19th January is my best day in 2008! 19th January is my birthday! When the second hand of the clock clicked to number 12, I finally grow up to 14 years old! ‘New age, new beginning.’ As I am 14 years old now, I become more mature and I have many things and ambition to be achieved this year. Therefore, I will definitely strive hard to achieve what I wanted to achieve this year!

I woke up at 12p.m this morning. I woke up so late because I had been doing my homework at the midnight. I went out to ‘City Square’ at 4p.m to shop with my family members. We arrived there in 30 minutes. Then, we walked around in the shopping complex. We ate dinner around 7p.m and went back to home by 10p.m.

At 10p.m, my family members took out the birthday cake and sang birthday song to me. I felt very happy and pleased! Then, I made some birthday wishes. I wish that I will score high in my study, train hard and improve in my CCA-track and field, my family, friends and relatives will be healthy always and strive hard to become a gentleman, professional, sportsmen and an integrity prefect. Then, I blew the candles and ate the cake. I took pictures of the moment I spent with my family members and I will never forget this moment!

Finally, it was past 12 midnight now. It is 20th January now and my birthday was over. However, this will be my wonderful moments in my life and I will also strive hard to achieve my wishes and targets!

At this afternoon 2.30p.m, there was a speech took by Minfong ho which held at Victoria Junior College. All the Asean, A-star and PRC scholars included me were invited to attend the speech. I read ‘The Clay Marble’ which wrote by Minfong Ho before. The storyline was very interesting and fascinating as I was getting excited and impatient to meet the author!

We gathered at 2p.m in the school foyer and went there by bus. We reached there in a short while. After that, we got seated in the auditorium and waited for the speech to begin. Beside us, there were also students from Victoria Junior College attended the speech too! The auditorium was crowded by students! It looked like the writer was very popular and famous!

After a while, the writer, Minfong Ho arrived at the auditorium. After placing all her books on the table, she started her speech. In the speech, she told us about her life-time being a writer. She went to Cambodia, Thailand and many more country before. She even went to New York City for study before! She exposed to many culture and events happened in different country. She told us about her experience being a volunteer in the Cambodia disaster area. A girl, who was one of the victims in the war, gave her a clay marble which is a craft made by her. From this incident, she got the inspiration for writing the story, ‘The Clay Marble’. I admired her creativity and persistence for writing such a fascinating story from the inspiration.

‘Sing to the Dawn’ is also one of her masterpiece. Although I do not read the story before, my friends told me that ‘Sing to the Dawn’ is an interesting and exhilarating story. Her writing style is short and sharp. She wrote her story in a gripping and fascinating way. She also taught us how to write a good essay and story. I was totally attracted to her speech!

At 3.30p.m, the speech finally ended. I had learnt lots of knowledge and skills for writing a narrative story. I was very pleased to attend the speech today. I wish that I will have the opportunity to attend speech again in the future!

This morning, 7 Victorians included me went for a Youth Olympic Games (YOG) open forum which was held in the National Library Board. The purpose of holding this open forum is to discuss about the topic and question related to the Youth Olympic Games as well as to gather opinion, suggestion and solution from the youth in Singapore. There were over 300 youth from different schools, institution and organisations participated in this open forum.

We arrived there at 9 a.m. After registered our name, we changed our school uniform shirt to the YOG shirt. Then, we sat down on The Plaza and waited for the event to start. At 9.30, the event had begun. The MC of the event explained the procedures of the open forum today. The event was very lively as The Plaza was crowded by the youth came from each part of Singapore.

Firstly, I took a paper and wrote a title on it ‘How does Singapore provided good customer services and hospitality to our guests, visitors and athletes which come to Singapore?’ I chose a duration and venue and post the meeting at 10.45a.m to 12 p.m. At 10.45a.m, my friends and I went to the place of meeting that I had assigned. There were students from other schools which came for the meeting too!

We sat down in a semi-circle and start to discuss about the topic. They participated in the meeting with passion and enthusiasm and always gave opinions and suggestion actively. I was very pleased to see that!

At 12p.m, Wilgene and I held another meeting about ‘How can we maintain Singapore as a green city before, during or after the Youth Olympic Games?’ I think this topic was easier than the previous topic. This time, there were lesser people took part in the meeting but we still carried on. At last, we managed to completed the meeting successfully and came out with a lot of ideas and suggestion. We wrote a report of the topic and hand to the people-in-charge too!

We carried on another meeting until 4 p.m. At 4.15p.m, all the participants met at The Plaza and wait for the arrival of Mr Mah Bow Tan, Minister of National Development and Mr Teo Ser Luck, Guest-of-Honour of the YOG open forum.I was shocked because there were more than 30 reports handed up and pasted onto the wall by all the participants. They arrived at The Plaza. Mr Mah took a speech and praised us for sacrifying our precious Saturday and put in passion, enthusiasm and lots of efforts to participate in the meeting. At last, the YOG Open Forum ended successfully!

I had learnt many things and skills today. The open forum was fun and exciting! The open forum was not only discussing about the Youth Olympic Games, it also trained our brainpower and creativity. Besides that, I also found that Mr Teo was an old Victorians graduated from Victoria School. He told us many stories about his school life in Victoria School too!