previous post: 10 aug
latest post: 2 sept

not bad….nearly 1 month since my last post on this blog. a lil update on what have been keeping me busy these days:
a) uni application
b) prelims
these 2 have been taking out a large portion of my time. correction: almost all my time
uni application is extremely tedious. lots of research to do, lots of editing to do for personal statement, lots of self-reflection on what to study in uni….n which uni to apply to…

bloody hell it cost a lot of money to apply for us n uk unis…well, it’s the cost i gotta pay to secure a spot.
n i’ve been thinking very hard on whether to pursue politics in uni. i know i’m doing econs in uni, but should i join it together with politics? it’s a pretty interesting subject. i’ll dwell further into the topic within myself in the following days.

anyway, i’ve been surfing around websites n blogs reading stuff n wasting time, n i kinda bumped into several interesting stuff….

i shall share the following. pls do take a look at this interesting letter on “Why Do We Go To University”.

the following italicized words are quoted from the link provided.

Why do we go to university?
Oon Yeoh | Aug 19, 08 5:08pm

I would like to share what I learned from that guest lecturer who was invited to give a talk in the sports journalism class I was taking.

He was a baseball expert but when he took to the podium, he told us that he was not going to talk about America’s favourite pastime.
Instead, he had a question for all of us: “Why are you all in college?”

That seemed like an easy enough question to answer. Several students quickly put up their hands.

“So we can get a good job one day and make lots of money!” said one student, to loud laughter.

The lecturer smiled and said, “Come on, we all know that there are many people who never went to college and are rich beyond imagination.”

“To get an education,” said another student.

“You don’t necessarily have to go to college to do that,” the lecturer said. “Many people get their education through the school of hard knocks.”

Another student said, “To get a degree. You can’t get that unless you go to university.”

To that, the lecturer replied, “That’s not true. You can take correspondence courses.”

At that point, everybody seemed stumped so the lecturer finally said, “The main reason you go to college is to learn to socialise” and he proceeded to elaborate.

When you graduate and enter the work force, you will be surrounded by generally like-minded people with roughly the same educational background and social status.

If you are in banking, the people around you would have probably studied finance. If you are in the medical field, the people you mingle with will be fellow doctors and nurses. And if you are in architecture, your network of friends and associates will inevitably be those in the building and construction industry.

Unless you happen to have a very unique job that requires you to mingle with a broad range of people, the harsh reality is that your world will be constrained by your career choices.

College is the only time in your life when you are exposed to all kinds of people from all walks of life and from very different backgrounds

****

Kinda interesting perspective on the issue rite? I wouldn’t say i totally agree 100% but there remains some truth in it…uni’s gonna be interesting. it’s gonna be the best 3-4 years of our lives. so dun make a fool of urself by keeping to urself. it’s the best time for socialising.

anyway, for my classmates, this sound kinda nerd, but i also bumped into a website telling how to do evaluation for a-level econs. maybe it’s worth ur time reading it here.

Having too much time during the weekend is bad too. It’s getting boring. I cant concentrate on studies. And going out makes me feel guilty too coz it’s near exams period. This is disgusting, having to study hard. But no choice. Failure is not an option. Obtaining the A is the only option. I gotta get myself into study mode again.

Anyway, I’ve been busy, ermm lazy to update this blog. The reason, there’s photos to be posted up here. Whenever there’s photos it gets tedious. But since I’m super bored now, I decided to upload them.

6 photos from Asean Dance last Saturday night. It was great socialising and dancing with fellow hostel (and other hostel ppl) in Fullerton Hotel. It’s even better when I don’t have to pay a single cent this year….hahaha….

And on Wednesday, it was CCA handover day. That’s when I finally step down from my post as the Secretary of the Students’ Council. It’s all over. Full-time studying now.

This is Nelsen, prom king from oldham hall.

Cindy

Melanie

(from left) Pratiwi, Josephine, Yindy

Cheng Feng

Paul

The best thing about living in a hostel is the chance and opportunity of meeting many people from different nationalities. Such great fun…..

My President, Belinda. Belinda, you have been great…greatest as our president. Good job, girl!

My Sec Comm male buddies, Weitian (left) and Cepheus

Sec Comm members + Gaurav + Mr Ng, our teacher Ic/mentor
Gaurav, it was nice working with you though u have to be transferred to Log comm mid way through out term
To the other Sec comm members: YOU ROCK. Had a great time working together with all of u.
Mr Ng, thanks for all the help rendered. You inspired all of us.

Our SC Exco. Nice knowing all of u!

