Issue No. 25March 201325th JCRC Edition

Snippets of Hall Five

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A. Editor’s

Note

PeoplePublisherHall of Residence 525th JCRC

EditorLu Yawen

Assistant Editor

Lee Rou Urn

Designer

Lu Yawen

PhotographerWan Zhi YongLu Yawen

ContributorTee Chin Siang BryanLee Rou UrnLim Yin RuLiew Xu Tat

FeedbackPlease email to:lu0003en@e.ntu.edu.sg

Lee Rou Urn

The end of the finals marked a long-awaited break for many, but not so for Hall V’s sportspeople and recreational games players. For them, the conclu-sion of the finals only marked the begin-ning of their intensive training for the 2012/2013 Inter-Hall Games (IHG).

Legends’ Dinner is held every year be-fore the commencement of the IHG to offer support and encouragement to the players who will be representing the hall. This year, the Fiver spirit was indeed strong. The embossed “Fiver” on the back of every participants’ shirt drove home every player’s desire to bring glory to Hall V.

The night began with an inspirational speech by Prof Dinesh, who extended his unwavering support to all of Hall V’s players. Then, it was time for some fun and games led by the emcees. One representative from each table was se-lected to play.

After that, a sumptuous buffet dinner was served, and players got to be enter-tained by the – indeed- legendary Jam

Band at the same time. The song per-formed was “We Are Young” By Fun. , with Sean Ong as lead singer, highly ap-propriate to set a high tone for the rest of the IHG.

Next, a video of all our recreational and sports players hard at training put together by the JCRC was shown as a form of appreciation for every players’ efforts.

Then, the recreational and sports secre-taries presented all captains with their captains’ t-shirt, identifying them as the ones who will take the lead in bringing Hall V to victory.

Good luck to all Hall V sportspeople and recreational players!

The journey ahead will defi-

nitely be a long and tough one,

and obstacles insurmount-

able. But with determination,

strength, and passion, Victory

will belong to Hall V!

It seemed like a long road ahead initially, but in the blink of an eye, the Inter-Hall Games (IHG) 2012/2013 has officially drawn to a close. Let us now take a break from our studies to relive the exciting moments from this season’s IHG. I hope that everyone will enjoy this issue as we en-joyed putting it together!

I Am LEGEND

-Lee Rou Urn

Legends’ Dinner 2012/13

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Cheer Vikings! (IHCC)

Behind the glitzy costumes, heavy make-up and practiced stage smiles, nobody would be able to guess the amount of hard work, sweat, tears and blood that went into every stunt, every kick, every twist and every lift.

This season, Vikings, led by their Cap-tain, Chan Tao Guang, boasted a strong team made up of not only experienced cheerleaders, but also a majority of novel cheerleaders, many of whom had not picked up the sport until just a few months ago.

Being the first hall to perform, the spirit of the Vikings were on a high as they swept in with confidence, boosting the mood of every supporter present. Every kick, move and step was executed with perfect precision, timing and sharpness.

The Vikings’ energy and spirits never even faltered once, spurred on by the earsplitting roars of encouragement from the Fivers present.

Perhaps nobody will know the difficul-ties that the Vikings faced this season better than the captain, Tao Guang. He is, however, proud that they managed to pull through with their routine de-spite the numerous problems encoun-tered along the way.

After all, hardships bond, and every dif-ficulty faced means much better times ahead. Continue with the good job, Vi-kings!

-Lee Rou Urn

Cheerleading.

It is more than just a sport.

It is a passion, a dedication

and to our Vikings,

it is their life.

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Inter-Hall Recreational Games

2012-2013

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The story all started 3 years ago, as I en-tered Hall of Residence 5, Nanyang Tech-nological University, as a wide-eyed and curious freshman. Weiqi, was merely a game between black and white, seem-ingly more complicated than nuclear physics or second order differentiation, to the majority.

Three years on, from a team that en-tered IHG to fill up the numbers; to a battle-hardened one, clinching a well-deserved semi-final spot. Glory and Honor to Hall 5, they say; the gold of pot at the end of the rainbow, we say; an ex-citing learning journey, I say.

As a member of the team, what trans-formed an also-run team into a champi-onship contender, was none other than effort, passion, and determination. Days and nights of countless trainings, the spirit of the team has consolidated, the winning culture inculcated. Despite los-ing our best player from last year, Hall 5 Weiqi Team 2012/13 has once again proved the theory that a united team of dedicated individuals trumps any star player.

Looking back, it has been a memorable journey for the team. One in which every member – Captain Nicholas, Hong Ming, Yi Min, K Luon, Bryan, Denise and Ray-mond - can say “we did our best”; one in which every player can say “I enjoyed myself”; one in which every FiVer in the team can say “I have learnt, learnt about life, about teamwork, about friendship, about the spirit of IHG.”

