So THIS post is meant to produce some sort of pithy soundbite for a potential poster that may be stuck on one of the pillars outside the front office (an area which, apparently has no name, which is quite sad; I thought "concourse" for MGS' front entrance was pretty epic). If I get this right and if they consider me pretty enough [PFFT] I really might end up being an ACS (Independent) poster girl.

(Why me, I wonder. I guess it's because I'm an MOE humanities scholar and I came in through JAE so it won't be like they're boasting about stealing people from the IP schools or whatever. And possibly because I got straight As for Os but honestly who cares about Os now I never thought I'd say that but it's true. AND BECAUSE I'M A GIRL.)

And do I mind? I honestly don't know. Mostly I'm vain and keep thinking of all the unsavoury things that are bound to show up on like 30000x10000 pixels (I don't know how big the thing is gonna be okay D:); I've never considered myself to be particularly photogenic. But if I step away from all the omg-I'm-on-a-poster-I'm-awesome thoughts and the possible self-affirmation that might come from it if the shoot doesn't screw up majorly like I think it might, I find myself left with one more question. After more than a year here, after a year of meeting people and taking classes and making and taking and breaking, am I willing to let Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) use my face?

Surprisingly, yes.

I'd understand if you weren't expecting it. I know I've done my fair share of complaining about and railing on the school. I've talked about IB and how hard it is. I've talked about how IB's done at this school and sometimes how it's not done. I've talked about rules and teachers and lessons and the timetable. I've talked about CCAs and budgets and communication breakdowns and how things Just Aren't Fair. How things Just Aren't Right. How things Could Be Better. I mean, whatever, right? Every place has its problems, this no exception.

But I still don't hate ACS (Independent). Not in the slightest. And that has to mean something.

I'm happy here, for some reason. I put on my uniform in the morning and climb up the dizzying flights of stairs and I breathe in the 6:30AM air (if my nose isn't running like a tap) and for some reason something is so beautiful about everything (the campus, that's what. The campus is SO FRICKING PRETTY but whatever, I'm getting all sappy and overdramatic right now I might as well not ruin it). I enter the classroom and it's always too hot so I push the windows open and fall asleep on my ACSIS hoodie which is the most comfortable thing in the world, I swear. I walk down the hallways and I feel like I'm actually walking with some sort of special composure even though I'm just walking to class or CCA (or maybe that is the reason?). I actually talk to people, and trust me, for someone like me, that's a bona fide miracle.

I feel like I've found myself in this school. Actually that's the one sentence I wrote this whole post for. I just wanted to write that sentence because for some reason, no matter how inaccurate it is, it's kinda true. Even though at the same time I'm more uncertain about my future and my goals and in some ways my personality than before. I feel like I've been shaken loose like a pebble lodged in a sand cliff, yet with an assurance that everything is going to eventually settle back into place and it's going to be clear and beautiful.

More than anything, being in ACS (Independent) has taught me to believe, and taught me to have passion. It has taught me to be someone other than myself, and in that, become even more myself. Like how I've become an exco member in both my CCAs and hence I become part of a whole of that CCA, but at the same time that whole of a CCA becomes part of me. I guess I've started to find myself, becoming something in a whole load of different areas and seeing what sticks, building myself up like a jigsaw puzzle. And just starting that process makes me feel all the less temporary.

It's the friends I've made, I'm sure it is. I've made such wonderful friends here, friends of a genuineness and a sincerity that I would never, ever have imagined. Ever since my secondary school days I've refused to call anyone a best friend, citing fairness and all that, but I think it's actually because I was scared. That I'd think someone was a friend who didn't think the same way. But now I think I can - it's not that I've made better friends in ACS (Independent) or anything but I'm finally acknowledging my best friends as what they are, best friends. Obviously I've made some very, very good friends (verging on best? Let's see in a couple of years >D) here as well.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that here, I've managed to define myself as so much more than just a girl who happens to do well in exams and interviews. So much more than a drama girl. An emo. A loner. A crybaby (yes, even that). It isn't as much about the academics here. It's about the friends you make and the things you choose to do yourself. And eventually all that will tell you who you are.

