Not that I don't have anything to write. I have all the content and perspective, but not the motivation to start doing something that is less interesting than surfing the net. I wish MSN Weather, Wikipedia and Facebook don't exist for these few days when I need to concentrate so badly. I have all the content they need, but I don't have the urge I need. Ugh. Maybe it's better for procrastinators like me to do things nearer to the deadline. Because now I'll just easily drift off to find out the weather conditions for Melbourne, Australia and Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Yup - I'm interested in such stuff. Ok I shall continue tomorrow, and hope I'll be fortunate enough to be able to concentrate, and write something very boomz. Boomz. Now I'll shingz off to bed.

Labels: school life

So at least I can say that I've done something. It's better than nothing at all. Sometimes, look at what you have accomplished, no matter how easily it is accomplished, instead of worrying about what you haven't accomplished. The deadline is 1st January. There's not much time, but I don't feel the rush and urgency. I've done something, but in fact I spent most of today sleeping and reading unrelated posts. Hah. But who knows. Maybe I'll withdraw at the last minute. Ok now back to reading some CHINESE books.

Labels: random

It feels so unusual that after this holiday, there's no school. It just feels weird. When there was school I used to wish that the new term wouldn't begin so soon, but now I'm hoping that there's a compulsion for me to return to school and see the people I want to see, and those whom I don't look forward to seeing. Call me a sentimental school-lover, but I'm missing the formal, uniformed school days now.

Between the end of my last A level paper and the beginning of my next big event, there are a few months. Sometimes when I think about how I'm going to spend this time, it's really really easy to be lost and directionless. Ever since I attended pre-school, I have never had such a long genuine break. I certainly don't want to waste a few months of precious time allocated for what I truly want to do. And believe me - it's scary to entertain such a thought.

I could find a job. Or participate in an internship programme somewhere. Or learn driving. Pick up a new language. Travel. Teach. Go out with friends. Go back to Hong Kong again. Read all those books I've bought or had wanted to borrow from the library. Go to somewhere near Singapore. I might end up doing all these, but I might end up doing none of these at all. I don't want to waste this time by sleeping and lazing around at home for a few months. But when laziness overtakes, I might succumb to slacking and doing anything far from productive. I don't want that, and thinking about how I might sadly end up wasting all my available time is a scary thing.

Get a job. You might say, since everyone is actively getting one, why not? I've heard of friends earning as little as $2 an hour, and some lucky ones $8 an hour, and rarely anything above $10. But consider this. After we graduate from university, we'll be spending the next few DECADES working just to survive. Why, then, should we engage in such an activity that is, unfortunately, most likely mundane, during the break? Of course working is a good experience, and you get to keep some or all of the money you have earned. But then I'm not a big spender or shopaholic and I don't need all these extra cash to satisfy my shopping desires at the new LV flagship shop at ION Orchard. I don't know what I should do. Work? Don't work? I don't know what works.

As for internship programme... I feel like I've missed an opportunity but it's not over, or rather I haven't really missed it at all. Aha. Confused. An internship is going to be heavily enriching though.

Driving seems more probable though.

What I really really want is to travel. Anywhere. Even if it doesn't involve a long-haul flight. I had thought that I could fly from Hong Kong to places like Hanoi/Northern Vietnam, Korea or Japan this winter, but due to time constraints I only went to Macau. It was a fruitful trip too, even though I've been to Macau twice before this. Anywhere too far north like Iceland or the UK or Canada would be highly unfeasible because the days are short, and there might be snowstorms. I wish someone would be free to travel around with me, but everyone is either not free or not interested. Ugh. So never mind. But if someone is really free for a holiday please send me a message or write on my wall or something or email me or send me a mail to my letter box. I really don't want to exist in Singapore throughout these few months. Ugh.

Don't you think it's one of the most fortunate things ever to be able to be a student forever? Don't tell me you've been thinking that life's gonna be better when you work. That's an obscenely wrongly optimistic thought.

Labels: my life

It's just 10 days, yet I felt like I've been there forever, and I wish I'm really there forever. Because of unfavourable circumstances, I could only spend 10 days in Hong Kong, and today I flew from the subtropical high pressure belt to the persistently warm tropics. It was 12 or 13 degrees C in Hong Kong - unusually low due to the high pressure system in Southern China and the cold winds originating from Northern China - and the usual weather here in Singapore.

