school, something that my parents always heard during parent teacher meetings.

i remember getting sent out of class for talking too much in class before and getting suanned by the teacher from the next class who walked past me after lesson was over.

i remember another boy called alvan wang who always talked in class with me. i remember we got separated and he still kept talking with the other guy he was with. i remember him being punished by standing up for the entire duration of the class.

i remember then graduating to the class of 6L and being very sad that mrs choo was not going to be my form teacher anymore and i wasnt gonna be able to play paper army with the girl again.

i remember that my primary 6 was very stressful because all of the people in my class were very smart.

i remember my pri 6 teacher was a legendary mrs seng and i remember that when i was in 5K i could hear her screaming at her class everyday for simple stuff like giving out maths workbooks. i remember that she didnt like those of us who came into 6L from the other classes and liked to call or rather scream and shout at us and call us idiots. BUT i remember the top scorer being one of the girls who she always called an idiot, her name was amy, and i remember that mrs seng told my mom that she was genuinely surprised at my score.

i remember she often got her daughter to stand in for her and relief teach when she was sick or busy and we were always amazed at how nice her daughter turned out to be.

i remember getting silver for my NAPFA in pri 6, an amazing feat for a TAF club veteran like me.

i remember having our NAPFA run in VJC in the rain of which i got a B cos of the cool weather.

i remember 2 of the parents of my classmates who were teachers then treating us to you tiao and tau hui at VJC.

i remember the red mark black mark system in which a good thing done like returning a wallet would give u a red mark and a bad thing done like talking in class would give u a black mark. obviously i got more black marks then red.

i remember an annual award for the wallet returned with the most cash inside and even that i considered "applying" for the award by simply giving a wallet with a large wad of cash inside.

i remember being made to sit beside this very guai prefect girl called serene.

i remember she was very nice and let me copy all her work and we always did finish our homework during lesson time so that we wouldnt need to do any homework at home.

i remember that was the first time i felt that i actually liked a girl. becos before that we guys always hated girls. blame it on the late pubertal growth.

i remember getting invited to the school and being very impressed by the entire school compound especially the pool with the logo on the bottom of the pool.

i remember the dorms looking very fun and enjoyable tempting me to join the school further.

i remember studying extremely hard for my psle becos i wanted to go to ACS.

BUT

i remember then that during one of my sailing regattas (races) the ACS sailors bullied me and made me drop positions so i willed myself to study even harder to not go to ACS but rather another school to beat them.

i remember my PSLE oral exam which was held on a saturday morning.

i remember reporting in the hall and waiting outside the classroom nervously for my turn.

i remember panicking about where to put my bag that i had brought along when everyone else did not bring any bags.

i remember that i got my tuition teacher as my examiner which was really God's grace and thus my oral went very very well.

i remember then the days leading up to PSLE where i studied alot and attended all my tuition classes constantly.

i remember the PSLE exams and i remember that i was very impressed by the nice books they gave us for answer scripts.

i remember the folding paged chinese answer script which was made like a brochure.

i remember the killer MATHS paper after which i came out sobbing because I could not complete the paper!

i remember i saw someone cheat during the english exam, and i felt very indignant and angry that the invigilator did not catch the person cheating.

i remember feeling sad that higher chinese was 1 more weekend longer than the rest of the world and that i spent my weekend studying the shou ce for my higher chinese paper.
and of course, i remember the jubilation that i felt when it was all over!

i remember the remaining days spent playing games in class and milling away time til our results came back.

i remember playing back again paper armies and making tanks and machine gunners out of foolscap paper.

i remember then school ending and us all counting down to the release of exam results.

i remember the day of exam results release, when all of us reporting to school at 1130 and went to our respective classes.

i remember our teacher coming into class and making us sit in a circle on the floor around her.

i remember her calling us up name by name and giving her comments about whether we did well or didnt do as well.

i remember that she said i did better than she had expected me to.

i remember opening the envelope but not daring to look at the marks.

i remember looking at my subject grades and using my thumb to cover my aggregate score.
and i remember the emotion i felt when i finally mustered the courage to lift up my thumb to peek at the number below. a rush of relief, a rush of excitement, a rush of release, a light wobbly feeling that my entire primary school life had come to past and it was all over.

