I am freed!

The last paper is finally over!! i am free at last! not only do i not have to do any more studies or projects, i can channel all the time to doing what i like... for 2 months!! i had similar 2 mth breaks during my sec sch.. but this time it seems much more a refreshing break, cos this semester i had hardly any holiday, save the 2 weeks for christmas which wasnt much of a holiday as the exams were just shortly ahead. now is the time i can finally really enjoy. the past 2 weeks were just rushing studies.. very cramped schedule as i didnt spread it out over the 2 week break. under such stress, i realised i get hungry faster. now i noe y many put on during the 2nd half of J2.

this morning i was so eagerly anticipating my upcoming freedom that i couldnt really concentrate on my last minute studies. i had to repeatedly tell myself not to rejoice too soon.. just wait another few more hours. as i put down my books and headed for school i was feeling happy alr cos it would be the last time i touched any study material for the next 2 months.

but sadly i didnt have that kind of rejoicing moment once the paper ended.. cos the paper itself dampened my spirits. i was fine before he paper, but when it started, i was stuck on the first qn. not that i didnt know how to do.. it was quite complicated but do-able. my mind was just blanked out. a subject requiring much analysis n interpretation of data proved to be indigestable by my blurred brain. i never felt like that before.. really terrifying. i was panicking... then i took a few minutes to rest and pray. when i got up i was still in the blur state. i spent more than 30 minutes on a 17-mark qn. but like some miracle, at the moment 30minutes passed, my brain suddenly turned functional, and even better than normal. i finished the next 9-mark question in just 6 minutes! i was so amazed at what happened. the turbo boost lasted for another 40 mins or so, before returning to normal performance. that was how i sort of managed to finish my paper. overall... not so confident though. so it spoilt my otherwise happy ending.

this time somehow i felt the studies burdening me like ever before, not even before O lvls. after the paper today i felt the chains being broken and the world brightened. as if to signify my newfound freedom, i got a good cut. i also bought new sandals to replace my broken masking-taped old ones, and revisited some familiar places at the same time.

now 2 months may seem long, but it will be over before i know it. i got so many things i plan to do during the holidays, and i shall make it a point to spend the time more meaningfully past holidays. now i have a list of at least 1 things alr, more things to be thought about.

Yatta!

yay i feel really good today! its not usual for me to count my eggs b4 they hatch, but today i just wanna gloat while i can. i may still be able to gloat afterwards though.

today i had my stats exam.. all those chapters that im weaker in didnt come out. so i was able to do ALL the qns. and just b4 the exam, i happened to ask just the right person for help on how to use the calculator for some function that could help to save a lot of trouble. she was like teaching me in full detail even with explainations like as if im a first time student in her tuition class. wow. and true enough it came out in the exam! it saved me so much time and effort than to do it the long and tedious way. and yes i needed that saved time quite badly cos i made a careless mistake during the start of a long qn.. and lucky i found out so i had to redo the whole qn, wasting alot of time. but i still managed to finish the paper just on time.

and since this subject is like math - if u noe how to do the qn, getting full marks is easily possible. so yeah.. its been a long time since i felt this confident of my performance. not that i studied very hard.. i was feeling quite apprehensive before it.. but after seeing the qns i was relieved. no qns left me scratching my head, despite some that were unfamiliar. Really must have been God's help. almost unbelievable.

on mon my exam was terrible... due to being late for 15 mins i ran outta time n left abt 10 marks of qns unattempted. pkus i made a very stupid mistake costing 6 marks. 3 grades down. ouch. but nvm... i redeemed myself today. and this module has twice the credits than that 1 i screwed up. so i stand to gain!

But my getting an A is far from guaranteed. there may be careless mistakes that im not aware of even tho i checked. and its also SP's policy that not more than 30% can get A for a perticular module. thats in addition to the 80% requirement for getting A. and it seems too many ppl r doing well in stats. i heard sum1 got an average score of 100 for all the tests so far. my current standing at 60% weightage is 80. this exam makes up the other 40%. and more than a third of my class stands at above 80. if they maintain it for this exam, im not getting A.

anyway, even if i dont get A, i wont cry or be sad. cos i know that im good, just that too many others are better. now theres 2 more exams remaining...hope they will be good as well.

update 16/1

Ok today i shall practice verbal diarrhea. my posts normally take more than 40 mins to write. must master the skill of verbal diarrhea to save time. so im gonna time myself. her goes..

so the past few days have been.. boring. study study study. but its so rushed. therrw hardly enoug time. before that all projects then summore got 1 more project not even started when my new term started. so alot of time taken off my studies. after the 2 week break for christmas only got 3 weeks more then exam alr. how they expect me to study sia. christmas time is for celebration.. so yea i tried getting into the festive mood which can be done only by FORGETTING about sudies during that time. syudies are a real killjoy. and now im short of time. 5 subjects exams. can cover all la. but no time after that for practice and 2nd round. dunno if whatever i studies actually stayed inside. God grant me a brain like clayey soil... hah.