Labels: my life

The NJC prom night, with the theme Metamorphosis, took place at Swissotel the Stamford at night on 7 December 2009. At five plus I met up with Shaun, Seng Chian and Kim Yong at Yio Chu Kang MRT. Shaun's mother kindly fetched us to the hotel on her car so we didn't have to squeeze on the MRT train with our make up :). As usual, the trendy, fashionable, meticulous and erm.... maybe cool... Kim Yong was very late after he spent almost half an hour in the toilet tidying himself up :).

Hwa Chong Institution also had their prom that night at the same hotel in the neighbouring ballroom. That's why I wasn't shocked to see Huey Jeen at the first floor lobby. But I was more shocked to see that I took some time to recognise certain girls, whose make-up and costumes have made them look completely different - and more boomz :). On Facebook, one of my friends had an album of the prom photos named 'No one dressed up like a caterpillar', and I thoroughly agree. Then we went to the toilet yet again because my vain friends wanted last minute touch-ups on their face and hair. And camwhoring began as we rode the escalator to the fifth floor.

There was an endless stream of photo-taking after we arrived at the lobby and reception area, and we were trying to appear in as many photos as possible. There was a rainbow-coloured cardboard sign made by the councillors, and it said it would take us 30 seconds to walk from that sign to the entrance to the ballroom, but it would take longer if we paused for photos. Nothing much about that actually. Then we went in and got our goody bags, which initiated some complaints. It would be better if the councillors had found a sponsor for plastic goody bags rather than paper ones because the latter is fragile and most people were annoyed, and threw away the whole bag with its contents by the time prom ended. But not me. Being the nice and sentimental guy I kept everything, regardless of how useless things like the portable cutlery were. And the torque magazine is still on my desk - unread and untouched. Some others got Men's Health, Seventeen and some other sponsored magazines, but I won't read them anyway.

I thought there was a cocktail reception, but all that was served by the waiters was coke and carbonated orange drink, which I'm sure contains 0% orange juice. After the coke and carbonated orange drink reception, we entered the hall and sat at our table - which has a number which I've forgotten. It's at the right of the stage, all the way in front, and very near to the screen. Talking about the screen, I don't know why the councillors had to display the windows vista screen throughout the dinner unless there was some show on stage. The windows vista screen is so disgusting. Not as if the windows 7 screen isn't, but they could have just offed the projector. And the place where 08S07 sat was near to the loudspeakers, so obviously it was so noisy that we had to sms each other to communicate with people on the same table. The loudness was so shingz. The councillors enjoyed dimming the lights whenever there's food on the table. Some call it ambience, but I call it annoyance. Just turn on the lights, and stop shining yellow light on the middle of the circular table...

I didn't expect much from the food, since it's not the main point of the event anyway. The emcee was boomz, and the activities and shows were boomz, and overall it was great if you ignore the lighting and food. We sabotaged Kok Wah to go onstage for the limbo walk thing, and he did us proud by being one of the 40 finalists. Well... considering there were 40 tables and each table of students had to send one rep... he had done a boomz job :D. And our table was not lucky because none of us won any lucky draw. Well... considering there are so few prizes this time compared to the CHS grad night, you must be very lucky in order to win the very exquisite round-trip to Bangkok for two - on bus - or the digital camera plus digital frame sponsored by our principal.

Four guys and four girls were called onstage, and only after they appeared before the audience, they were told that they were candidates for the most well-dressed. The winner was Muhd Kamaruddin, and I don't know the exact spelling, but this soccer guy looked very formal and I guess Dian Feng or Qing Wei or Kuan Loong looked much better than the winner, since he isn't really outstanding. He was just rather... decent :D. And the girl probably won because of her thick eyeshadow and flowery dress, which looked boomz. And the 3 other girls and all the guys looked boomz as well. Except that it was slightly embarrassing for F4 because somehow no one wanted to vote for her, even though she looked rather boomz too. Well all 8 of them plus all those who voted for them looked very boomz too.

To be continued. Since this is called 'Part One', it's only logical to find a 'Part Two' later. But I don't know when I'll update, since I'm going to the airport for my flight to Hong Kong now, and in Hong Kong there are a million better things to do than to blog, such as watching tv. So maybe you'll read about part two next year. Bye.