Eventually, we adjourned our IHG jour-ney in the semi-finals.

Eventually, this learning journey about Weiqi, about life, never ends.

New Achievement: Weiqi (Semi Finals)

-Guest Writer: Bryan Tee

Black.

White.

Black and White

-the colour of Weiqi, the colour of Hall 5.

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One of Hall 5’s niche games has always been International Chess. True enough, the team did not fail us this season. They were awarded the semi-finals title much earlier than expected. To say they were delighted was probably a huge under-statement.

Led by Captain Alvin Chu, the seven member team confidently wowed their opponents all the way, clinching win after win, except for one match which ended in a draw. In the semi-finals, they met fellow seeded hall, Hall 1, but un-fortunately lost to them.

Alvin said, “Our team this year com-prised of last year’s members as well as new members like Kim Hui, Wagish and me. Seniors like K Luon, Yexin and Clarence are invaluable to our team. They clearly know our opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and don’t hesitate to share.”

This year’s International Chess compe-tition saw strong players from various halls fighting passionately for their halls. To this end, Hall 5 was worried about their standings, but their worry came to naught as they defeated their oppo-nents without much difficulty.

Although the team lost in the semi-fi-nals, the team was proud to have put up a good fight against Hall 1.

Alvin also said, “To next year’s team, all the best and let us achieve something greater, the Championship title!”

International Chess (Semi Finals)

“The team has performed better than my expectations and I am really proud of

them.” -Alvin Chu

-Lim Yin Ru

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To say that it was exciting would be an understatement. This year’s snooker team had a breakthrough; successfully qualifying for the quarterfinals for the first time ever.

Of course, it was not an easy battle. The game which brought Hall 5 into the quarterfinals was played past 11 o’clock, with all the players having played for the whole day. Yet they were determined, constantly keeping their focus on get-ting into the quarterfinals. They pushed on tirelessly, never faltering even when up against other much stronger halls.

Perhaps snooker is a game of skill, but it is also just as much as test of one’s mental endurance. It is easy to feel intimidated when confronted with a strong opponent’s visible confidence, but our players never backed down. It must have been an especially harrowing experience for our freshmen players, some of whom have never played com-petitively before.

The snooker team’s journey ended right after they got into the quarterfinals. Yet they lost gloriously, being up against last season’s Champions for snooker, Hall 15. It was a tough fight right to the end, but they never succumbed to pressure and gave it their all.

In retrospect, Captain Huang Wei Lun recalls the initial difficulties that the team faced in securing a venue to train, even having to go out of school, with all the players chipping in out of their own pockets. Wei Lun could never be more right by saying that it was the team’s passion, attitude and commitment which brought them their accolades.

-Lee Rou Urn

New Achievement:

Snooker (Quarter Finals)

Thank you, Hall 5 snooker players. You have done us proud!

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Scrabble (Quarter Finals)

Boggle (Quarter Finals)

Many people play this game merely for leisure, but here in Hall 5, our scrabble team takes this common family game much more seriously.

Sadly, the team could not sustain their semifinalist position this sea-son, ending their journey prema-turely in the quarterfinals. However, Captain Syahid Mohamed remained optimistic nevertheless.

The journey was not a smooth one for the team this year, with Syahid himself falling ill just before the com-mencement of the season. The rest of the team thus had to go ahead without his guidance.

Despite the odds, the team pulled through. It is without a doubt that the next season of IHRG will be a much better one for them.

“The seniors are happy that

we can finally hand the time

over to a new team with unlim-

ited potential.”

- Syahid

-Lee Rou Urn

-Lee Rou Urn

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Hall 5’s Boggle team did considerably well at this season’s Inter-Hall Rec-reational Games (IHRG), managing to clinch a quarterfinalist title. This had no change from last season, but the team as a whole improved slightly, which is commendable.

Captain Chen Mei Ling expressed pride at the team’s achievements.

“It was essentially a new team with many players going for IHRG for the first time so being able to advance to quar-ters is applaudable.”

Despite the abundance of rookie players in the team, Hall 5 lost to Hall 6 in the quarterfinals with just a 60+ spread. This is indeed an achievement for a fairly in-experienced team.

With that, the future looks bright none-theless for our Boggle team.

Inter-HalL Games

2012-2013

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New Achievement:

Volleyball Female (Semi Finals)

The Hall 5 female volleyball team was remarkable in this year’s IHG as they clinched a semi-final spot.

They began spectacularly with an im-pressive win against Hall 9 and contin-ued with their extraordinary perfor-mance, beating Hall 7 to qualify for the semi-finals.