Well back in those days, there werent any graduation like nowadays and certainly no prom parties to attend unlike HSM3. we just got our results and that was it, the last time i saw all my friends. to be honest, i was still a very childish boy back then. give me a playstation plugged into a tv and i would be content. i didnt really make alot of strong friendshipes or deep relationships with anyone during my time, perhaps due to me changing classes between pri 5 and pri 6. but i certainly still see my primary school classmates around. unfortunately, alot of them because i never keep in contact with, i cannot recognize. just 2 years ago some girl in my JC came up to me and asked me if i remembered her and i was extremely embarassed to say that i totally did not have any recollection of her. unfortunately, i only remember some people who for some reason or another impacted my life or spend enough time with me to engrave into my memory for years to come.

So dont be so surprised when, 5 years down the road, when u look back at pri sch like me, u find u forget alot of ur graduating classmates names. perhaps the avenue of technology would assist you all in keeping in close contact with each other and continuing to keep in touch with one another as you each go your separate ways. but i must warn you, the only way to upkeep relationships is time. and time needs to come from both parties. so you may have your besties now and your little cliques and clacks, but do not be too disappointed or too shocked when comes the day, because each and everyone of you go your separate ways, your gang falls apart and people, either you or them, become more attached to your secondary school friends then your primary school friends in cases of having to make a choice, leave either party emotionally injured.

that being said, if you value your relationship, maintain it by having regular meetings with each other! meet up often, keep in touch via msn, blogs or even through emails and take an interest in each others lives and keep both parties updated. yet, the inevitable will happen, some friends will come and go, some peers will fall away to be peers of others. it is but part and parcel of life which exists with you even until you grow up, have kids and grow old. which is perhaps why church friends are one of the most ideal lifetime friends you'll ever make. by coming to church each sunday or saturday for YPM as a group of friends, you will definitely see each other at least once a week and this opens up the oppurtunity to nurture your relationship with each other. which is all the more incentive to continually encourage one another to attend church faithfully and come to church each week. many of your parents and your family friends from church are a testament to this and i'm sure all of you know how it feels not to see another of your p6 classmate for even 2 weeks. you find that he or she's been away for so long and he or she has been through so much that you don't know where to begin talking to him from again.

So continue to come to church and continue to ensure that one another attend church, call each other when you dont see each other around, perhaps that person is terribly ill at home and needs your prayers? perhaps he or she may be facing a personal crisis and your simple act of a phone call out of concern will be like a light to their darkness. but also bear in mind that you come to church not only for your friends, but for God. to save the catching up for the fellowship at macdonalds after service, and to spend wisely the time in the church catching up with the most important person up above.

And hopefully, and most definitely one of us teachers' wishes, this graduating class of p6 from CM will grow up together in unity. coming back to church each week and becoming lifetime supports for each other, fostering a healthy relationship with one another and our Father above. and may each and everyone of you grow up to be God-fearing men and women who edify each other and encourage one another in spirit and in truth.

Love,
Lowell

PS sorry ty my english very bad. haha.

♥ 8:28 PM

♥ 9:32 PM

By now, all of you should have received your PSLE results, less Janice who is overseas. Many many mixed emotions, some happy, some sad, some excited, and also not forgetting those who are disappointed. These are just normal, and is repeated every year. However, lets not forget to thank God that all of us at least passed the PSLE.

The Bible itself spoke very clearly about those who do not give God the praise He deserved. In 2 Kings 20, King Hezekiah of Judah was down with a deadly sickness which God was not willing to heal at first, but after King Hezekiah prayed to God and pleaded, God allowed him another 15 years to live. The king of Babylon heard about the miraculous healing and sent envoys to asked about how God had healed King Hezekiah, but instead of giving due praise and thanks to God, King Hezekiah became proud. The punishment for King Hezekiah was this; that all the riches which belongs to King Hezekiah will be taken away from him.