Labels: my life

The end of mainstream education came unexpectedly early. Grad night on Monday night was boomz, and I don't understand why the councillors all these years had difficulty getting people to attend such a heart-wrenching and memorable event - much better than the farewell assembly joke. There were no external guest performers, but every single event that night would not be easily forgotten. To quote from Eugene Koh's Facebook status update, "Why is everyone looking forward to graduation night when it's the saddest thing that can ever happen?", it was indeed a sad event that the end of all these 'halcyon' days have come to an end, but most people didn't want a teary farewell, so camwhoring and getting high were greater priorities that night.

All of a sudden, it seems like I've grown up overnight or something. Yesterday, I could finally leave my home without dressing up formally as if I were going to work. I was in just T-shirts and shorts pants, and not in some suit or tie and formal long pants that I had to wear on Monday and Tuesday. So yesterday I felt more like a teenager than an adult-wannabe (but I'm already 18).

Yesterday I went to the airport to send off Michael, Albert and Henry, who were flying back for good. And I smsed them something, which obviously would be too explicit, shocking and offensive to be stated here. After that, I went on bus 36, which was really convenient, to East Coast Park and found the rest of the first chro people at McDonalds. But what a poor attendance. But let's ignore those who decided to ignore the planned outing, since we had great fun roller skating. It was more of a psychological thing than a physical skill, since it was mentally tiring to pluck up courage to let go of the railings and skate freely. It was my first time yesterday, and I did not expect it to be so difficult. But it was a great accomplishment for Zheng Pin and me, who, with the assistance of Ka Tsun, not in skates, skated from the practice court to Burger King. That's very very very long, and *gasps* I lost count of the number of times I had to stop suddenly or fall down.

Ok gotta go for harmoc chalet now. I'll blog about the very boomz grad night some time later.

Labels: my life

After taking the SAT I and Subject Tests, I realised the drastic difference between the Singapore and American education systems. In my opinion, the aims of schooling in these two places and the levels of difficulty are dissimilar. The American 'syllabus' (perhaps they don't have a fixed syllabus like we do in our Advanced or Ordinary Levels) is much more superficial, while the Singapore syllabus, largely based on the British model, ensures that the students understand range of content required in great depth and detail, and critical thinking is greatly encouraged. In addition, rote learning is greatly emphasised in Singapore, while I'm not sure if that's so in the UK. Surely, by memorising and practising dozens of papers for the Singapore GCE 'A' or 'O' levels, a student is bound to perform much better in the exams. However in preparation for the SAT Subject Tests, rote learning was not necessary at all.

In addition, MOST of the questions in SAT I and II are MCQs, while for the Singapore exams, a great deal of writing is involved. In the Subject Tests, some questions are extremely basic and it would seem almost ridiculous for such questions to appear in any part of the 'A' levels. Perhaps the Americans only learn certain concepts in great detail if they were to major in that in university, and not in their secondary education, while the Cambridge syllabus requires us to understand a great deal of knowledge in the respective subjects - knowledge that would most certainly not aid anyone in the future careers or in university. The Princeton Review 2009-10 for Maths Level 1 and 2 states that 'most students would find Maths Level 2 extremely difficult, so the majority takes Maths Level 1'. After spending tens of hours on H2 Maths prelim papers, I guess most Singapore candidates would find that statement a colossal joke.

But certainly, as with most other students, preparing for SAT I or II is a breeze compared to two years of mugging for A levels. And after all, I'm still extremely glad to say that I'm sheltered under the well-planned Singapore education system for my primary and secondary education, which closely follows the British model, instead of the American style. No offense, but it just seems like a joke if I have graduated from an American high school, and my content knowledge is as little as what is tested in the SATs. The A levels certainly requires students to grasp a great deal of content and concepts, but I guess more information is better than less.

Labels: education, tests

It's ok, it's alright. As the Eason Chan song title goes, 'Nothing Ever Happened'.

So the A levels have officially ended with the completion of bio MCQ today. It feels great, but I felt a greater sense of euphoria last Monday after Chem MCQ ended, so it didn't feel too special to complete this last paper, after a gap of ten days. The A levels so far have been... both boomz and shingz. I can't think of other words to describe it, so I'll just say that it's ok, it's alright.

