CHORE CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Today I am going to write about CCAs. When I was in school, it was still called ECA or Extra Curricular Activities. “Extra” because they weren’t compulsory. But when the name was changed to Co-Curricular Activities, I believe it is suppose to be participated in line with academic studies with equal importance weightage. But I am not sure why it doesn’t seem to be the case.

And also, I am very puzzled about parents who seem to have an issue with their children participating in CCA activities. I mean, these parents are mostly around my age now who understand how CCA works or have been in schools with CCA. Even the system didn’t change much. I have Boomer parents and they understand how CCA works, but these Gen X and Y parents? I don’t know. To each its own. To me, if your child is already clever, a CCA won’t make him/her stupid. If they’re not in the first place, a CCA will definitely make them better.

Anyway, everyone has a degree nowadays right? 

So even if your child graduates with a perfect GPA score, there will be other students who will have the same score. So what makes your child different? To me, it is always the CCA.

And to add, I also have no idea why students nowadays struggle to balance academic and CCA. Technology is more advanced now but yet people struggle. I mean I know why but, no one will believe if I say it. You know how phones are smartphones now, thus many will use the phone to think rather than their own brain.

Anyway, here I would like to pen down my CCA activities before my memory fails.

PRIMARY SCHOOL
In primary school, we were only allowed to sign up in ECAs in primary 3.

BADMINTON
I took up badminton first. I quit after a month or so because the coach who was also a teacher would only speak Mandarin to everyone. I didn’t understand what he was saying, he didn’t bother to speak English or translate to me.

MALAY DANCE
My teacher then told me to join Malay Dance. I didn’t like it but at least I understood what the teachers say. Back then there were no ECA instructors. The teachers were the instructors. My first dance was “Kenek-Kenek la Udang”. The girl who partnered me was a primary 5 kakak. She was so much taller than me. Well I didn’t like it. I quit after a while. 

SOCCER
Of course, the number one sport in Singapore then. And yes I call it Soccer because a name is a name. And contrary to many beliefs, soccer is not an American word. It is British. Brought to America by them. 

Same thing, the coach was the teacher. I have bad memories with soccer both in primary and secondary school. It is always the Mats who talk loud and just keep running with the ball who will get selected for the school team. No tactics, no passes. Just dribbling and lose the ball and dribble again and lose again and then curse and rant and swear. But it is ok. They get trashed in every inter-school games because of exactly that. I just come to CCA and play with my geek friends. During inter-class tournaments, the geeks will always win anyway.  Because? Brain.

OTHER ACTIVITIES
I also took part in other activities that I cannot remember exactly now. There were some poetry and oratorical events. I do remember taking part in Syair recital competitions. I think it was from primary 3 onwards and I will always get 1st or 2nd placing.

SECONDARY SCHOOL

NPCC
Ok the uniform looked cool and the prospects were interesting. I thought I would learn police work but it ended to be marching and marching and punishments. Where is the gun? Nope nothing. Just a bunch of macam faham seniors having a knack of abusing power. So nope. Quit in sec 2.

SOCCER
Same thing as in primary school. Lousy players who only talk big and dribble blindly. School team got trashed double digits in every game. We always say, “you all play soccer or badminton sia?” So I just come and play with my geek friends, mostly express stream students. Same thing, in inter-class games, the geeks always win.

​I remember there was this “scout”. I still doubt his credibility. He came to me during an inter-class game and said he wanted me to play in the National Under 14 team. Training will be in the afternoons of certain days. I told my father about it and he disallowed. A friend of mine did go. Apparently it was only the 2 of us who were called up. After that there were photos of him everywhere in school playing for the National team. Somehow I didn’t feel disappointed because I had a feeling that there would be more macam faham people there. So it’s ok. I just want to enjoy my games.

SEPAK TAKRAW
This one also was a boring sport and CCA. But I just played whenever I feel like it. Didn’t want to play for school either. I just want to play with my geek friends.

MALAY LDDS
This one was ok. We just did debate and pantun and sing songs during school events. Especially Hari Raya concerts.

This is me in the CCA rooms office. See if you can see the date on the board.

POLYTECHNIC

So enough of macam faham people, I chose to go to a polytechnic far far away. I told my parents I want to take part in many CCAs and enjoy my tertiary life. Provided I do not fail any of my academic modules. Yes, I had 9 CCAs. As much as I could and I never failed any modules or subjects. Never repeat any paper. Never got an A in any subject but it didn’t matter because there was no such thing as GPA then. A pass is a pass. No smartphones, no internet at home. Just good old time management and good fun.