Therefore from this story, we can know that it is very important to give God the praise and glory due to Him. However, some of you might question and ask God, 'Why did I get so low marks?'. 'Why does God allow for me to score lousier than my friends who usually score worse than me?'. Also, some of you might feel that you have not met the expectations of your teachers, parents, friends, and worse of all, that you have failed yourself-that your results did not reflect your intellect. Do you still thank God in such a situation?

Well, the answer is 'Yes'. You must still thank God. Even King David, when he was still being chased down by his enemies in the dessert, still gave thanks for God. Thank God NOT because you scored better than the 1289570323 kids who did not passed their PSLE, but praise Him because He had, and will continue to see you through. Now, i want all of us to think of our PSLE result slip in this way.

Imagine your PSLE results as a 'Destination' for your train ticket. Some MRT tickets will allow you to go as far as Tampines, some to Hougang, some to Pasir Ris, and the list goes on. Not everyone belongs to the same place because simply, everyone lives at a different place on this island. In the same way, God does not give us all the same good PSLE results because He has a special 'Destination' which He had planned for every single one of us. The only thing we can do and should do is to ask God to reveal His purposes as to why it has to be that destination, and obey Him fully. This is so that we may be able to fully enjoy the plans that He had planned for us.

Now, the burning question might be; 'What is this destination?', or when translated to p6 language, would sound something like, 'Which school should I go?'. Well, the only way to find out is to take time and ask God to guide you to choose the correct school. Maybe in your own quiet time, take 5 mins to 10 mins to ask God, and than hear for His reply. You might not hear Him the first time, but don't give up. Great will be your reward.

In ending, I want to address those of you who feels that you have disappointed people, including yourself. Do not let this thought stay in your mind any longer! If you have not studied as hard as you should, it is time to learn from this and work harder next time. Move on and learn from your mistakes. If these thought continue to linger, say out 'In Jesus Name, I Bind all these thoughts of Condemnation. Devil, get away now because Jesus is with me, and I am Loved by Him.' Do not let the evil one have a foothold in your life. If Jesus does not condemn you, who are you to condemn yourself?

We teachers are very proud that all of you were able to discipline and focus on your studies. No matter your results, you have not disappoint us. Yes, when you feel happy, we rejoice with you. When you feel sad, we feel sad with you. However, do know that none of you have disappointed us, and we just want to say that, no matter your results, we still love all of you.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Love,

Caleb

♥ 12:21 AM

Guest Writer

Primary School Leaving Examinations. Never been through a major exam before this. Everyone says to study hard. Get into the school you want. It's important, sure.

So now the PSLE results are out. Some are happy, others sad. Some are just okay. Things will change from this point. You'll go on to teenage life. Go through the very present temptations of this age. You'll face temptations to join your friends who smoke, to play truant, to cheat during examinations. Even worse, pre-marital sex and other such issues. Most probably, you've already met some of these temptations.

If you haven't already started, you'll probably start to have crushes, like people, have eye candies around. Then you'll be met with the issue of whether or not to express your feelings for that person. And where to go, who to turn to? Your parents? (You must be going "yerrr right".)
Frankly, I'd never have considered that at your age. Your friends? Sure, but would they give you good, mature advice?

So much ahead. All I can say is this. Only God can help you through all the issues you are about to face or are facing. As the Psalmist has written in the 27th Psalm "Do not hide your face from me, do not turn away your servant in anger, for you have been me helper, O God my saviour, do not reject me or forsake me. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me". (Even your dad and mom who love you so much cannot be as trusted as our God).

You've heard it a thousand times before. Most of you, as I did, grew up in church. But I need to remind you that God is the only constant person you will ever have in your life. Your parents, your friends, your best friend even, your boyfriend or girlfriend in future, your teachers, your Sunday School teachers. These people you might trust. But only God will prove to be faithful and constant and loving every single time, at every single turn.