today went to school early in the morning just for 2 hours of exam. sian. sleepy. last night couldnt sleep well. since joel is at some leader camp enjoying himself i tot i wanna try his bed. joel i hope u dun mind. then halfway i woke up.. wa.. so uncomfortable. dunno y. maybe cos he doesn have a bolster so i can only lean on 1 side. then i had this feeling like i never had before, like im very tired and wanna sleep but somethign is just preventing me from sleeping everytime. its a sort of discomfort but not so much of physical. aiya duno how to explain la. and that giant ayumi poster hanging over me.. very scary. haha jkjk. ok back to the exam. ya i was tired. couldnt really think properly. and the exam was on CRITICAL REASONING skills! arrgh. sure enough, i think i picked the wrong qn. so hard to write la. after i wrote halfway i realised. i picked it cos the others had strong opposing points or is unclear. but this.. may be worse. my points were in my head, but just cant explain it well. i was so unconvinced by my own arguments. bad bad bad. i dunno if i could have done better if i wasnt so tired. maybe not. blame joel's uncomfortable bed. haha.

never mind.. 2 more weeks and ill be FREE!! for 2 months! i dunno what im gonna do. try find job but with my qualification level i can only get lousy jobs. maybe ill try working in church! or join in serve again for a few sessions. haha could be fun. ohh and im going melbourne on 17 feb. wheeeeeee!!! whahah. ok that was siao. but i guess this time is realy gonna be a different experience. beeen a long time since i went free n easy. the 1st and only time before was in NZ and i was only 5 then. cant rmb much. its so nice to not be bound by the schedules and programs of the itienaries, just go wherever u want at whichever time. spend more time at a place u like and skip all those borring places like temples and museums (like in vietnam n tailand visit soo many temples. borrrrring.) im more interested in natural stuff. maybe melbourne doesn have so much of that. its an urban jungle. well see how it goes.

i better get back into the mood for study.. i still haven got that drive like i did for my previous sem just before the exams.. noo cannot fail anything. die die cannot. so far i havent la. lowest record is 58, and its for a 35% weightage test!! ouch. scientists should come up with a study pill, that can make us want to study and love the books like a girlfriend, just as ivan does. wahahaha. that will be the greatest motivator to study. and yes i think i will buy that. as long as it doesn turn me obsessive.
ok my books are calling. i still dun feel like responding, but for the sake of my exams, i shall. (the end)

yay my timing is .. 22 mins! very much faster than normal. but i guess the quality difference is obvious. maybe ill try semi solid next time. haha.

semestral sprint

my 1st year of poly is coming to end soon. 1st sem seemed fast. 2nd sem was harder, but time passed without much notice cos we were so caught up with the work and there was no break for us, save for the 2 weeks just enough for the christmas season. it still seems so shortly ago that i started sem2.

the last project of the semester is over! finally i can take a breather from all the staying back after lessons at the uncomfortable benches staring at paper or microsoft documents and putting up with all the group politics. but no time for rest... exams lurk very near ahead! i shall be forced to turn into a lifeless mugger for the rest of the month. im already quite short of time for studies. i hate projects. but i can expect even more in year 2.. arrgh!

i did my last project presentation today.. the 1st group to present. The module is innovation, design & enterprise in action (idea) and we had to come up with plans for a non existing product and try to promote it. i was really outcome, we did better than i expected. i felt our product really lacked sense of wonder and originality as most of its components are already in market. our product banked mainly on practicality and relevance to daily activities. but after seeing the other group's ideas, they were all even more ordinary, redundant or lacking wonder, despite being more original. so we were told ours was the best among those today, and will be sent for the ideas challenge audition! i may end up competing on a national level. cool.

Ok starting tomorrow its all boring mugging. 5 subjects and lots uncovered as yet. get over the exams, then im free again! for quite some time. maybe ill find a job after that. im half looking forward to next sem where the modules are more into tourism and should be more interesting, but half dreading it cos very certainly ill have more late work nights than this sem. hope it doesnt go too hard on me, and God guide me though them.

Welcome 2008

The new year has come. Happy new year! this time i spent the last few moments of the year in church, and it went by so discreetly. i didnt have the emo mood like i did on 31dec 2006. when the year passed, we were still having holy communion. couldnt exclaim in the moment. And somehow, it didnt feel like as if the new year was coming. i think its my bio clock... cos i been sleeping much later on the average than the previous year. all thanks to poly. so 11.50 din seem late, and i thought the nights still early. i do hope to revert back to my past sleeping habit this year.

