On the 22nd of January 2009, I signed up and attended the chingay parade rehearsal. We left from school at around 3.45 and reached there soon after. Our mode of transport was a huge coach. Being victorians, we were one of the few schools that arrived early. After registering, we waited patiently for the rest of the schools attending the chingay parade to arrive one by one. For me, it was the first time I was taking part in a parade. I was excited and simply could not wait for the parade to start because I wanted to see what it was going to be like. As minutes passed by, more schools started arriving. All the attending students each received a small blue bag and a singapore pools file with the seating plans and etc. I learnt that the actual parade rehearsal would not be held as we were not part of the parade. Our job was to distribute gifts/presents to spectators and cheer and sing when our float passed by.
(This is a picture of our float, float number 3)
The lyrics of the song that we sang were very nice. There was only a few actions that we were required to do. An example was that we had to jump at the starting of the chorus and shake our hands above our heads. Although it was childish, it helped me reminisce about the past, when I used to be an energetic and fun person. To get us into the joyful, dynamic mood and make it easier for us to remember the actions, a group of cute, adorable primary school scouts went up to the stage to demonstrate. I thought that it was very helpful of them. The organisers were kind hearted people. Delicious food was catered for dinner as the rehearsal ended only after around 8pm. On the whole, I enjoyed myself a lot and have learnt a few things that school alone cannot teach.
