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Friday, June 27, 2008

9:21 PM | The Oversized Gift.

You've just entered secondary school, your mum decided to get you something special, to mark your milestone in life. They throw you a party! They got you a very popular club downtown, and booked it for the day. Drinks,music,LOADS of good time, the list goes on and on. You are being envied by all your friends. YOU are THE one. Not just SOMEONE, but THE ONE. Something like Matrix's Neo. Nearing the end of the party, your parents brought you outside and showed you a brand new BMW 7 series car! Carefully moderated and altered to achieve optimum results. NOW THATS LIKE WAYYY COOL. Totally AWESOME. WAIT! hang on. You're only 13?! BMW's are sporty and cool, hitting the roads at like 120Km/h, impressing people around you. But you need to be 18 before you can even TOUCH that pedal and groove off in that snazy car!

Leaders are gifted people! No qualms about that! They lean on their gifts to achieve success. Yet, it is during this process that the character inside them dont have a chance to develop. They shoot themselves in the foot by depending on this gift that can run out (I'll explain that in my next post) and not dedicating time to nuture character that can last much longer or rather FOREVER!

M.J Sounds familiar? No, it isnt Mary Jane Watson from Spiderman! Its Michael Jackson! People know him as the King of pop and rock and roll, well thats if you are old enough. However, people my age or younger will know him as the person who went for plastic surgery till his face, well, just look like anything else but a face. He dominated the world's music as young as 6 ( i think ) there was like a big party when people discovered his talent! He roamed around all the world to give performances,flim his music videos, interviews and did EVERYTHING---except nurturing his character. If you've kept with his postings, you would realise he was found out to be accused of child molestation. Why is this so? Well, thats cause he just simply has MATURED. He didnt get to go through proper life stages! He was either on stage singing away or grooving on the next music video! Emotionally, he was very fragile! This is an example of an oversized gift.

Let's focus the scope back onto ourselves,we all have different talents! Some does writing better, others are much more skilled as an orator. But the main purpose is that we COMPLIMENT one another's skill and talents to bloom together. Even if both of you may have the same talent, the one with a greater depth of knowledge need not be the person in the front! He may be the person leading from the back! Leaders need not lead from the front all the time. There are times where you have to step back and be the middle person inspiring them, other time you may be at the back encouraging them!

Unless you make the effort of uniting the people around you. Not just your superiors,but your equals, and those you feel that may be inferior. What is important is that you should extend that warm and genuine approach to your friends,and your juniors,and your seniors. We may not be very comfortable in the council doing the "goodie good stuffs" but, as I have written in my first post, we all must have the burdern of ownership that this council board is OURS TO MAKE, and OURS TO WRECK. You choose the route. Ownership is never a good feeling. You'll always have to make sacrifices for it. Thats why I call it a burdern. I wasnt as "good" as some of you are right now! It takes time to accept your status and change accordingly.

You ask " Wait, so how do I know what's my gift? How can I use it or hone it?"

Here's the answer. What do you do best? Why do you think you're in the council? What are the contributions you feel you can give to this council? If you dont have any contribution you can give to the council board, then I'm here to tell you that you can leave it. There's no point being a passenger. There's no point being a member when you can do nothing. Those who say that you're shy, step up and come out of your comfort zone to interact. No one is going to wait for you to take the first step. If its tough for you what makes you think that it isnt tough for others? But surely you'll make a difference if you overcome it. Reality IS harsh. Size up to it.

--Isaac Liu

Thursday, June 26, 2008

7:54 PM | Success which are seemingly achievable,but are just a dream.

We've just finished our recent camp this June holidays. I'm sure many of you have fun in it. Regardless of some of the flaws and drags we exprienced during it,I think everyone has their own favourite part of the camp and you definately enjoyed it.But the driving force behind the success of the camp,the enojoyment purely from the participation of the camp did not happen just overnight! It was throughly planned and tried many times by the S3's who were planning their first camp, complimented with the exprience of the teachers who took time off their hectic shedule to achieve this feat. It can therefore be said that no one could had done it alone without any form of help.

Leaders dont build character without crossing the bridge of discipline. Discipline, be it self-descipline or "others-enforced" disciplined is the crossing over / stepping stones to get you from a uncut diamond filled with dirt to a polished one being fitted onto a ring. From what you HOPE to be to what you WANT to be.

If you all may still recall that on the last night I did not force anyone of you people to sleep instead I merely requested that you all lie down and stop talking,in case you woke your friends up. I know that on the last night of camp everyone wants to stay up and talk. But there are others who are simply worn out from the exprience. Those who are very adaptable in camps can will themselves not to have much sleep but remain just as active, but not all of us have such abilities. What happened the next morning was what i would classify was a fiasco. We all knew the time to wake up but some of us were too tired to drag our bodies out of the comfort area,even then we took our time to prepare. In this case being late was only a passable consequence. What if we were in other situations?

