Band Journey (Part 2)
With every new batch comes new challenges. It is like starting all over again,learning and understanding the needs of the students. It has always been a norm to have SAS and SPS boys in the band.Somehow,the "dislike" the boys in these 2 schools had for each other is also part of the tradition. And one of the challenge is to try and neutralise this dislike.

This feeling was quite evident from 2004-2005 but being matured JC students, it did not escalate into a fight,although i still remembered there was one night,ard 9pm(i cannot remember why i'm in Potong Pasir at that time,though sajc was in Malan Rd,neither can i recall why i'm still in school at this ungodly hour!),i received a call from my JCians asking me to stop a fight between a SAS and SAJC boy. My God! I was like, i would most probably be tau pok by them cos both had fiery temper n when pple get into fights, they are not really the most rational pple on earth.

So i ran all the way to SAS and by the time i got there,thank god,things were rather under control.This is one of the excitement u get being a band teacher :P

Of cos,not forgetting the time when we had NO tuba players at all and we had to perform for the ASEAN Games Closing Ceremony. u can imagine how angry Pringles was. In the end,we had to borrow tuba players from SAS to tide us thru this crisis. This is one learning point tho.

And there was this cleaning up session,painting the walls and writing the motto on the walls.The christmas decoration,the snowflaky snowman on windows. The birthday celebrations as well.

Then there was SYF again. The practices at the central plaza in the evening to get Merry Widow right. The goosebumps. The standing ovation on Presentation Night.The beautiful photo given to teachers during band dinner, a photo taken before the 2 batches(2004-2005 and 2005-2005) leave SAS for Presentation Night,taken at SAS basketball court :) 2004 batch is the batch that started the band blog to strengthen the ties of the band family :)

we had a all guys team for 2005 leadership. the batch was very vocal n independent.They loved to play a lot.I always remember them requesting for bonding sessions and got turned down by the main tic then :P n i have a really whiny Percussion Section SL but everything he does it is for the good of his Section :) i remembered spending lots of time after school with them,on non-official band prac days cos within them,the sense of "band family" was strongly felt. their seniors had passed down the "family" concept well to them and they had took it up. We had potluck sessions at eugene's house and peace's house as well.It was really nice n fun!I missed those sessions :)

Of cos there was also an incident when our annual band concert fell on elections day.dun know y so "lucky" lah but the P then wanted us to change the date. So the band had a dialogue session with P just outside the General Office. P was upset by the level of immaturity n in the end we had to change the concert date. The leaders n the band were upset by this final decision but we had to abide by it,tho actually i dun really understand y we had to change it :P that's y i think sometimes when the main tic talk to me,he felt like vomitting blood :P

The band trip to Brisbane was fun and i swear,my band made me take the damn scary Scooby-Doo ride.it was so spooky and the roller coaster was indoors. It moved backwards!omg!and when it moved down the rail,the surrounding was pitch dark,u cannot even see your fingers in front of u and the BEST part was coaster would come to sudden stop at sharp bends!i SWEAR i lost 5yrs of my life span then and then there is this camera to take photo of ur terrified faces.All of us bought a photo(i was "forced" to buy for all) and it was framed in a keychain. I still have that keychain in my drawer :) so news of my "fright" spread and then suddenly everyone come asking to take the ride with them.But of cos, i did not :P

This was actually a combined band trip for all of pringles' school.So we had combined performances.It was really a fun trip. I shared a room with my girls and every night,i cooked supper for them,made them eat fruits and my boys played a prank on the ex-president who went with us. It was sooooo Funny!!!!

one of the funniest incident i remembered was the night when pringles invited all the teachers to dinner at ralph hulgren's house. I did not go cos i volunteered to stay n look after the students. the truth is i dun really like this type of socialising. so the main tic went. that's y we went crazy.reagan,eugene,junjie came to my room with one of the male teachers who went with us.we played heart attack in my room. the rules then was lights out is at 10pm.so we played and forgot the time.then suddenly,there was a knock on our door and OMG!the main tic was back with curry chicken made by pringles. knowing that they would be in trouble cos we broke 2 rules: we played beyond 10pm and we played card games, the boys went to hide in my bedroom. and the male teacher n i hid the cards behind our back. so the main tic came in and annouced there was curry chicken. the mouths of the greedy boys in my bedroom,upon hearing the words "curry chicken",started to water and they secretly told me they wanted to eat. So in a relaxed manner, i told the main tic that i had something to show him. I opened the bedroom door and we all burst out laughing cos he actually did not know there are pple hiding in my room(actually it is quite easy for him to know cos we forgot to hide the slippers at the main door)

After all the hiding,we realised that it was not even 10pm yet! But it was really hilarious and it is one of the memories that i would always cherish.we had lots of fun on this trip :) that's y i always love to bring my band on trips cos it is so fun to play with them and go crazy together,doing all the nonsensical stuff. Of cos,there are times when we need to be serious lah,which we did when the moment arise. Oh,i still remember the bazaar at Griffith University, the scenery by the river. it was sooo serene and calm :) How i wish i can go there again! A bit sad that i cannot bring my 2010 batch to HK this yr :( I'm sure it would be just as fun with all the shopping and disneyland stuff :)