Yishun Town Secondary School – Alan Soh aka HUMOURBOI

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Established since 1986, my alma mater turns 30 years old this year. A buffet-style alumni dinner was held at the air-conditioned school hall of Yishun Town Secondary School (YTSS) on Saturday 30 July 2016.

I am humbled and honoured to be appointed as the Organising Chairman of this homecoming dinner. 500 tickets were sold out completely within a couple months of ticket sales announcement via the Yishun Town Alumni (YTA) Facebook Page at end February 2016.

An older male cousin, a former student of whom is now based in Indonesia, even flew back to Singapore to attend this dinner specially with his 2 classmates.

Like the rest of my organising team members, I reported in school early at about 4pm.

Many graduates turned up early for the school tour segment at 5.45pm before the dinner commenced at 7pm.

This is a dinner truly for the alumni, by the alumni. A reunion dinner of sorts. Food, games, photo-takings, lucky draw prizes, video slides, singing of school song, and cutting the birthday cake. It was a memorable night for everyone present. 🙂

Current and past YTSS students can see the photos via the open photo album links given on the timeline of YTA Facebook Page -> facebook.com/YishunTownAlumni.

Below is my welcome speech written, addressing distinguished guests, principals, teachers and former students who attended the dinner.

Current principal Ms Sharon Yeo delivered hers before mine.

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Speech 1

4 years since providing mentorship to students doing community service projects on Young ChangeMakers Youth Panel, I’m at it again – I am among the 18 youth mentors on my alma mater — Yishun Town Secondary School’s mentoring programme starting 26 March 2012, helping 40 under-achieving juniors from Sec 1 to Sec 3 (Express or Normal). Likely to be a 1-year programme. Beginning from Term 2, 1st Semester.

I will be mentoring two Secondary 2 boys – one from Normal (Academic) and the other, Express.

It is a different challenge. Working along side with the teachers involved, I hope I am able to motivate or inspire the 1 or 2 students put under my charge, sharing my experiences so that they will do their best to overcome whatever challenges to achieve good grades in studies this year. 🙂

I was at my alma mater – Yishun Town Secondary School yesterday, witnessing another batch of graduands receiving their first major exam results slip, while I do new media coverage of the event via a Facebook Page. As a Singaporean youth, this is where one starts to experience a taste of failure or success. For the first time in his/her life.

As someone who has had taken the examination in 1997, I often emphasize this: “No doubt academic excellence is important, exam results are not everything in life. They don’t mean anything. It is not the end of the world if you don’t score well. If you buck up later, anything is possible – in terms of life achievements, you might even surpass that best student in school.”

That nasty feeling of failure can be very overwhelming, crushing one’s self-confidence. I knew it because it happened to me. I repeated once. It took me 2 years to overcome that feeling when I was in ITE Bishan.

It is about strong will-power, I guess. You just have to pick yourself up, know your strength areas, keep on chanting to yourself, saying “I will not give up…I can do better than others the next time round.” Yes, for those who don’t score well, PLEASE DON’T GIVE UP. Reflect and learn from your mistakes, and start working on your weak areas. It is okay to take a longer time to reach your destination. Keep going. Don’t stop there. Ignore what naysayers said. Think positive.

As long as one is hungry for success, stay humble, help others as he/she perseveres, yes, he or she may not be the best performing student now during schooling years but that individual whom you perceived to be “stupid”, “lousy” or “failure for life” could become the next BIG boss or public figure some 20 years later. Nothing is absolute!

Look at Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Need I say more?

Standing from the perspective of a former ITE graduate, I am particularly concerned or worried about top performing students becoming snobbish and too elitist in their mindset and the way how they handle people or matters. I hope my worries are unfound.

Pardon me for saying this – To me, “elitism” is a dirty word.

Nevertheless, to students who score outstanding results, this is what I would like to say: “Congratulations. You have had worked hard to deserve such good results. But never ever look down or pre-judge someone who may not have scored very good academic results like yourself. For you may not know what he or she may become in future.”

Anything is possible in this world.
Many people among us could be hidden diamonds or late-bloomers..

Our mass media should highlight more inspiring stories of latebloomers who has beaten all odds to become who they want to be.

(P.S: By the way, I’ve obtained a diploma in Mass Communications, despite my hearing handicap. I am eligible to go for further studies anytime, to improve my social mobility. Yes, university education.)

After months of planning, the BIG day has come. Saturday 16 July.

It’s our 25th Anniversary Home-coming Alumni Dinner. Looking forward to this big reunion of ex-principals, ex-teachers and students of different graduating batches. Gonna see many familiar faces. Smiles, hugs, tears.

My 2 cousins of whom are also ex-students of the school, are attending the dinner too. Cool!

I am put in charge of programming with Deric, and shall be providing “live” updates via Yishun Town Alumni (YTA) facebook page. Double up as event photographer as well. Will publish more event photos there one or two days after the event.

I pray hard that we YTA organising committee members are able to pull off the show well, with no major hiccups.

I would like to think positively – Yes, we will. =) Yay!!!~~~