Wednesday, 11 April 2012

It's almost time

English presentation is tomorrow. I'm half freaking out inside, though my slides are done, I'm not sure whether I can elaborate on some of the points tomorrow. I'm probably going to end up talking some shit and end up confusing everyone. Get a grip,argh.

anyways, since I'm a freaking out a little I might want to share something with you guys/gals. So, I missed roll call for the third time last wednesday, and I am required to do up reflections. So here it is.


Reflections
Jordan Png
RA12-07

Hostel has by far been the highlight of my academic tenure here in NUS High. Living in close proximity with friends creates a vibrant atmosphere that one could not possibly experience at home. At night, everyone would come together to do work together, to chat, and to talk nonsense, the lively bantering, jokes and hearty laughter; one cannot possibly ask for more. But the pain of missing roll call mars the joy of these ‘gatherings’. Such a simple and easy thing to do, but woe and behold, such an easy thing to forget as well. It is such an easy thing such that it can easy slip one’s mind, not once, not twice, and probably not even thrice. That few seconds of walking to the biometric reader, pressing your finger to it, and hearing that ‘good-to-go’ sound that is accompanied by the all-too-familiar green light; these few seconds cannot possibly amount to a tragic loss of time. Yet the fact that it can so easily slip my mind is frankly baffling.

Sometimes, roll call would seem like something of low importance, and easily get displaced by something of seemingly far greater importance, such as schoolwork. I was so engrossed in doing up a mind map for chemistry that roll call totally slipped my mind, and as a result I missed roll call for the third time. The second time I missed roll call, you can say that it was simply all down to negligence. It was the night of the school concert, and I was one of the photographers on duty. A few other friends and I, thinking that since there was quite a lot of others who did not apply for late return, did not as well; reason being we would probably be let off the hook since a lot of people would miss roll call as well. These 2 roll calls were missed in the span of 2 days. So you can say that the 2nd time was quite a painful one. But missing the third one really left me with a sense of injustice.

Ever since I missed roll call for the first time, I set a ‘roll call’ alarm, determined not to miss roll call again; or face the inconvenience of having to do up a reflection and a poster, or possibly even worse, endure the agony of hourly report. It worked quite brilliantly, as sometimes roll call had yet again totally slipped my mind, but then the alarm was there to save me. But during the march holidays, since I was back at home, I disabled the alarm, and when I returned after the holidays, I forgot to activate the alarm. But up until the third time I missed roll call (which was last Wednesday), I had not forgotten to do roll call. After missing roll call for the third time, it served as a wakeup call, and I returned to using the alarm, to serve as a memory aide. Hostel grants us the privilege of freedom, more freedom than we’re probably used to at home. But with freedom, comes responsibility, these two are like a ‘package’. Neglect that responsibility, and pay the costly consequences that is the loss of your freedom. The responsibility that is to account for ourselves when called upon to. That is what roll call does. The hostel has to account for our safety which includes our whereabouts, thus it is imperative that we do roll call. It is our responsibility. Neglect that responsibility, and poof goes our freedom.

For my poster, I have decided to use Nike® ’s slogan, “Just do it.”. Roll call isn’t that difficult to do, and what’s more, we’re NUS High students, part of the top 10% of students in Singapore. So doing roll call is certainly anything but an insoluble conundrum for us. So, just do it. That is all I have to say.    

The end.

There. Off I go now. Need to stock up on hard,solid facts for my presentation tomorrow.

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