Labels: my life

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3195089&id=59899066172

How often do you get complimented? And when was the last time you accepted compliments without suspecting that your admirers are hinting sarcasm? It seems that as we grow, it is less likely for us to get genuine praises. Yet many fail to notice that from young, our parents, elders and teachers have been complimenting us repeatedly simply to prevent us from being discouraged by the harsher realities. Parents tend to coax their young children by praising excessively, so that their self-confidence will not be affected by the minor setbacks. You cannot expect a loving mother to tell her 3-year-old daughter that her colouring skills are egregious, even though the daughter might have, in fact, doodled on her colouring booklet. As young children, we might have failed to comprehend that not all words of praise are totally truthful, and they are meant to be white lies. For my friends of my age, you can't expect your parents or teachers to praise you for every single thing you have done. As we grow, it is increasingly difficult to achieve things that are worth genuine compliments.

Yet when we receive compliments, we are too often too quick to dismiss them as sarcastic remarks.

Labels: feelings

On Tuesday, I spent a boomz day with Shaun, Kerry and Ernest, with our endless flow of jokes and the D. Theory. :) For the first time I played L4D2 at Raiders in the morning while Shaun and Kerry were wasting their time on DoTA XD. I tried the single player and the online survival modes for Dark Carnival. It's hilarious to search for a channel with an 'expert' level of difficulty, and enter, and kill your teammates within a few headshots. And of course, they'll unanimously vote you OUT of the game. Luckily, I am a great survivor most of the time. I try my very very very best not to shoot teammates.

The electric chainsaw made a nice machine-like sound. If I'm not wrong, it would run out of battery eventually. But it's still good. Now you can use the frying pan, guitar and some other hook or stick or pole and the fireman's axe to axe your zombies' heads off. It's no longer just the boring boring guns/pistols/machine guns or something. I don't even know the names like AK or whatever pistol or sniper. I grab whatever is available and shoots well. Who caressss...

Finally I played a versus mode game with Shaun and Kerry. I think it was Hard Rain. Can't remember. Shaun had the audacity to join the opposing team! Haha. Poor Kerry and me. We had to grab online players such as 'Jalz', who loves dying, and 'Call me wonder woman', who has a profile pic of a wonder woman's face. Her name is just so funny. But it can't be funnier than our random comments. I was laughing throughout the game. After playing for a while, all 3 of us were overwhelmed, and decided to quit, and migrate back to L4D1.

I forgot what exactly happened, but I think we talked too much (in real life) and lost focus and were overwhelmed and phew! it was just in time for lunch at Long John Silver. Where Kerry and I had a Loooooooooooooooooooooong wait for our 'spicylicious' 3-piece chicken meal, which in my opinion, tastes a bit worse than the normal 3-piece chicken meal. According to Shaun, the wait was LONG because we were at LONG John Silver. And 'Nao Chong Xue' wasn't efficient enough. Haha those who were there would understand :D.

And then we were late for part II of the day. We rushed to the AMK MRT station, and boarded a train which had a faulty announcement system which might have caused thousands of riders to be confused. So professional of SMRT huh. When the train stopped at Yishun, it said Khatib. The error continued until a man's voice replaced the robotic female announcer's erratic announcement. So impromptu. But Kok Wah's fall onto a random passenger behind him was more impromptu. And so was Shaun's greedy occupation of the RESERVED SEAT. Ok he only sat for a minute. And also 'Gene and Beyonce'. Haha if you were there you should get what I mean.

There is never a karaoke session which isn't fun. This is especially true when we actually played songs like 路边的野花不要采, and Humpty Dumpty. Yeah. We were bored of pop songs at a point of time. I couldn't find my favourite 凤飞飞 song. And the new song Hua Sha isn't there yet... :(. But it's ok, considering it's a really economical student deal :). I couldn't find Dai Ai-ling's songs too. Instead, we found songs by 郑惠玉，范文芳，梁志强，张菲. The MVs for a few songs were sooooo wrongly matched. When it comes to Britney Spears' Toxic, you should expect a saucy, sexy and sassy and naughty MV, but we were greeted with a scenery of a river that lasted all the way to the end of the song. Weird weird. But at least the lyrics displayed were totally correct.

