Hello everyone! Konnichiwa! 欢迎欢迎! Welcome to the tour of The New Temple!
great-great-great Grandmother
My name is Miss Loi, the great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of The Temple’s founder, and I shall be your tour guide for today.
While we wait for the rest to finish their arduous climb up The 38 Steps To Salvation, here’s some background information on the UNESCO World Heritage site that you’re about to visit.
Established in 2007 A.D. by my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother to help students in their mathematics, it has its humble beginnings in a small, little room where we now stand.
You see, lives of Singaporean students were pretty harsh in those days. Crammed into classes of 40 or more in school, all of them had to sit for two major exams, common tests and numerous class tests every year.
*Collective ‘Oooh’ from the tour group*
OK seems like everyone’s here. Let’s start the tour proper shall we?
The New Temple Gates
What you’re seeing before you are the legendary NEW Temple Gates, finally unveiled to the internet-at-large in February 2009 A.D. after, according to popular folklore, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother took a month to locate a missing ‘k’.
It’s been said that the very sight of them once reduced straight-As students to tears, and caused many to experience a sudden surge in their Mathematical prowess.
At this point, I’d like to ask a quick quiz question: Can anyone tell me what’s the expression for the rth+1 term in the binomial expansion of (a+b)n?
! BANZAI!!!!!
Well done Sato-san! *clap clap* It does seem like there’s an element of truth to the legend after all.
The Chamber of Λ
As we walk past the Tablet of Gratitudes from which hangs a myriad of homage to my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, you’ll see on your left The Chamber of Λ – the first of The Temple’s Four Chambers.
Sporting the same Λ symbol on Spartan shields, legend has it that my great-great-great-great-great-great granduncle once used this chamber to shield his A-Level / IB charges from the attacks of the 3D Vectors, amongst other A-Level topics.
With a maximum capacity for 6 students, it holds the record for the longest glass board of all in The Temple, and is also the only chamber where you can find white tables (because the dark ones were sold out by the time we reached Ikea).
The Chamber of δ
Continuing down the hallway, you’ll soon see on your right The Chamber of δ.
Oh delta, the Symbol of Change, and the symbol of the cosy little chamber of my little great-great-great-great-great-great grandaunt, where she once held audiences with O Level Science students and where she was rumoured to have conducted her dark alchemic Chemistry and Biology experiments.
With a maximum capacity for 5 students, it holds the record for the smallest glass board in The Temple and, when my little great-great-great-great-great-great grandaunt was not around, it was also the place where errant students who didn’t do their homework got themselves banished to aka 打入冷宫 in the hope that they would 
their learning attitudes – since this is, after all, The Chamber of Change.
The Chamber of π
Continuing down to the end of the hallway, we arrive at The Chamber of π.
π – that enigmatic infinitely irrational number which plagued Singaporean students like a leech from their pre-pubescent primary school years all the way to their tertiary years, and despite everything, a number that’s still widely used by dieting women today to compute the circumference of their waists.
With a maximum capacity for 6 students, this is the sister chamber to the sacred Chamber of φ (which we’ll come to shortly), a mirror-like extension of the latter in times of crisis when The Temple was frequently overrun.
The Chamber of φ
And now hold your breath, ladies and gentlemen, for we have come to the innermost quarter of The Temple.
Before you lies The Chamber of φ – the domain of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother The High Priestess herself, the Holiest of Holies, the sanctum sanctorum of The Temple, and the main attraction which you have paid your tourist money for.
Oh φ – the Symbol of the Golden Ratio of perfection, and the Mark of the great Jφss Sticks Movement that brought about the demise of the LMBFH Syndrome during the turbulent Tuition Nation era at the turn of the 21st Century A.D.
Lined with good luck study charms from faraway Japan, this was where the High Priestess famously prepared her inner circle of disciples (6 at a time) for the wars against the Great Enemy, and where her ministries were held to cleanse them of their deadly sins of careless mistakes and not leaving enough time in exams to check their answers.
In fact, so powerful was her presence that her spirit is rumoured to be still lingering within the chamber till today …
*Ground trembles*
Umm … excuse me?
COSINE RULE! a2 = b2 + c2 − 2bc cos A! BANZAI!!!!!
Oh no not again!
我会考甲一!
がんばって! A1!
WE WILL SCORE A1!
WE WILL SCORE A1!
WE WILL SCORE A1!
GRANDMA! STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*silence*
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.
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Umm … that’s the end of our tour.
If you’ve enjoyed it, I’d certainly appreciate a small token of appreciation from you at our tip box. We accept all major currencies but please don’t be a cheapskate and tip us in US Dollars.
Once again Thank You / Arigato / 谢谢 for coming and have a very Happy Lunar New Year 2999!
