Upcoming 2015 Team A.C.T.S Essay Competition and Math Challenge

Winner of A.C.T.S Singapore Essay Writing Competition 2014

Congratulations to Abigail Lee  for winning the 1st prize in A.C.T.S Essay Writing Competition 2014.

Abigail Lee

Your memory of a place you visited as a child.

A gust of wind shoves past me, carrying the tinny sound of children laughing with it.  I grasp my mother's hand tighter, shivering in frosty autumn daylight. Walking towards the park, the small carnival, I see that it is empty.  Almost, at least. The barest of minimums of children mill around, drifting from carousel to miniature train to balloon twisting clown, who seems to be enjoying watching the children watch him with fearful anticipation, waiting and watching, wincing, hoping that the snap of burst rubber will never come.

My mother drags her toddler and her infant forward, letting go of my reluctant hand to hold my brother closer, shooing me off to 'enjoy' the dark carnival, cleverly concealing undiscovered phobias and twisted fantasies.

My childish eyes prick with the beginning of tears and my nose pinches with acidic twangs as my mother walks away to nurse baby with his formula milk.  My small feet clad in pink frilled socks and Mary-janes, shift back muffling to the train. "I could try the train,” I tell myself. "Be a brave warrior princess.” I think as I board the small, roofless caboose. I held my small head high with as much regality as a five year old could as I approached the darkened tunnel.

I stumbled out of the caboose near wheezing. Too tight, too dark, too concaved for my liking.  Seeing my mother holding my brother’s hand and waving it at me, I seared myself for the next ride. I’d show that pasty baby I was superior.

Clambering onto a metal, crudely spray-painted horse, I buckled myself into place, looking at the other children fumbling with their own harnesses with unadulterated pride. I looked back at my mother and brother sitting on a wooden bench and frowned. The child was laughing. Mocking me. How dare he? I frowned and looked forward, grasping the glided (plastic) pole in front of me, grouchily slouched over the fake horse bobbing up and down to what I had identified as the star wars theme. Strange choice of tune for a campy carousel ride for three-to-nine years old. After three rotations, the ride jerked to a stop, a bored lisp ringing through the speakers telling the passengers we could ‘exit to the left, parents please collect your children’ I stifled a cackle. Parents? Who needed them, I thought as I strutted past the exit gate and the pair still on the wooden bench.

I jogged on through the smallish displays looking at rows and rows of carved pumpkins with blown out candles resting inside, a foul-smelling petting zoo that seemed more dung and hay than actual animal, swerved stealthily past the clowns and stopped at the piece-de-résistance.

The dunk tank.

I watched as youngsters lobbed their Technicolor balls at the wooden target, missing constantly while the man in the tacky wetsuit sat above the huge transparent tank filled with what had to be below zero temperature in the candy-corn air, rife with biting winds and tickling breezes. He patronizingly jeered at the children sarcastically and babyishly crying,”Aw, that’s too bad kiddo! You tried. Maybe next time, eh?” or “Yeah, sport! Don’t be a sore loser, oh no, don’t cry! Ah, there’s mummy. There he goes a-running. See ya, Junior!”

I tingled in excitement. Oh yes, I remembered my father playing ball with me. Learning how to pitch baseball unlike the ones those fools were trying with. I was trained for this moment.

I walked up to the boy distributing the balls and sent him my most charming innocent smile, waiting for my three tries. I took the balls and trotted to the platform. I raised my ball-filled fist. I closed an eye, aimed and launched.

The ball fell flat.

I glared and snapped my teeth at the laughing man on the ledge. After a snarky remark about my feisty attitude, I launched another. Too far right. I began to get irritated. I could hear his mocking and my eyes began to fill with angry tears. The feeling of being surrounded by clowns and parents and china doll prizes were all watching mw with pity and second-hand embarrassment began to weigh down and squeeze my throat. My hand clenched tighter around the ball as a strange, Caucasian woman I had never seen before cried out to me,” It’s ok, sweetie, you tried your best, that’s all that matters!” It wasn’t any of her business, I thought as I opened my mouth to suck in as much breath as I could. I let out a ferocious grunt-yell-wail as I threw my ball to the ground and stomped my foot.

The ball bounced with the sheer might my tantrum had burst with and reflected off the dirt ground to hit the target square in the middle. The man on the ledge stopped laughing, halted by survival instincts to breathe before he plunged into the chilly water.

I smiled in pure triumph as parents and children alike applauded me, and I heard my mother rushing towards me with the baby, congratulating me and peppering kisses on my head.

“See baby, look! Your big sister won a pumpkin! Wow, isn’t she the best?” she cooed at the baby.  He giggled back and clapped. “Yes, child” I thought proudly as my child-arms wrapped protectively around the gourd, “I am superior.”

A.C.T.S. Essay competition Semi final

Melissa Goh

A Day at the Market

The cat yawned. Routine has conditioned her to somewhat realize that it was time
to move along or risk being shoed away. The sound of hawkers speaking loudly and
boldly was a sure sign of the end of its slumber. A sound of crates collapsing followed by
a long colorful string of ‘hokkien’ vulgarities could be heard. Yet the morning was still in
its youth. The air smelled of trees and the temperature remained cool. The fish monger
smiled to himself. He was one of the few men at his age that still appreciated and looked
forward to these times of the mornings. The years have not hardened him or have it?
Although the first customers who mostly consisted of aging middle aged
housewives have not yet arrived the bustle that surrounded the market was a forerunner to
the coming stampedes. Already crates were being moved and slabs of raw meats were
being proportionally cut and hung, fishes were being arranged in neat rows for
the customers’ inspections. Fruits were bring sprayed with water to give them the ‘fresh’
look and a couple of suspiciously bruised fruits were being strategically placed behind
better looking ones.
Alas time began to fly and the first of the weary looking customers began to
arrive. Weariness accompanied by sleepiness was no handicapped to these hardcore
bargain hunters. A single expression accompanied everyone of these would be shoppers.
It was the look of the expect haggler. The hawkers and sellers grimaced their teeth in
anticipation of these bold and seasoned hawks. Loudly and shamelessly these women
would condemn the expensive and embrace the cheap. These women could smell a
gimmick a mile away and out talk these poor men who spent most of their lives chopping
meat for these hagglers.

Long hours of business flew by. Waves and waves of customers poured in, from
the simple errand boy to the unscrupulous housewives who demanded nothing but the
cheapest and the best, Long unchained melodies of words and dialects flooded the
marketplace adding to the boisterous nature of the environment. When fully
contemplated, it was life itself. Without the market, there would be no life to many.
Perhaps not life as we know it. Good old-fashioned shop owners who knew every
customers by name and discounts could be bargained. Perhaps the very reason why old
timers who used to visit marketplaces boycotted the newly and quickly growing chains of
supermarkets. Those sterile, unfriendly and unnaturally cold places where a young boy
who was supposed to be in school was logging your purchases and the prices were shown
onto an electronic display.

Alas, a day at the market.