I waited for the new year to come before posting on last year's incident, so as not to spoil the nice number i mentioned b4.

On the 30th dec last year I had 2 rather important gatherings. One being the year end cell outing, also the last meeting for the year, but hopefully not the last topaz outing. The other being the first primary 6 class reunion I was invited to. Held at my classmate’s house. Previously It was more like school events. If not for fortunately meeting an ex classmate during serve, I would probably continue to be totally cut off from 6F like I was for the past 4 years.

Topaz won 2nd prize! Didn’t really expect that but looking back its rather possible cos we did do well in games a good number of times. But we didn’t seem to spend any of the money on the outing. The place was free - at pine grove. Food was also free – left over Christmas goodies at Claudia house…or was it new year goodies whatever. And self-supplied mushroom pizzas too. We just spent the time playing with mice and card game that never got started while waiting for the rain to stop, then went down to swim. After that we had gifts exchange – the gifts also bought with our own $$. After the exchange it was already 6+ and half of us had to go, including me.

We left without much of a proper topaz closure.. Guess it will be done on the 1st week. I was terribly late for my overlapping meeting all the way northeast at Seletar. And no way would I want to miss the class reunion. As much as possible, also not to miss any part of it. So it was scheduled at 4.30 and I was still in pine grove at 6.30. fortunately I got a lift to bishan station. I saw its only 2 mrt stops away from yio chu kang, so there must be some buses going there straight. Indeed there was, but due to unfamiliarity I got down the bus way too early. I had to wait for the next bus and then I got down at YCK rd this time. But I didn’t realize yio chu kang road is so long that my stop was 10 stops away from the stop im supposed to alight.. also at YCK rd. im guessing the bus trip made me go in rounds or travel much extra distances so it would have been much better to take the mrt then bus to the house. Such is the risk of trying to take shortcuts in unfamiliar territory.

During the trip I was quite frantic cos I thought I missed a lot of activity and they also told me theres ‘a good number of people here already’. I finally managed to alight at the right bus stop at 8, and then find my way down the lane, pass descending house numbers to find the place. A few of them were outside to welcome me, and when I stepped into the house… all I saw was about 10 ppl. Wow.. during the whole time between 4.30 and 8 only 10 ppl came. And they actually waited for me before starting to eat the KFC that was delivered over quite some time ago.. judging from the food temperature when we ate.

It took me a few seconds of staring before I recognized each of them, and another few seconds to recollect their name. some changed so much that I was left totally clueless. 5 years can really do an extreme makeover to some during this peak growth period. There was this girl who was 1 of the ugliest in the class in primary 6. she was fat, bespectacled, nerdy-looking with flowerpot hairstyle in the graduation photo. But now shes gorgeous. Both in face and figure. There was only a trace of similarity from before. Puberty period growth mostly makes us look better. But there are some who do decline la.

We spent most of the time watching TV and chitchatting among ourselves. About 5 more ppl came in later than me. The last one coming as late as 10.30. I passed around the class photo for them to sign autographs... something that should have been done 5 years ago. I found out my class is a really smart bunch. Out of the 15 present, there is one each now in Anderson, raffles, st Andrews, pioneer, AC, ACSI, jurong, and nanyang JC. And 2 having break from studies in aus, the remaining 5 in poly. Hardly anyone went to NA or NT in sec sch. And im probably 1 of the worst students among them judging from the sec schs they went to. Not surprising, after I heard from 1 of my good friends then that he remembers me sleeping during the PSLE paper. Even I didn’t remember that. I have hardly any memories of the PSLE period or the postings. Which shows how not bothered I was, even about such a major exam as that. By God’s grace was I able to qualify for express. Almost a third of the whole class had gone overseas to further studies. And im sure 70% would after JC or poly. Such is the attractiveness of local education.

At 11+ it was time to celebrate the birthday of my classmate whose bd is actually on 31st, but she had to go soon so couldn’t wait till midnight. The cake surprise was spoiled by a bugger who opened the door just at a nice timing. Then it was too late to take bus or MRT home. The only choice left was cab. So we decided we might as well stay on longer since theres no more hurry or time limit. We played forfeit card games, the forfeit being a dose of Absolut vodka. Some left halfway. We played on until 1+, and by the end of it we finished more than 500ml of vodka, and 2 ppl were drunk and really flushed. The one who drank most remained very sober, though.

I didn’t know it could be that fun. fun to drink, fun to play the game, fun to see others lose, get forfeit and most of all get drunk. Drunkards can behave really weird. But I wouldn’t wanna do it so often. Once or twice a year is good frequency. Staying late also cost us a bomb, with cab fare of $28+. Look forward to this year’s reunion.