VOCAL CLUB
This was my first CCA there. Academic year started in July 1997. I was already in school, practicing with my bandmates in May 1997. The club is basically a music band club. You either form your own band, our you be a vocalist. With every performance, a vocalist will be attached to the bands. So a band will have a chance to have different vocalist all the time and vice-versa. I was the vocalist in my own band so sometimes we would have female singers to sing with our band whenever we play female songs. I was also the band leader, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist. We played in at least 4 concerts a year. 

TP PACE-SETTER
This one is actually a student ambassadors club. We had to attend grooming, table etiquette, public speaking and conversation courses. We also had our own tailor-made blazer, shirt, pants, belt, tie and name tag. Once we completed all these, we will be tasked to do ambassadorial duties for the school. 

Funny memory about this CCA was, my lecturer sent my name for selection. She said because I was very outgoing and popular in school. Thanks to the many many other CCAs I joined, I made quite a network. But I was a bandboy. So I had long hair. She said, just go and see how it goes. 

On the day I registered, the staff in charge said I have to cut my hair after I am done with all the courses or I cannot be a part of the club. I said, I won’t and I don’t mind not being in it. 

So I went through the course and got my uniform. On my first duty, I tied my hair back with sleek gel finish. The staff in charge panicked. She said, if the registrar sees me, I would be kicked out of the club. Again I said, I don’t mind because I didn’t want to be here in the 1st place. 

So the registrar saw me while I was doing my duty. One of the duties of the registrar is to ensure discipline in the school. Like a discipline master. He saw me and walked towards me. I saw the staff in charge face turned pale. Registrar came to me and said, “first day on duty?” I said yes. “Your name tag is slanted.” He then straightened my name tag on my left chest. And then he walked away. That was all. I think I was the only PACE-SETTER who had long hair throughout my 3 years there and maybe the only one in the history and span of the club.

My best memory was when I was the flag bearer for my school, School of IT and Applied Science during a National Day Celebration.

MALAY DRAMA 
Also joined in my first year. But they only do Purbawara plays which I don’t really like. But I enjoy acting, so just do it. We performed 2 major plays a year and short skits every now and then. When I was in year 3, I got to write and direct a play and I didn’t do a Purbawara play because I am a rebel like that. After that, they didn’t do Purbawara plays anymore.

MALAY CULTURAL SOCIETY
I was the head of publicity in year 3. Yeah doing publicity work in MCS events. Which also included the Malay drama plays. An interesting memory was when the students were rallying for a female dikir barat group which didn’t exist then. The Excos didn’t agree on it. I was the only member who was for it. Somehow managed to debate my way alone against 7 plus plus other members on the board. Yup I won. Alone. Thus the female Dikir Barat group was established. That batch of excos didn’t like it and never talked about it. The group just went on year after year and of course now no one knows that I made that group exist.

INFORMATION STUDIES CLUB
This one easy job. My course was called Diploma in Information Studies. It was a pretty small cohort. Only 80 students per year. So ya, just organise activities for the course. 

ITAS STUDIES CLUB
This one is the same as the above but this one is for the whole school of IT and Applied Science which had 4 courses. ie. Diploma in Information Technology, Information Studies, Applied Food Science and Biotechnology. So same, just do activities for the school, especially during CCA fair and open houses.

INFORMATION GUIDES
This one quite fun to me. We would man information booths, or be information guides or conduct tours around the campus during CCA fairs, school events and open houses.

STUDENT UNION
For this one, I wasn’t involved much because my hands were already full with other CCAs. So most of the time I would just be guides during open houses and CCA fairs which you would notice, actually overlaps with the other CCAs during the events. So I would pretty much do the same job with different hats on the same day. Most fun for me was being the facilitators for freshman orientation camps.

SOCCER
Enough of the macam faham mats in primary and secondary. I just want to play for fun. So in poly, I didn’t join the polytechnic team. I joined my school team which is the School of IT and Applied Science. So basically I wasn’t involved in inter-varsity games. I played in inter-school games, playing against other schools in the polytechnic. There were 3 other schools. School of Design, Engineering and Business. I also played in the inter-diploma games and played under Diploma of IT as my course didn’t have many students. 

So that’s it for schools. Is that all? I guess that would be all the CCAs in schools. I didn’t go to university so that was my last academic lap. 

Eh wait, there’s more CCAs? Yes. I worked for the National Reference Library (or what was then changed to the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library) when I worked for NLB a few years after NS. Even then, I joined several “CCA”s. I was in the Staff Welfare team, pretty much doing activities for the staff just like in school. And then I joined the photography team, walking around Singapore taking photos for the library’s photo collection. And of course, soccer too where I played for the NLB team under Ministry of the Communications and the Arts (MICA) during inter-ministries tournaments. I also did a lot of writing activities for the library like writing articles for newsletters and book reviews. 

So yes. Did I die?