APMOPS Round 2 Competition - The Leaving

DAY 4

During the morning, I wasn’t able to wake up that early(shouldn’t had stayed up so late), but at least I woke up. And soon… We are back!!!(to Malaysia!!!)

APMOPS Round 2 Competition - Day 3(The Prize-Giving)

DAY 3
This morning, I woke up, at about 5 again. So anyway, I did about the same thing I on the day before. Bath… Pack… Breakfast… You know what I mean, okay?

Anyway, after everything, we got to the exam room, which took a long time, so when we got there, I was like, finally!

There is 6 questions in the test, and I have 2 hours. But the questions are harder than concrete! But soon, my answers(are also)set in concrete.

After that, we were sent to a humongous auditorium,which is kinda bigger(by a little but)than my school’s auditorium, except that my school has and 2 floors.

At the auditorium, there was a talk on how the school runs, as in what students get to learn in the school. Apparently you get to learn math and science, entrepreneurship , cultural studies, art, language and also humanities(which is what you basically learn at all high schools).

After that, we get to watch a bit of BIG HERO 6. We watched until the part where Hiro(the main character[if you don’t know what I’m saying, go watch the movie yourself]) had finished making 6 recycling bins worth of magnetic micro-bots and Fred talking about how he can wear his underwear 4 times. Then suddenly, it’s the prize giving ceremony!!

Then later, we moved to another huger auditorium(okay so this is definitely bigger than my school’s auditorium). Then, we first got our platinum awards. Then, after a few million awards, the top 10 awards are given(I’m no. 8!).

During 8 pm, we finished our dinner and we started to have our um… rest.

(PS. This day is very short as seriously, there is very much to say here. There is only a 6 question test and a ceremony that lasted like 2 hours. And… Nothing else)

APMOPS Round 2 Competition - DAY 2 - Part 2(The Sight-Seeing)

After a few minutes, we arrived at the army museum of Singapore, wait, what?! Aren’t we supposed to go to the Science museum?!

Never mind, we still went inside the museum. We learned a lot of things in the museum. Apparently, times during the wars aren’t too nice. But some people also like being in the army as they get to have neat rooms. Also, all boys has to go to the army at 18, but the girls get to chose. Man! That kinda sucks. Also, we learn that all soldiers use snipers, not pistols or machine guns.

After that, we get to have some tea. Then, I asked the teacher why we’re not going to the Science Center. Apparently, we not going there. Too bad.

Well, we’re going to the FLAT WORLD AND MASHPUPS exhibition, thingy. It’s put for the international friendship day of 2017. It shows us about the things that Singapore went through to be uh… Singapore. Like, ya know, from 1965 Singapore to 22^nd century Singapore. And, it wasn’t easy. At the start( a little bit before 1960), it Singapore had a LOT of problems, like communists and war. Then finally, at 1965, when Singapore left Malaysia, Singapore is both literally and figuratively left by itself. So, all Singapore can do is to try is to ‘rebuild’ itself, well, by having it’s own hospital and school services. Annnd.. finally, Singapore become the Singapore as we now know. Then, we knew about some words of Singlish (Singapore + English), like ‘Saman’ (which is ‘summons’ in Malay) and ‘Nah’ (here you go in Malay).

Also, we learned that Singapore has 4 sources of water:

1. Rain water (Made by collecting rain water [well duh..])

2. Sea water (Made by filtering sea water [duh again])

3. Toilet water (Made by filtering drain/toilet water [Eww…])

4. Bought water (Bought from Johor [But it will stop during 2060])

Anyway, after that we also learn that another name for Singapore is ‘the red dot’, because if you look for Singapore on the world map, all you can find is a tiny reddish dot.

Later, we get to know what brand the country is famous for. Well, here’s some brands for you to know. USA is famous for Google, South Korea for SAMSUNG, Japan is Toyota, Germany has BMW, Denmark has LEGO (Hooray for Denmark [I like LEGOs]), Sweden has IKEA while Nestle is from Switzerland. Then, I found some ridiculous information, like Malaysia is famous for Petronas and China is ICBC, well duh, cause these brand can only be found in these countries!!

Anyway, they also have virtual reality glasses(that’s what they’re called, right? The humongous things you can put on your head?), the we put it on, and it actually works! You get to see things that each thing is supposed to let you see, and it even gives you sounds! Just that you can’t go around and you can’t exactly see your ermm… feet… or legs either. Which doesn’t really appease Xing Yi as it makes him feel like he is flying and he is actually afraid of heights (lol).

After some awesome virtual sight seeing, we left the exhibition and took a nice ride back to the hostel.

At the hostel, it’s still raining, not exactly, it’s actually drizzling, to be specific. As we are walking back to our block, we found a frog! It’s actually a very tiny black frog. It is like barely 1cm! (definitely took a nice little picture of it).

After that, I went back to my room and took some rest, which is what I exactly needed. Then, at 6.00pm, I went to the cafeteria to have my dinner.

During my dinner, there was a talk about our mathematics test during the next day. But it is given out by some boys.

After that, I went back to my room. Then, I decided to do a bit of revision on my math, which I find a bit hard to do so, as I already had finished reading the whole thing.