3 basic important habits.

1. Don't give up going to church. All through my life, God has used my close Christian friends to ground me to Him. A large part of who I am, I owe it to their presence as God's instruments in my life. If you give up on church, for whatever reason, be it busyness, boredom, broken relationships, you will effectively be giving up meeting with many people inside. "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching"-Hebrew 10:25

2. Do not compromise your quiet time with God. Right now it may be just 1 minute of reading the bible and 1 minute of prayer. That's excellent! Over the years, it is my prayer that you build it up into more time with God. Walk with God and some day, mark my words, if you're really serious with God and in seeking Him, you'll find that you can feel God's presence so strongly just behind a shut door in your room during quiet time. So strongly that you need to kneel down and worship His presence the way you do at a childrens' camp.

Do not let the devil fake you into believing that you are strong enough to stop or neglect your QT. You need to build yourselves up in this area.

3. Honour your father and mother. These are God-given authorities in your life. It is hard. I should know. I went through my share of issues with them. " They don't see eye to eye on many things, do they? They don't understand us young people at all. They don't give us enough freedom even when we're fully capable of taking care of ourselves." That's how you feel right? But God says that "you will live long and it may go well with you" in Deuteronomy chapter 5. And that is simply it. Oh and one more thing. The best way to get your parents to trust you is to earn their trust by obeying and honouring and being respectful to them.



I barely managed to skim the surface on a couple of issues I brought up. Temptations in their various forms, crushes... etc. Perhaps some other time if permitted. But my main point right now is this. Just one thing to remember if you forget everything else:

"...for you have been me helper, O God my saviour, do not reject me or forsake me. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me"Psalm 27:9

God will NEVER abandon you!

♥ 9:45 PM

yeah,made another blogskin(:
sorry that the previous one was so ugly.
so is this better?

♥ 11:36 PM

As we go on,

We remember,

All the times we,

spend together.... (Hopefully)



Thinking back when I just graduated from my primary school, Marist Stella High School(Primary)<-- [yes, its a primary school, they just like to make it sound 'high', maybe cos it rings better in the ear], I realised that at the age of 20, I had mostly forgotten what I had done in that blissful homework-less holiday. I only vaguely remember the joy of seeing my younger brother bitterly doing his p4 end of year homework, and me laughing at him. Ha, i hope Aaron reads this. lol.



Somehow also in my memory(which had been revived by reading some of your blogs), I was brought back to the times of closeness with my primary school good friends and bestie. Together, we would do the same things boy's these days will do; play soccer, BBQ, chalet, computer games... All these i had long forgotten till now when I see you all p6 go through the same thing.



Indeed, these friendships have been blessed by God, and through them we will learn many important things in life, most obviously being to learn to communicate and trust people who had been a total stranger at the beginning of the school year. After 8 years of leaving the school, I already rarely communicate with many of these classmates. Occasionally, I would bump into some of them while going about my life in this sunny island country, have a little chat, before we once again part ways. Superficial as these friendships may sound, but one has to agree that the seeds of relationships forged early in the childhood can really take root deeply in life, bringing back the nonstalgia... Similiarly, the way we grow up in our spiritual life is also quite the same.

Like some of you, i've spend many a good time of my holidays in church/christian-related camps, and my spiritual growth till now(though still got a long way to go before perfection) is not only a result of the constant sharpening of the iron against iron with the brothers and sisters in Christ around me, but also due to the positive influence and encouragements of the friends around me. Therefore, while you are still young, choose your friends well, to encourage and keep each other in the body of Christ. Pray, that God will continue to place god-fearing people in your lives, so that you may grow up enjoying the goodness and refuge of God and of being in the body of Christ.

Proverbs 22:6
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

- Caleb

♥ 5:04 PM

Matthew 19:30
But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

♥ 5:11 PM