Oh god what on EARTH did I just write.

Ah well.

At the end of the day, if I really do end up on one of them posters, I'll be able to say with absolute certainty that whatever they type there that they cite me for is the complete and utter truth.

Will probably be cross-posted on the official ACSIS blog, but ah well, might as well post this here in case it turns out too wordy and/or rambly and/or entirely inappropriate.

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My first reflection about the Year 5's first session was really, really terrible; I thought it was gonna be submitted officially to the senior admin or something and wrote the most stilted, hackneyed thing I've ever written in my life so yeah (I tried to STICK TO A WORD LIMIT and now that I read it it tells me nothing about what actually happened). I'm pretty glad that never made it on the blog. Hopefully this one, however long-winded and rambly, makes up for that.

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I scraped my knee last Wednesday while pretending to scrabble around on a patch of ice which was actually the floor of the dance studio. This marks the first time in 2012 that I've done this during a drama session, and continues a three-year-long (at least) streak of me doing this at least once every year. In 2010 I accomplished this by scraping my knee on the MGS auditorium carpet when I attempted a fake-death. In 2011, I repeated the feat by uh walking a dog and falling over. And this year I manage to do this on parquet. I'm amazing, I know.

It doesn't hurt anymore; it's just a scab on my knee now, but even when it did hurt on Wednesday it didn't really matter. For those of you who weren't there, the main warm-up task set to us was to walk on five different terrains: mud, ice, boulders, flood and tightrope. Then we would choose the one we liked best and perform it in front of everyone later. On the second task I slipped on the ice and scraped my knee due to the friction, but strangely enough by the time I was done I decided that it was pretty good. I think it's actually BECAUSE I scraped my knee. It's become a sort of rite of passage for me. Proof to myself that I'm actually taking this seriously.

And we are taking things seriously now; it's obvious to me that this session was the start of our preparation for the script that Mr Connor has chosen for our SYF piece: Rabbit by David Foxton. It was obvious as soon as I read it that it would be an intensely physical play, something unlike anything our club had done so far. So it wasn't a surprise to me that Mr Connor decided to focus entirely on movement today. I haven't been able to witness much physical theatre on the part of ACSIS members so it was a welcome change for me to be able to try it out and watch everyone do it too. I was really impressed with most everyone, actually, and it's certainly made me look forward to what SYF's going to be like this year (:

The main acting exercise involved no sound at all; we were required to depict a conflict and a resolution entirely through silent mime, in the groups that Mr Connor put us in for the upcoming Rabbit workshop performances.

Though Mr Connor emphasised that extensive rehearsal would be necessary, my group ended up spending all but 10-15 minutes talking about what we were supposed to do, and we didn't manage to finish rehearsing the entire thing before the performance started. Luckily the process was streamlined somewhat by the fact that we decided to stage one-on-one fights one by one, so the lack of rehearsal didn't hurt us as much as it could have. The flaws in our performance, though, were clearly due to the little practice time we had, as they mostly revolved around our lack of consistency.

I personally found the other group's performance quite wonderful. Barely ten minutes in the other group had started rehearsing in the other part of the room and from one glance I knew that it was going to be something incredible; it's amazing what impact one tableau or one movement can have on you when watching a production. What I thought the defining feature was for that group's performance was the simplicity and the cleanness of the idea, carried out with equal clarity and unity (not in the Aristotelian sense) of action. It almost surprised me that anyone could find anything to critique about that performance, but as everyone's points were elaborated upon, the things that could be improved became a lot more apparent to me.

I felt like we needed this session; it was immensely educational as all the others have been, but in addition, it was intensely relevant to our current situation. SYF is real, it's coming, and preparation has already started. I can feel the pressure already, but really, compared to certain other pressures we might be facing at this current moment in time, it's a welcome pressure for me. I'm really excited, actually, and I'm really looking forward to spending these next 3-4 months with you guys working towards something spectacular.