Ok I shall blog about Wednesday, Thursday and Friday soon.

Labels: my life

其實，一切想擁有的，難得卻終於得到的，都只是一個又一個心理包袱。我們擁有得越多，懮慮便越多，因爲得到了之後，我們總更加擔心自己會失去難以得來的一切。著名作詞人林夕在古巨基的「花灑」裏有一句「何必要做奴隷，無須要爲失去了的執迷，人流量或會象四季……」

Just a random thought. I'm NOT emoing :D

Labels: random

Human geography is over, but it would have been better if they did not provide the names of African countries in the Insert, for certain unmentionable reasons :).

If you need to know why, you would have already known it. :)

The map of Africa shocked people, like Sarah Palin, who have been believing that Africa is a country. Or people who have been thinking that Africa consists of only 2 countries: 'North Africa' and South Africa, perhaps only after Ris Low made that country famous.

Examples of phrasings that roll your markers' eyes:

In the slums of Africa, a city in an LDC, there are...
People moved from rural areas like Africa to cities like America.
Rural-urban migration occurs in countries like Africa
Africa experiences a tropical monsoon climate
In the continent of Russia,...
LDCs such as Scandinavia and Cairo...
90% of Africa is the Sahara Desert
The Sahara Desert, also known as the Sahel,...
In Seoul, JAPAN, the 1998 earthquake...
The urban structure of Africa, a city in an LDC, is influenced by historical factors because it was once a European colony...
Countries like the EU and the UN should enhance the greenhouse effect and prevent global warming by lowering sea levels...
The Sichuan earthquake occurred at the plate boundary between the Chinese and Japanese plates...
People moved from rural areas like England to cities like California.
Refugees moved into Japan from Australia during world war I - a form of voluntary transmigration...
However, while DCs like California, New York and Florida signed the Kyoto Protocol, USA did not...
In London in the US, the...
Russia's tropical climate encourages chemical weathering...
During the eruption of a volcano near Kuala Lumpur in 2008...
During the American Civil War in 1980, many refugees involuntary moved to countries like London and Africa
In LDCs like Africa, the TFR is 1903 per woman, and there are 3109 births per 1000 people, so the population growth rate is negative, leading to a population boom(z)...

Answers like these are so not boomz, so I hope you haven't included them in your A level scripts :). If not, the Cambridge markers will say, oh no, this student is so shingz.

Labels: random, school tests

...I will post a few songs on my blog! Listen to them if you wish to.




2009
Jay Chou and Cindy Yen - Hua Sha
周杰倫 ＋袁咏琳：畫沙
Cindy Yen is a new singer. Her voice isn't that powerful, compared to powerhouses like Elva Hsiao and A*mei. The lyrics don't really make much sense either. But still, listen.



2007
Hacken Lee
李克勤：花落誰家
Being a 42-year-old father does not inhibit Hacken's dominance in the Cantopop market. With his powerful voice, and his lack of ability to write songs (all his songs and lyrics are NOT written by him), there is little limit to his growth. This is especially true when he has professional lyric writers like Lam Yoek-ning who penned the poetic lyrics which remind us of the urgency of environmental degradation. This deviates from the saccharin love songs that most singers are only capable of delivering.

Labels: music

Yes - I'm still here. It just seemed sinful to be updating my blog during the crazy two-week period with nine papers, so I'm only updating now, with 9 out of 12 papers completed. I'm left with bio paper 3, and bio and chem MCQs.

Today, there was a heavy rain but I didn't know it would be so severe as to spill over the huge canal along the parallel roads outside our school. Physics students were late. I heard many took their 1h 15 min paper barefooted, or at least, drenched with muddy water. Some even took the paper at our friendly neighour's school hall because they were stuck on buses near Coronation Plaza. HCI was nearer, and it might take 45 minutes to waddle from there to NJC's hall. It's so epic and dramatic. Who would have expected that the long stretch of canal and the extensive sewage system of Bukit Timah to be inadequate in handling huge rainfall intensities? I've seen some photos on Facebook posted by friends of friends. The canal overflowed into the Dunearn and Bukit Timah Roads, while the wheels of most cars were submerged in the muddy, brown water. We thought we were in the Yellow River of China.

