Just Because Day/Banana Lover's Day
2003-08-27 @ 10:58 p.m.

Today was a very interesting day for the class of 4Q. Firstly, our mindmaps were due for checking today. Unfortunately, we're not as "on the ball" as 4M, so almost none of us have actually completed all our mindmaps, and as I'm sure you've heard, I got off scot-free with just one lousy mindmap. That's apparently something everyone was expecting, but they're all still harping on about it anyway, be it in school or on their blogs. Nobody would agree that getting called "pathetic" constituted a scolding. For Christ's sake, it's not like I was the only one, Shaun escaped her wrath too! Never mind, I'm not complaining, so there is something about yours truly that "like richest alchemy", diminishes the severity of my misdemeanours. I clearly rock! Secondly, there was the whole afternoon lesson fiasco. Since nobody has posted a detailed blow-by-blow account of it yet, I'll do it, and with the teachers' names too! It all started when Mr Lim pulled Xunqi aside to tell him to tell the class to stay back for 20 min during lunch, since Mr Johari was absent and we could go home after the 20 min. Then just after Mrs Smith's lesson, Mrs Lim came in and told us that we couldn't go home, and she wanted us to stay in class to do one of the practice papers. We protested, but she insisted it's a school rule that we can't go home even if there's no teacher taking the period. After she swept out of class, Mr Lim came in and here's where we committed a major faux pas. We asked him if we were allowed to go home, and when he said yes, we told him to go talk to Mrs Lim. Naturally, he did, and Mrs Lim came back in again to give us the evil eye. I don't think she handled the whole issue very well. As Chester said, one moment she said it was a school rule, the next she said it was a decision she made after consulting another unnamed teacher, who told her, "Make them stay back." Not to badmouth her, but it really reflects very badly on you when you don't stick to your words. Granted, we were wrong to go behind her back just to get our way, but her coming in and making a big fuss out of the whole thing wasn't very helpful either. Do you think there'll be staff room tension now? To address her point that we should have discussed things with her personally, instead of dragging in a third party, there was, in my opinion, hardly any room left for discussion! She basically told us, "No, you're staying for the afternoon lesson," then left, even though we did protest and try to explain ourselves. Seriously, I don't think the class was out of line, such that she had to put us back in our places! On a side note, I got 23/25 for a Social Studies assignment! I'm very happy, because usually my Social Studies is quite bad, I think I got lucky this time. By the way, have you seen Mars yet? I just did, and it's no big deal really. Just a red speck in the sky, but I suppose it's the novelty of seeing Mars so close, and knowing it's not going to happen for a very long time...