Hello. I was from AJ too, and I was from Science, year of 95, and I am a Student Councillor, so I guess I got stuff to say about what you wrote here.
First of all, everyone talks about the AJ spirit, that is true. However, what I was told all the time while I was in Council was that the spirit is the people, the people is the spirit. If people just keep saying no spirit, no spirit, obviously there won't be spirit. While one single person cannot do anything to raise the spirit, neither can the Councillors by themselves. Most of the time, in my time at least, Ajcians just go down to activities with the bochap attitude, and expect to be touched by the "AJ Spirit". That is not possible. I guess sometimes, the spirit can be seen in activities like Orientation, when the year ones are not that brainwashed against the school and the council yet, like the songfights, and the group spirit, or maybe some of the classes have really strong spirit, which actually is a subset of the AJ spirit.
Secondly, AJ people are stupid? Well, I don't really know about the state AJ is in now, but I think stupid and intelligent people exist everywhere.
Thirdly, the location is bad?? Hmm....I also don't know how you define bad. Must be Orchard then good? Then I guess many of the JCs also cannot make it already. I think AJ is meant to be a neighbourhood school, and so it is located in a neighbourhood. I think it is well located for its purposes.
Fourthly, AJcians are too cheena? Well, again, I think Cheena people exist everywhere, just like Angmo people. I think there is nothing wrong with speaking mandarin, though I guess if you are talking about the low level of english competence, I have to agree with you.
Lastly, regarding the Students' Council. Every year, the SC will get bombed and every year, year 1s will go into office with great ideas, and pledges that they will make the changes and make their SC the best ever. I don't know whether that has actually happened yet, but I do know that most of the time, the councillors, after working as councillors for some time, realise that most of the dreams are quite impossible. Let me list some of the reasons:
1) Not enough support. By this, I mean both from students and admin. I think no matter what the Councillors do, there will always be people who object to them. Add to that the fact that sometimes, projects for the students are costly, and not easy to get support from the school, and I think it is easy to see why most of the projects fail.
2) Lack of continuation. I think this is a problem that exists everywhere where there is a need for different batches to take over. Every SC will have something that they agree to do, and where these projects spill into the next year, it is hard to convince the next SC to carry on. Examples for this I guess would be the different projects that is done. Most of the time, SCs will come up with new projects that they think is a good idea, and hope that it will become tradition, but usually it is discontinued after a while. My batched started the Music and Arts festival, I wonder if it is still around now?
3) Management of time. As many candidates for Council will say, balancing between Council and schoolwork is just about management of time. However, even in Council, there is a lack of time, as the the Councillors find that they only got one short year to squeeze in all the events they want to, and that means lots of time spent. Add to that the fact that they have to spent time on everyday stuff, like the renting of carrom boards, and the umbrella services when it rains. Councillors are students too you know, and they too have limited time.
Well, I think many people probably will not finish reading this very long post, and I thank those who did. What I have spoken about is based on what happened in my time, and if everything has changed since then, I apologise for wasting your time. I would just like to say that everywhere I go, where there is student bodies elected, they will get lots of stick for lousy management, bad decisions, not doing work, etc. I think that is a common habit for those who voted to pick on those who are elected. I am not saying that there must not be complains, but I do hope that people will bear in mind that those you elected do not owe you a living, they are volunteers who get little, if not no benefits from doing what they do.