Why did I use 'we'? It's THEM. I was walking home at 1.55pm, and who would ever know that Singapore is soooo big that there would be calm weather in Sengkang, and insane rainfall in Bukit Timah? Physics A level students were caught badly, but the car owners who parked their vehicles in the half-underground Sixth Avenue Plaza carpark were worse. Their cars were submerged because water flowed into there. In the future, the Downtown Line of the MRT will be constructed. Without any substantial improvements, will water flow into the underground stations, and form rapids on the stairs and escalators? I don't know.

When I was on the train from Ang Mo Kio to Sengkang, I thought many students from other JCs would be late. At 1.35pm, a few were waiting for the train at Serangoon to SAJC. Some others just got off the train at Serangoon and are about to change to the Circle Line to Lorong Chuan to NYJC. A few heading to SRJC were on the same train as I was. Of course, the only reason they're rushing to school at that hour was that they're taking Physics. And while I thought they were... doomed, our students at Bukit Timah Junior College are stuck and late.

On another note, it just seems entertaining that when students are stuck on the bus which cannot move due to the still traffic, the bus drivers can't open the doors either, because the water outside will rush into the bus, inundating the floor.

Labels: school life

I always have these random thoughts that surface sporadically. Before I forget them, let me just record them somewhere. I should be revising bio now, but well 3 minutes wouldn't kill.
__________

Sometimes I really wonder why some people are so devoid of feelings of any kind. But perhaps such people have an advantage since they don't get mood swings that affect their productivity.

Some other people are certainly born without a conscience. Some others just cling on to certain ideas and are too stubborn to adapt. While some others can simply forgive and forget as if nothing ever happened. And some others act as if they're fine when they're simply very affected.

I don't understand, and I don't think anyone will be able to understand all of these.
__________

During the Song Dynasty, around 1100 AD, China was the dominant economy in the world. The Song empire controlled 35% of the world's GDP. Even now, the USA only dominates 23% of the world's economy.

Random.

Labels: random

No way...

Upon entering the hall, we were greeted by the lack of chairs. I thought we went to the wrong place - maybe it should have been at LT5. But well, we saw Mrs VC and Ms CSK. And all the civics tutors were waiting at the back of the hall.

It very pleasantly began with the announcement of the top students of every subject. I lost count of the number of times I stood up. Oh yeah I haven't told you that I got merely a few A's and B's for the prelims. In terms of number of top students, 08S07 owned 08S01 totally. Our two geniuses are Sofia and Sherman. Sofia topped H1 Geography and Sherman topped H2 Tamil Language and Lit. Did I make a mistake? Ok it's the other way round, but who cares? 08S01 only had one topper - Edmund - who topped H1 General Paper. The previous queen of GP, Rose Marie Tan of 08S15, had been relegated to Rosmarinus officinalis, a woody, perennial herb with fragrant evergreen needle-like leaves. (The fresh and dried leaves are used frequently in traditional Mediterranean cuisine; they have a bitter, astringent taste, which complements a wide variety of foods.) Jay Chou even has a song for her (it) - 迷迭香. Ok that wasn't funny at all, but well you get the idea that she's probably second this time (but I really don't know). Thinking about this, it's almost impossible for 08S07 to NOT have a top scorer for every test, because all the 3 who take H2 Tamil are in this class. And Sherman or Zhung How has been topping H1 Geog all the while, except for this year's CTs, when Zuan Bao of 08S14 topped it instead. So back to me... when Ms CSK mentioned my name I stood up proudly and waved to everyone :).

Then Mrs VC talked for about half an hour, and I remembered almost nothing that she said. Perhaps if I went back to CHS and listened to Mr Lee Hak Boon I could remember his words two years down the road. I only remember that she mentioned there's a 'part II' to her speech. Because Mrs VC was interrupted by Ms SP, who meticulously reminded us of exam procedures and security. The teachers are so concerned about Mr Alvin Bek, because he has to dig into the MOE network for our confirmation slip if we forgot to bring it to our A level exams. In addition, we have to pay $5 or $10 for unknown reasons. So, let's bring our slips so that Mr Bek can strut and shop peacefully at Plaza Singapura, and that he doesn't need to silence us.

