Humanities Scholarship Programme Tea Session today.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but after the HSP session, HCI may have just wormed its way into my top choices.

And maybe even RI as well.

I mean, seriously!

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Anyway, here's what happened. I really need to get back into blogging again.

After school I went with my mother to Swensens'. I had the breaded chicken meuniere, she had a cheese steak sandwich and a mochaccino and we also ordered this super fudge malt. The super fudge malt was by far the best. The chicken was pretty bad. It was okay when I first started eating it but it's so... oily D: I don't know how my brother stands it. After wandering around Plaza Singapura for a while, she dropped me off at MOE about half an hour before reporting time.

Stood around the drop-off-point for about five minutes before being called ("HELLO MGS GIRL") by these teachers at a registration table for some Chinese assessment thing. Apparently they were from MGS too so it was explainable. At least they told me where to go.

Then Jean showed up and we followed their directions to the office block, where this lady who reminds me somewhat of Ms June Tan brought us outside the block to register, then back inside the block and to these gorgeous lifts.

They have these keypads where you punch in the floor you want to go to, and then the display will point you to a lift which will come and take you right to that floor. No buttons in the lift either, but they have a display on the side of the door telling you which floors the lift is stopping at. Clever. So awesome. Jean said that she might even work there just for the lifts.

Waited for about half an hour more and then Carolyn and Minerva showed up, followed by Liz Chan, then Christie, then Felicia. Reading through the handouts waiting for the session to start. There was this stack of glossy prospectuses sitting there with a ribbon and paper ring around them. We didn't dare to touch them until the majority reached the point of ultimate boredom and started pulling them out. Two minutes later someone came over and told us to put them back because they were "bundled for a reason".

With a minor explosion of OCD, the stack was put back, tied, neatened and perfectly centralised.

Anyway. On with the talk. There were two presentations about the HSP and the application process, most of which could be found on the MOE website. Other than that the introduction of the first ever HSP prospectuses took place and we got to take the prospectuses all over again. This time officially.

The food was all right. The samosas were limp but tasted good, and there were also siew mai, sausage buns, blueberry muffins, brownies and punch. After that there was a sharing by a HCI HSP alumnus as well.

Still, the most important part for me was talking to all the tutors from the different HSP schools. They did it speed-dating style, where they allocated one tutor to each table for exactly twelve minutes (timed with a bell). Since the NJC tutors were... missing, the MGS table split up to join the other tables, being reshuffled through a few times until it ended up with Felicia and myself (and later Christie) at one table. How lonely.

Anyway, we talked to the TJC, VJC, RI, HCI, ACSI and ACJC tutors:

TJC: Literature; we dropped in on the TKGS girls first to learn about the Literature syllabus and all that. TJC has never been one of my choices, and although it still isn't, it's quite interesting anyway.

HCI: Literature; Mr Perry. HCI is, of course, the most established HSP centre out there. They've got their own facilities, even. So it was somewhat of a shock to find out that their average school day ends at 2:00PM, according to him, and students spend a lot of time on their CCA. The Chinese standard is still intact, obviously, and any lower than something like a B3 for HCL and I'll have to take extra lessons if I go. Gosh.

I don't know if it was because of the talk with Mr Perry, or the presentation before that, or both, but HCI is definitely on my radar now, especially if I somehow decide to go for HSP.

ACSI: Never actually found out the specialisation of this tutor, but still. So IB does have an HSP requirement: Three HL Group 3 subjects. Which means no Group 6 subject if you want to go for HSP. Even so, MOE says that if Group 6 is done, you try and... see how. Yeah. Anyway. Most of the session after that was Felicia asking questions about the IB syllabus and me trying to find loopholes in the requirements.

ACJC: Literature; quite a few DEP students do HSP, apparently. Also the HSP does a different Lit syllabus from the mainstream, their reason being that the whole point of HSP is to provide a different learning environment.

VJC: History; It's scary how similar some parts of the A Level syllabus are to the O Levels, only that it's so much more in depth. And also at this point the IP and non-IP schools are together in the same class. Interesting, no?

TJC: Same tutor as above, except this time Christie had joined the table. Even so, she didn't have any further questions. After a while of talking it got awkward and silent so the tutor started asking about our prelims.

Anyway, I can't remember if it was VJC or TJC, but they put the HSP students in with the mainstream group because it's very important to integrate the two. Contrast it with ACJC.

RI: Economics; Mr Reeves, who is pretty amazing. He was sitting there giving us this long anecdote (according to him) about Economics and what it was, and how Economics is more like a game than anything else. My post title is something he said. Also he was talking about his school and how somehow they seemed to always do well in A Levels... and also that if you really did badly in HSP... you could go study Law in America ;D

After the last bell rung, Mr Reeves let out a long breath, and said, "I'm exhausted. I've been repeating the same anecdotes for the last seven tables."

And yes, after the incredibly long tea session, the sunlight was blinding. And painful.

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Anyway, I'd seriously consider HSP. Well, I would. But my general knowledge and O-Level humanities right now suck really bad, so my chances are incredibly slim.

I might, however, go for the English Language Elective Scholarship, which the ACJC tutor said was more for, say, teaching English language and writing, like journalism. Both of which I am considering. (Yeah, teaching. Kind of a long shot, but recently...)

So either way, right now my choices would be ACSI, then ACJC/HCI/RI. Though as Mr Reeves said, the cutoff for RI is, no matter how he doesn't like it, impossibly high.

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Two more papers left. Chinese. Still... it's Chinese.

I mean, my family standard is just to pass Chinese. The fact that I'm doing Higher Chinese is a bloody miracle. Considering that my Chinese is probably the worst in my whole family. I mean, despite my brother never having passed (Primary) Chinese in his life, he's... still probably better.