Bridges of discipline are painful to build and cross,but once formed they can get you renewed and changed for the betterment. Our character isnt very strong at times. We all have our own downfall. When it caves in, it means you've met with your own personal disaster and you're in need of some serious fixing. Maybe you've lost your loved one,or you just broke up, or some financial outstanding debts. We may look strong on the outside,but inside you're shredding to pieces. Ironically, I feel that those who cry on the outside are generally people who feel less pain than those who cry in the inside.

When our teachers says "We'll do 10 questions a day during the holidays" You'll go like " Hey man, its 10 questions! it cant be THAT bad." but when the holidays really start, you go like "its only 10! I'll get it started tomorrow and I'll still be able to complete it." When the end of the holiday comes,most of us have yet to complete it! why so? Because since Day 1 you did not lay the foundations for your bridge.Here's another example,try asking any professional athelete to do poorly in a competition. Sounds ridiculous? well, here's a newsflash! They are so trained physically and psychologically to win, that whenever they compete their minds already echo the sense of winning, the sense of glory when they win. That taste that never leaves them.For them,they've already inhibited the sense of discipline into their habits and actions. THIS is the level of achievement propels them forward until they reach the pinnacle.

What about you? Have YOU began building YOUR bridge of discipline. It may be a small step such as listening in class,showing some respect to the teacher you hate most. But it has to be a deep conviction in you to change,when your teacher notice the change in you, they know then,that your status is beffiting of that of your behaviour. Its perfectly fine if you're still lost,get a goal on your own when you come together as a council board,set a shared vision. And when you arrive at the 2009 investiture,guage how far you've run the race,how well have you done. By then, if hard work was present during the process, I'm sure you'll feel that any feat isnt too hard. As the addidas slogan goes " Impossible is Nothing".

---In best regards,Isaac Liu.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

7:18 PM | Hey there, its yours to change.

Hey guys, sorry for all the tags in the tag board, didnt have the email at first. Anyway, for those who are still figuring out about why commitment and involvement can be two seperate matters, here it goes.
Picture yourself in a normal car ride to play. Your Dad drives you, you blast the music, you laugh at the jokes you recieve via sms and you talk to your Dad about your life in school. Your Dad however would only reply you "hm" "okay." "Really?".
Now think about this, what if you were the one driving? Things will be much more different! The ride wouldnt be as fun anymore. You have the responsibility to get the passengers from a place to another! You have to be concerned about the welfare of the passengers! A mistake would spell serious disaster.
There's a sense of ownership too. Ownership is a pretty hard thing to achieve. Its not where you go like "hey man, stop pissing me off?" or "He shouldnt had done this!UGH" We have to take responsiblity for our own actions, know where our goal and target is, look into our attitudes and ask " is this a proper attitude that I should have?"
As leaders, we're drivers! Not passengers! We MUST posses three VERY important things:
1) Positive Attitude
2) Persistant Fortitude (NOT STUBBORNESS)
3) Purposeful Latitude ( something like flexibility and adaptability)
So my main point in summary is that, I hope the upcoming S3 batch would agree amongst themselves a goal,thats realistic and shared. A vision that everyone hopes to achieve. The burden in you that bugs you, saying "what have you contributed? Was my comments or actions constructive in moving us forward in that goal"
For the S2, I hope you would seriously start considering what the post of being a councillor to you is. Is is just another burdern that you have to go through to achieve the high standards expected in life? Or is it really a place you can learn life skills and exprience, in order to make the people around you a better enviroment.
The council is yours to make, decide and mould. A transformation and revival is something we need every year, to renew and refresh ourselves for a higher target. Let's strive to achieve this together, and when our time has come, we can all say "Yes, it was a crazy ride, but we tried our best,and it was a life changing one"

---- In Best Regards, Isaac Liu.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

12:13 PM |

16-18Jun - A successful camp.

Well, I hope that all of you have enjoyed the camp tremendously. I enjoyed thoroughly in this 3D2N camp. I can see teamwork and bonding getting better on 2nd day. 1st day you all might feel uncomfortable as there could be few unfamiliar faces in your group. I hope our councillors could be more united through more of these team bonding acitities.

I might hold a Councillors chalet in Dec as another form of activitity in order to encourage team bonding and building rapport among ourselves. Keep yourself free. Will keep you posted. :)

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

8:50 PM |

There are few queries from some of you plus new updates...

a) Plain t-shirts - Referring to any T-shirts without vulgar words/symbol etc
b) HP - We will not keep your HP but do not use HP when any of the activities is in progress. Will update more on this issue on 1st day.
c) 1.5l of water bottle with water - COMPULSORY as we will be spending most of the time under the sun. Prevent dehydration.
d) Small bag - to bring to ECP to keep your necessary personal items + 1 pair of dry clothes.
e) Lunch at ECP - Please bring around $10 for your own lunch. We will eat in fast food restaurant :)

All to report in school at 7am on 16 Jun.

Attire for ECP: School PE shirt plus shorts/slacks with sandal or shoes. Please help to pass message around.

Mr. Alan Ho