APMOPS Round 2 Competition - DAY 2 - Part 1(The Test)

DAY 2

During 5:20, I woke up. And I can’t really get back to sleep, but we had to be at the canteen at 6, so yah.

Anyway, Ang Xing Yi went bathing first, while I just slack around in the room, and do a little bit of revision.

Meanwhile, I went to the toilet… and took a dump. And the toilet’s bowl is a little rough. But luckily it went OK. After that I took my bath and went down to the canteen. I ate a peanut-butter-butter-sandwich, some milk and cereal. Oh, I also drank some chicken essence that I have.

After the breakfast, we went to the ‘exam hall’(which is actually a classroom),which is a lot further than I thought. Including the time they took to roll call, it’s definitely took more than 20 minutes.

On the way, we did our small revisions, we found a word, ‘corpulent’ which means fat, or fleshy. And so is Ming Wen, so we called him Mr. Corpulent.

At the exam hall, we took our GAT (General Ability Test), which is all those puzzles where they had taken a part of a picture and you have to guess the part that had been taken. There’s 48 questions, yet you only get 20 minutes. Holy moly cow and broccoli that means you only have 25 seconds for each question!

Guess what, I didn’t get to answer all the questions. I wasn’t able to answer the last question. So all I did was I threw in a 5 (It doesn't work like A B C D, it works like 1 2 3 4 5).

After the test, we had the English test. It’s very much like the tests we have in our schools, where they give you a paragraph then they ask you some questions about the paragraph. But other than that there’s also questions where you need to find words from the story which match the meanings.

After that, there’s also an English writing test. I wrote a story about me helping my friend to find his dog.

At about 12, we went to the canteen to eat lunch. We get to chose to eat either Muslim food or nasi lemak (fried rice). I decided to eat Muslim food, as the fried rice is spicy, and another fact about me, I seriously cannot take spicy food, I just cannot take it.

After the lunch, we went back to the hostel. The teacher told us to be down at about 1 to go to the Science Center of Singapore. In the meantime, we changed our clothes.

When we went down for the trip, it started raining heavily, okay, let me rephrase that, it’s raining cats and dogs, no, it’s raining tigers and wolfs. Anyway, we had to gather at the auditorium. After some grouping, we went to our buses.

APMOPS Round 2 Competition - DAY 1(The Arrival)

Before everything I have to say here, I have to say that I am very thankful for I have gotten number 8^th in the APMOPS Round 2.

DAY 1

Okay, I’ll start with the trip to Singapore. I had to leave the school early as I have to catch the flight, as you know hard they are to know to catch nowadays. (See what I did there?) Anyway, that’s what all the participants did. Except for Ang Xing Yi. (God knows why)

I left the school, ate some McDs and changed. Finally, I left for the airport and soon arrived. Soon, all the participants are too. Since I have the most experience and I’m really excited I rushed to the gates. So did everyone else. Except for Miss Kuah,our teacher, whom told us to stop. We (obviously) did not listen. Don’t judge us, we are just kids, okay?

On the way to the gate, we raced against each other. Xing Yi went on to the travelator while while I didn’t. Guess what - I reached the end before he did. He sure is one slowpoke.

After a few races, we reached the customs. Well, let’s just say Xing Yi and Yi Rong’s ‘scissors had met their end. Know what, they’re just  confiscated. Soon, we arrived at the gate and soon boarded our plane.

On the plane, I told Matthew Poh and Ming Wen how a plane works. It’s about the wings and the air pressure and - never mind. We arrived at Singapore in 1 hour.

At Changi Airport, my dad was there to pick us up. We called 2 taxis and we went to Hwa Chong Institute. On the way, we had riddles, like this one:

Question: In the middle of a plain, a man was found dead. An unopened bag was beside him. There were no signs of murder/weapon/toxin, yet he knew he was going to die.  How did he die?

Answer: The man is a parachuter, the bag is the parachute which he failed to open in time.

After a nice ride, we arrived at the institute. We had to climb stairs, but we soon got to the hostel.

Pretty soon, we got our key cards and our rooms. I had to share a room with Xing Yi.

Well, I’d say the hostel is really good. You get your own bed, air conditioner, there’s wifi and even a small kitchen for everyone to use. The only thing is the bathroom is a public one. Just so you know, I’m a huge fan of privacy.

After a quick unpacking, I went on to the bed and played some games.

6’o clock! I go down to the canteen to eat dinner. It’s not too bad.

After I’ve finished my dinner, I went around the institute and took pictures of the place. And boy is there a lot of things is take pictures of! There’s the gym park, the buildings, the trees etc.

After a nice ‘trip’ around the institute, I went back to the room. Apparently Xing Yi was there first. During about 8 o’ clock, it’s about time to take a bath. I let Xing Yi go first, and he is seriously slow, like, slower than slow. Good thing is, he came out, eventually. Then it’s my turn. When I got back, apparently Xing Yi went to meet him mom.

Soon, he’s back. Then, I decided that I should revise some of my notes.

During 10.20, Me and Xing Yi went to sleep. We told each other weird dreams we had. Wanna know mine? I had one where there is a whole airport in a apartment which only has one floor. Then I had another one where there was an alternate universe where everything is 1960 and yellowish, and I have like 20 siblings.