Tuesday, October 02, 2007
WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO promos are offcially over!!!
I'm having mixed emotions about this liberation from mugging. Definitely, I'm happy coz I'm offcially cured from the MMS (Mega Mugging Syndromme) after a horrific month of mugging from end of class till 9pm in the library. (not to mention the artic-conditioned library during the late hours) I also get to do what I want and perhaps sleep a little bit more. Most importantly, more time with family and my grandma who flew over from HK in August, only to watch me mug my ass off everyday.
End of promos also means the pressure buildup of the dreaded PW. The thought of it just spoils the entire mood. In addition, I will have to get back to my research attahcment two weeks from now and do something to try to bag a silver or about award in SSEF next year. 20 days from today, we are getting back our results and I hope that I won't get the same result as my CTs, which is totally terrifying. But then and again, you gotta have a taste of failure before knowing the sweetness of success.
(Quoted from Varun)
Have a semi-screwed-up feeling after I handed in my last paper, which was totally horrible!!! The Bio structure questions are freakin' long and the essays were tedious. For maths, I forsee that I will lose 15 marks because of careless. For chem, I forsee that I will get 10/20 for MCQ. For econs .... I don't know. Just pia the essay for the whole of 1 hour and 30 mins not knowing what crap I'm.. crapping.
I shall not write about my expectations this time round. The last time I wrote my GREAT expectations here (an intentional pun which the lit ppl will know), the value of "standard deviation" was positive infinity.
Now let's move on to other interesting stuff/observations that I made for the past month or so.
LONDON!
Still reminicisng the days in London when I could wake up at 8am everyday and only attend two lectures with a 2 hour lunch break! Quoting from Jem, "Life's great". However, the moment I set foot on Singaporean soil, I got the MMS and lost contact with the friends I made over there. Perhaps I should start working on this.
Talking about friends, I realised that I haven't been keeping in contact with some of my non-school friends. People like Jerome (As long as the imposter Jason is not appearing on this tagboard, it shows that Jerome hasn't been here for quite some time). Thethy from China, Jess from Cech Republic, Venus from HK, Wilson, Arthur and Ivan from Australia. Okay, the list shall stop here...
Back to london, I shall post my LIYSF photos asap. Try not to be jealous okay! haha.
Appearing Offline
I observed that quite a fair bit of people like to appear offline. I'm wondering why these people appear offline for the sake of appearing offline? Might as well don't come online at all if you don't want to be disturbed, right?
Studying partners
I find studying "partners" (erm.. or friends) are extremely crucial. SOMEBODY should know why "partners" are important. wait.. I mean partner, no 'S'.
When you are sitting in front of Andrew Cheong, you are looking at a straight A's student and you are definitely feeling the pressure when you listen to him talking about how many people died in the Tangshan earthquake.
If you are sitting in front of Andre, you are saved from the evil clutches of every single maths question that NJ maths teachers can throw to you because he is practically the human calculator with an Intel Triple core processor microchip in his brain that functions at lightspeeds.
When you are sitting next to Jiafang and co., you will feel that you are the most mechanistic person in the whole wide world as they lead the NJ Liberation Front (new party) and stand up for the Arts at all costs! And if you are sitting next to Jamie Chin, please protect your notes at all costs as she will just go high and start drawing on your notes. What's worse is that she writes german, a language which you don't understand at all (though most probably it is not going to be any form of complement). You will also feel that you are most boring person on Earth while you watch them highlighting their history and literature texts using highlighters with colours across the entire spectrum of light. BUT, you will feel how fortunate you are when watch them swallow the entire set of history notes and all their Great expectations into their brains while all you need to do is punch values into calculators. So please do give SOME applause and look as if you are very impressed.
When you are with the "Bros", you will you are bloody studious because they were playing DOTA 2 hours before their paper.
When you are with Elaine (Siew), you will learn about every single drama series from channel VV55 down to the smallest detail. In addition, elaine will include her very own commentary and her thoughts about every single character. call this value-added service at no extra charge as elaine siew derives a lot of satisfaction when she narates to you the entire episode. Though she has some talent in analysing characters, she chose not to take lit, a subject which requires people to analyse dunno-how-many characters.
But whoever it is you are studying with, whether it is mutually distracting each other or putting heads together to solve a maths problem, we are still working hard for our straight A's which seems more like a holy grail at the very instant when I handed up my papers.
So much fun blogging about people here! Little observations that make life a little bit more interesting and fun.
Colours
I was strolling outside the library one of the nights and saw all those people who got colours for their respective CCA achievements. First of all, I feel happy for them, especially for the people whom I know. It’s good to see all their efforts and hard work being recognized by the school with such an occasion. Get to see all the proud presidents/captains going up the stage and talked about their stories of success.
But some bitterness and envy came along as I realized that my CCA hasn’t been performing for the pass 11 years! The last time NJ badminton got colours (if there were any) was way back in 1996! And like what ms oon said, the next time badminton get colours will be the year where NJ produces a president scholar. (HAHA!) Not that im pessimistic, but I don’t see NJ badminton going anywhere near top four in the years to come. Then I asked myself, I have been in this CCA for three years, what can I do or contribute to make all these years worthwhile? I have no idea.
The ironic thing is that all the CCA groups, from Western Dance to Chinese Orchestra, which fought with us over the usage of the hall, won something. This makes badminton very “zhor dang”, a waste of space. These people get “scolded” by us when they cross into our courts, and yet, they are the ones getting something. We sounded like some bossy people who really thought that the hall was built for the purpose of badminton. (I still remembered that time when we declined to allow WD to practice in the hall for their Aristal because we were having our nationals.)
To a certain extent, Colours very much reflected how much the school supports each CCA. All the CCAs that got colours were the performance arts groups and a handful of sports CCAs. Where has all the diversity went to? We kept on saying that we are a school with many diverse options offered, but yet, we see the school supporting a few sports CCAs! Funding has been the major topic since dunno-when, and every year, the small CCAs are still struggling to manage their finances in one way or another. During the recent FGD with VP Admin, I asked him about how funding for each CCA is decided and which CCA would be given priorities? He subtly admitted that to a certain extent, meritocracy will be employed here. Gosh! This is will become some sort of real world situation where the poor gets poorer and he rich gets richer - how good CCAs will be given the resources to maintain competitive in there respective fields while the not-so-good ones will have to fight over the “scraps” left behind by the achieving CCAs. I guess this is the point where meritocracy just spins out of control?
just some little thoughts... shall go back to mugging for chemistry spa now.
Read, You Must...6:45 AM