However, in the semi-finals they were up against defending champions Hall 8, and had to fight an uphill battle to reach the finals. Understandably, the team felt anxious and uncertain, but still decided to give it their all.

Once again, the team displayed tremen-dous determination, never showing any signs of fatigue or exhaustion despite the long drawn out game. It was not easy, especially after a long day of les-sons for all the players. It was the pers-erverance showed even in the midst of insurmountable obstacles that truly wowed all the supporters and even our opponents.

The players tried their best, communi-cated well and demonstrated excellent teamwork as they covered each other to bring the ball to the opponents’ side. Despite that, it was not enough to earn a victory.

However, the sole fact that the team

progressed to the semis was an out-standing achievement and a great af-firmation for the progress of each and every player on the court.

Moreover, many of the players were freshmen who have never played the sport or had little experience. This ad-vancement marks a great milestone for Hall 5 and let’s hope the girls will ad-vance even further in next year’s IHG.

-Liew Xu Tat

‘Ball is round, always

believe in what we can do

together as a team!’

-Soh Jan

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Soccer (Quarter Finals)

Sepak Takraw (Quarter Finals)In the Sepak Takraw tournament, Hall 5 competed well and achieved a quarter finals position, losing to Hall 3 who was this year’s champion.

The players fought hard for every point in every single match. Points ended with frustrating deadlocks in many matches.

Oh Jia Hao, the team captain said, “Most of the team this year are new to sepak takraw, but we managed to pick things up very quickly as a team.”

Indeed, it is evident that the team im-proved rapidly. With every game, they continuously picked up knowledge and skills on sepak takraw.

Jia Hao had thought of a unique strat-egy; he anticipated the ball’s direction and accurately jumped in front of the net so that the ball instantly rebounded to their opponents. This attack caused Hall 5 to win many points as opponents could hardly respond to the attack in time. It was a large reason for our wins.

Despite losing to Hall 3 in the first two regus (three regus, win two to pro-ceed), they played against Hall 3 for a last friendly match as practice. Now that is true sportsmanship!

To the team next year, Jia Hao would like to say, “I hope you all can carry on training hard and enjoy the game at the same time. Let’s do Hall 5 proud!”

-Lim Yin Ru

Jia Hao said,

“We met Hall 3 in the quar-

ter finals. They were the

finalist for the past few

years but we played much

better than usual.”

Being the finalist for last season’s IHG, expectations of our soccer team this season were understandably, high.

However, after losing in the prelimi-nary round to Hall 13 through a pen-alty shootout, intense pressure was on the players to bring glory back to the Hall. The team then played against Hall 13 again and got their revenge with an outstanding display to seal victory by a corner kick.

Despite that, in the quarters, they met Hall 3 and every player in the team knew it will be a tough battle ahead. During the match, heavy rain poured as the players confronted the extreme weather conditions in search for a vital semi-final spot.

The soccer boys fought with much ag-gression and created opportunities mainly through counter attacks while depriving the Hall 3 strikers any open-

ings on goal. Then a golden chance emerged as a free kick was awarded in the attacking half. Hall 5 converted it straight into a goal showing no mercy to the opponent. However, during the second half, the boys were outplayed by Hall 3 with two goals from the same player before a last one late on ending Hall 5’s IHG soccer journey.

Captain James Liau thanked the sup-porters for their continuous support. Let’s look forward to the performance of the soccer team in the next IHG.

-Liew Xu Tat

“The team will be back with

a new look, but definitely

with the same old spirit to

bring glory to the hall!”-

James

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Rugby (Quarter Finals)

Badminton (Quarter Finals)Hall 5 managed to fight their way to the quarter finals for badminton this year. It was a commendable achievement de-spite their succumbing to Hall 16 in the quarter finals.

Hall 16 had a few Institute-Varsity- Pol-ytechnic (IVP) players- an extremely strong team to compete against. Hall 5, nevertheless, put up a good fight against them despite the odds.

It was the badminton team which first qualified for the quarter finals for this season’s Inter-Hall Games (IHG). It was their greatest honour and joy.

In the preliminaries, the team defeated Hall 4 quickly but lost against Hall 7. Hall 7 had strong players, especially their male players. Our team however, under-stood that they still possessed a chance in getting into quarter finals and next managed to win Hall 8 with a score of 3-2 in the Final Pool match.

Made up of experienced players like Evelyn Loh and Colin Seow, the team

worked their way relentlessly to quarter finals. They tried to let all their players play at least once, and enjoyed them-selves very much.

Meng-Yih said, “I’m glad to see that people in hall have grown closer to each other and forged new friendships.”

Isn’t that the true aim behind IHG?