One big happy family

paradigma’s over. fantastico. i can now get back to studying. wtf
but seriously, the only thing i really need now is time to study to prepare for my As.
it’s not easy to really study n have distractions like this during this intensive studying period.
i could pull through in j1 because there were less things to study, i could pull through in term 1 & 2 in j2 coz i dun really need to produce results…but now i must really really really study to get good grades, else i’m screwed.

tmr there’s council investiture rehearsal fr 4.45…what time it will end. 6.30? 7.00 pm? argh….nvm last event b4 handover…after tat total freedom to study…again, wtf

paradigma today was not really good for me. i gave quite a bad presentation. many stuttering n all….one of my worst presentations ever given in my life. n during QnA session, i was expecting only 1 question from the floor. i tot shiv would get most of the questions since he is a foreigner talking about the local-foreign divide in singapore.

i got 3 (or is it 4?) questions from the floor instead. not much a big deal. handled them pretty okay. in fact i prefer the QnA….kinda more interesting n less formal…

2 more days of school, then it’s the weekend. cant wait for it.

Last week was insane. I stayed back everyday till late evening in school. I had programmes in school and events in hostel at night. And even my saturday was not spared. Let’s see this week. Less hectic but still quite busy. Got to stay back for 4 out of 5 days. Geez. Still quite bad. And I’m now coming into a patch where there are lots and lots of mock tests, assessments to gauge our preparation for our prelims exam. GAAAH.

I’m not prepared for any. Got it. NOT PREPARED AT ALL. I dun even have time to study, how can i ever go and take a test? Nutcase. I guess it’s not the same for the others since they have had the last 5 weeks to study.

Nevermind. Still got time. Just gotta work hard. Pumping up on those coffee. For the first time I’m gonna start relying on coffee and making a slight tweak to the study style. Hopefully this works. (correction: this better work, else i’m screwed)

Anyway, yesterday I was at NUS the whole day for the National Economics and Finance Management Quiz 2008. Was part of the 21 from our college that was selected for the competition. Had some preparations from school. But it’s complicated. Thought we did not stand a chance to win nor do we stand a chance to win any special certificate.

We were surprised when we were awarded the certificate of merit. It means we were the top 25 ranking teams out of the 100+ teams who participated. I had to double check my team name on my name tag when the team name was flashed on the screen. haha. really din expect to win consolation prize since we made some rather silly mistakes and had many questions on cpf and insurance answered wrongly.

Oh btw, zhi wei’s team also won certificate of merit. haha, both the guys from 23/07 in diff teams won something. we were the only 2 teams fr AJC that won something.

It’s a whole day event from 10am till 5pm. Being good economics students, we were constantly arguing whether the opportunity cost of taking part in the competition will be worthwhile. Some professor said our opportunity cost was the time wasted in not being able to watch the new Batman movie. But seriously, that’s not our opportunity cost? Our opportunity cost now when time is really in scarce supply is that of not being able to revise and complete our homework. Luckily we won something, at least it reduces the opportunity cost. But it might still be costly……lol….

what am i doing now? time is limited. i should get back to my work….haha

I hate to say this…but it’s stressful these days. wtf. i tot i’ve gone thru the worse but tat’s not the case. i guess it’s a case of being burned up. again i hate to use this word but i was burned up n stressed up last week. again a double wtf

but i’m bak to normal. my spirit is up again. my mood is good again. starting to feel optimistic abt life again…THAT’S NORMAL

it’s so weird to be feeling pessimistic abt life….screw it…

what changed it? 1 can of Red Bull and lots of loud music. Limp Bizkit, Evanescence, Linkin Park.

i dun usually do red bull n loud music….but the situation demands desperate measure. i’m not reliant on coffee or redbull for that matter previously…..but now i noe what to do….redbull….lol

coffee haven really tried out yet….guess i’m gonna try pumping it up more with 2 sachets of coffee in a cup…..need to get a lil more kick….

most likely i’ll need it next week considering how packed my schedule’s gonna be….this is my schedule without factoring my studies (hw etc) n the need to finish up my personal statement for uk uni admission

monday - 5pm (school) - paradigma presentation rehearsal
9.45pm (hostel) - cluster party
tuesday - 4.45pm (school) - paradigma presentation rehearsal
wednesday - (2.15 - 6.15 @ school) - career & scholarship fair
class birthday party (class 23/07 on 23rd july)
thursday -5.30pm (school) - council investiture rehearsal
9.45pm (hostel) - green house meeting (i’m the house captain - means work!)
friday - 2.15pm (school) - paradigma rehearsal
4.15pm (school) - econs mock test
saturday - 10am - 5pm (NUS) - national economics and finance management quiz

there u go…..screwed up timetable…..argh! another shot of redbull n loud music definitely….
n this certainly means i dun have time to finish up my hw again…..argh
it’s coming to an end…..once all these co-curricular activities finally end, i can finally start studying seriously…..
then there’s nothing to stop me. it’s just plain study, study n study…boring life…but no choice. i need AAA to get into one of those top UK unis…

think of it….now i’m not tat stressed up anymore…it was just the early part of the week b4 redbull….it was so bad tat i felt i was in the worse condition ever since i was in sg. as in for the past year and a half, life was pretty reasonable….hectic, but manageable…..

even in term 2 when i come home at 11pm almost everyday, it’s manageable….i guess the really tough part is when i must really really study n excel in the cca….tat’s when it really really gets tough….coz i’ve been focusing more on cca than on studies previously…