Without a doubt, part II of Mrs VC's talk was more interesting. I thought the positioning of a clock in the middle of the stage in front of the school hall required the concerted efforts of professional interior designers, architects such as I. M. Pei, and contractors, but apparently our adroit principal did all these by herself - she measured the midpoint of the width of the stage to the precision of 1 picometre, and voila - the $2500 digital clock was really right smacked in the middle! The only surprise was that I had expected the clock to cost like $100, yet we were told that the money we have donated to the school would be spent with special planning, and would be used to purchase clocks that cost a few thousand bucks. This clock, which I must say was a great help in time management during the exams, doesn't cost $100, but I'm sure the new clock-cum-timer-cum-scoreboard to be located in the indoor sports hall will cost a hundred times as much.

On a sidenote, I hope the school will extend the deadline for donations because many many people are very very interested and committed in donating clocks and benches and perhaps, the metal letterings used to put up the names of our future president scholars on the board in the hall. I'm sure there are many to come.

The consequent programmes were highly exciting, but it doesn't warrant a blog paragraph, so let's skip to the part when my bladder gave me a timely reminder the moment the cheers started. So I awarded myself a 10-minute toilet break, which involved much more than that. We talked and gossiped downstairs (only). Some other J2s went to buy drinks, and bought them into the hall. Their bottles of orange and white and red liquid had been observed by the PE teachers who guarded the doors the moment the students entered.

I forgot to mention that many students buried their heads either in slumber or in notes while someone was speaking.

After all the exuberance and joy, there came the most poignant video ever. It was all about NJCians' aesthetic performances and orientation activities. The teachers didn't include anything about mugging, so perhaps that's one stereotype that the school had been desperately trying to remove, yet failing every year. Well, many students actually fixed their eyes onto their newly-received Chem revision package when the tear-jerking video was played.

That was followed by a scene fresh out of Inglourious Basterds, in which Shousanna and Marcel set the cinema on fire, and everyone panicked. Students scurried around and compared CCA records, while some others panicked after finding out their 120 hours of CIP had not been recorded. Those with errors gathered in front, demanding those forms they had to fill in to correct their records. While some others gave up, and resorted to camwhoring. CIP reps looked for classmates for their forms, only to be disappointed that everyone's CIP records were erroneous.

After an hour of helter-skelter, many made their way to the linkway for a gastronomical and epicurean feast fit for a king. Who could ever forget the plastic-like substance called pudding? It's the same orange chemical matter we were treated to after the Colours Award a few months ago.

That's NJC's Graduation Assembly 2009 for you. It was so boomZ.

Labels: school life

http://www.doodlersanonymous.com/entry.php?entryID=1377#more

Labels: pictures

Bored. Really bored. Perhaps studying in front of the computer for the whole day is really a bad idea. I've tried it many times before but I just end up on Facebook and MSN. Shouldn't have redone this today. And today's really really boring. I should have gone to AMK library or the MacDeez near my house to study. I'm astonished at my lack of productivity and efficiency. MUST START THIS WEEKEND. I prognosticate that I won't have to do much tomorrow. I'll do a lot of maths and I won't care whether I enjoy it or not. For many weeks, and those before the prelims, I have not been studying with my computer on, and it had been fine. Today I've been on the computer for the whole day.

While a few hours were spent on something meaningful which totally concerns my future, the rest were just a freaky waste of time. I need to recall how to do Correlation and Regression and Hypothesis testing! It's amazing that my prelim maths paper 2 is worse than paper 1. Many people find statistics much much easier, but to me, stats are only a bit easier than pure maths. Not to mention I need to study study study for bio too. Like what happens at the synaptic cleft and how insulin or glucagon etc works. Chem too, even though I have been doing a lot of chem. Geog must be done too! And a bit of GP here and there. And for physical geog I really need to read up on hydro and atmo. That's like 2/3 of the whole syllabus. And I need to improve my essays for physical and human geog. Honestly my human DRQs were very good. Ugh. So much to do, so little time, and more importantly, so little motivation ;(.

:D

I need to study! It's the A levels. :D

Labels: my life, school life

I took such a long break that I've lost touch with Maths. After the prelims I haven't been doing maths at all since it was not something I enjoyed. And now, looking at my prelim answers, I wonder how I actually managed to get certain stuff correct. Help. I think it takes one whole week for me to pick up maths skills again. Then I'll look for Mr ST for intensive help.

Labels: homework, school life