It was a year filled with opportunities for the Hall 5 rugby team, what with the addition of players such as Ed-mund Teo ,Jun Quan and Jeremy Koh who joined the well-developed squad.

The team started IHG in fashion with a proud victory against Hall 4. Al-though they went on to lose the next match against defending champi-ons Hall 3, great spirit was displayed as they fought till the very end. The loss was a glorious one nevertheless.

Despite the loss, the team managed to proceed to the final pool. How-ever, in an unprecedented move, Hall 4 decided to walkover, resulting in the team qualifying for the quarter finals .

The final match against Hall 2 was ex-tremely intense as both teams were on par in quality. Just as half time kicked in, Hall 2 scored a try through

an unexpected error from Hall 5. De-spite the score, Captain Edmund Teo decided to field several new players to give them an experience in the match. Hall 5 defended well in the 2nd half and the score remained till the end.

Although Hall 5 did not proceed any further, the team was outstanding. Regular Hall 5 rugby player Kelvin Ang had nothing but praise for the team. Good Job Ruggers and let’s make it even further in the next IHG!

-Lim Yin Ru

-Liew Xu Tat

“The boys never gave up

and displayed great fighting

spirit.”-Kelvin

“I’m very proud of the team

that played for us this year.

We met our expectations of at

least getting into quarters,

so to me it was a success.”

- Meng-Yih

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This year’s theme could not be more apt to describe our beloved Quindanze. A team of Fivers who are all glaringly different, and yet united by a common thread; their love and passion for dance. Just like a kaleidoscope, each of these Fivers, unique in their own way, when put together, becomes a beautiful har-mony of dedication, coordination, and commitment to the art.

Perhaps dedication is most apparent in the kind of stoniness the dancers showed in the face of obstacles. Train-ings were difficult to coordinate, what with many of the dancers also involved in other hall activities. Compromises and sacrifices had to be made on eve-rybody’s part just for the choreography to be put together. Yet it was these sac-rifices amidst the fun that the dancers had together which made the whole ex-perience a bittersweet one for all.

On the big day, the dancers went up on stage, with nothing to show but their hearts, burning with passion, zeal

and dedication. Although reasonably less polished in skill than other halls with a traditionally strong dance cul-ture, Quindanze still shone in all their brilliance, evident in the sincere wide smiles of all the dancers.

Captain Yeo Siew Ting sums up the ex-perience in a simple and yet meaningful statement,” All the meals we skipped, all the late nights together and all the friendships we formed; they were all worth it.” She would also like to thank all those who supported them along the way.

Rock on, Quindanze!

Kaleidoscope. Colours.

Vibrancy. Friendship.

Bonding. Quindanze!

-Lee Rou Urn

QuinDanze! (HOCC)QuinDanze! (HOCC)

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If there is one thing that Hall 5 has got no lack of, it definitely would be outstand-ing sportspeople. Yet some of them are doubly outstanding, through the pure merit of their achievements and their unwavering dedication to the hall. All throughout the Inter-Hall Games(IHG), they have exchanged their time, sweat and blood, all for the glory of Hall 5.

This year’s Colours Award Board (CAB) dinner was held at the Nanyang House function room. The two emcees, Wesley and Joshua, lent their own unique touch by giving interesting anecdotes about the nominees. Awards given out includ-ed the Best Male and Female Rookie, Best Sportsman and Sportswoman, Best Recreational and Sports Teams, Best Coach, and even the Best Supporter Award.

A new award, the Exceptional Achieve-ment Award was also presented this year. Each nominee was even given their own air time through a video, in which the people around them gave extremely frank and heartfelt opinions about them and their exceptional diligence, resil-ience and determination all throughout the previous IHG season. The audience got to see an alternative, wacky side to the nominees which were not usually displayed. Each award was testimony to the ef-fort and improvement shown by every player. Yet, no award would be sufficient

to encapsulate the extent of the sacri-fices made by each and every Fiver who participated in the IHG. We would like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt congratulations to every Fiver who contributed - there are no greater heroes than all of you.

Recognising our HeroesColours Award Board Dinner 2013

Best Male Rookie:

Huang WeiLun

Best Female Rookie:

Soh Jan

Best Sports Team:

Volleyball (Female)

Best Sports Captain:

James Liau (Soccer)

Best Sportsman:

Meng Hee

Best Sportswoman:

Bernice Ho

Best Rec Team :

Wei Qi

Best Rec Captain:

Hensley Chen (Darts)

Best Rec Player:

Chen Meiling

Best Supporters:

Meng Hee

Margaret Ee

Outstanding Achievement:

Colin Seow

Evelyn Loh

Herrick Ong

Ng K Luon

Yong Zheng Yong

Exceptional Achievement:

Evelyn Loh

-Lee Rou Urn

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