“Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.”
Confucius

what do u do when u r deep in a pit?
what do u do when u r at the bottom of ur luck cycle?

what’s the turnaround plan?
do u wait for the luck cycle to change?
or do u make efforts to change the luck cycle?

do u create luck?
or luck creates u?

how do u see things?
is it half-full or is it half-empty?
how do u proceed?

what’s the turnaround plan?

I think most of you have seen the cartoon where there is usually one office worker on his/her desk with 2 piles of papers on the table. Pile one is the IN section where you will see papers piling up very high. The other pile is the OUT section where there is only very little papers on the pile.

Well, things used to be simpler. I used to clear ALL my IN documents and putting them into the OUT section. But now, it’s impossible. I’m now stuck in the same old classic cartoon of having too many things piling up in the IN section but nothing much going out on the OUT section.

Too many homework. Too many homework. Too many homework.

Gah. It’s just impossible to finish up everything. I have books after books of past year other JCs prelims paper. No way can I finish them in one day or one week. I just gotta manage the work load. I’ll never be able to clear all my homework.

Just finish up whatever that is up next.

****

On another note: Seira - I found your blog! N I read what you said about me.

Han Sen - I did not call Seira a sea monster. This is what I said hostel: my partner-in-crime seira ‘monster’

And Han Sen, Zhe Chaw: if you are reading this: tag my board!

i thought this is supposed to be the term to relax before going full steam for A-levels….but it’s not. quite the opposite in fact. it’s just plain studies, studies and more studies. it’s boring. i dun enjoy it. sometimes i wonder why am i in school. well not to say i dun like anything academic at all. i like the other parts of academic like doing research, writing reports, giving presentations. these are more interesting stuff than books, tutorials, ten-year series aka past year questions, other schools’ prelims questions….wth? this is so insanely boring.

u noe, i used to think that studies in malaysia is bad because it is simply too exam oriented. when i got the letter offering me a place in singapore, i was happy coz i thought that i’m outta the exam oriented culture since i thought tat singapore being a more advanced country would have further developed its education system to make it less exam oriented tailor to fit it to the new challenges. but that is not the case and i came to realise it early last year. it’s in fact much more stressful and exam oriented than malaysia. it’s more demanding with more challenging questions. teachers push students for the sole purpose of excelling in the final biggie - the As. there are insanely many tests, quizzes, class assessments, common tests, mock tests, you name it, it’s all here. i despise tests. it’s not a good measure of one’s calibre. success in tests can never determine one’s success in the future. but here i am putting my whole future in one solitary exam at the end of the year. wth?!?!

i always thought that learning other important life skills such as the ability to write a good report, do a good presentation, delivering a good speech, even crafting out an interesting powerpoint slide are more important. i mean how many of you out there who dare to say that they are good in coming out wit an interesting powerpoint slides?

this is boring. but i dun have a choice. 5 more months and counting down. everyday is the same old routine. to school, practice and discuss several questions, go home, prepare questions for next day discussion….sleep and the cycle repeats itself.

there is just simply too much work to be done. it can never be completed. i mean of course i have the option of slacking off and not doing a single piece of all the homework given, but i cannot afford to. all the others are working insanely hard. they are all driven to excel in the As. and if i don’t follow suit i will just be the lame duck next year when we collect our results.

call it the ‘kiasu’ syndrom, i won’t object. but this is exactly what singapore has done to me. we are all ‘kiasus‘ here and we don’t want to lose. n we will use whatever method to achieve success even if it means working our asses off.

boring or what crap it may be, but i must be an asshole here to stay in line with the competition. scoring As has never been that hard for me. now it’s one of the toughest thing to do. passing itself is a gift. i guess i finally understand what my father meant when he said that how is it possible for students these days to score As so easily. he used to say that it was hard to even get an A during his time. the time of obtaining easy As during secondary school days are over. it’s now a slog to pass, what more to get an A…….

I usually dun blog with photos coz it’s time consuming n tedious to resize n upload, but somehow, thanks to the long weekend break, i decided to grace this blog with some pixs. most of the pixs are from seira’s cam. sorry la kawan, u offered to use ur camera instead of using my hp cam. so i just ‘kope‘ k….

most of these photos are fr saturday. that day i had an interesting day. simply wasted it but it’s kinda fun. in the morning there was this interhouse games in school. wasn’t supposed to take part till friday afternoon. my friends asked me to join the floorball team coz they were short of ppl. so there i was on a saturday morning, playing floorball in school. not bad to destress after a disappointing series of exam results. we didn’t manage to win coz of our inability to finish off the game. our finishing was not up to mark. we were attacking non-stops with many chances but simply couldn’t put the ball behind the net.

i was dead tired after the game and slept through the whole afternoon. at night, we had celebration of culture in hostel and happening at the same time we had mr cheng’s farewell party in school. we had to attend both so fr 5.30 - 8 we were in the hostel and after tat we rushed off to school to bid a last goodbye to our figurehead council teacher.

here are some photos:

irwan aka bocah (indonesian slang for small boy) and nelson…my lepak buddies…

my smart roommate from last year, gaurav. just when i am failing my maths n phy he can come back with a B. hey study less can u?

told ya we had lots of food on saturday in hostel. too bad this year they din order durians. last year we feasted on durians.

hostel: my partner-in-crime seira ‘monster’

again my partner-in-crime seira @ hostel….why bother changing ha?

da malaysian gang: one big happy family…really got lots of food during celebration of culture. ate food fr various countries….makan sampai kenyang

In school…..

my council buddies. rachel, stop acting like a boy.

in college: my good fren yufei. hey rmb to call me the next time u r done in puchong k

my jaguar house captain, cherie. u did a good job!

lastly, my council president, belinda….u did an even better job….but belinda, u gotta start eating more…u r really really thin!

and finally for some random shots from a few days earlier…

my senior grace with 2 of her juniors and all her grandjuniors……this photo is not fr saturday but from an earlier weekday. it was the eve before she go back kl for good….grace, u really overstayed ur 2 years vacation here by an extra 1/4 of the time required.

again, grace n seira….why seira always everywhere? ah…her camera la

okla…tat’s bout it….why am i blogging so frequently again? dunno la…maybe coz i’m just bored of studying….studying sux…exams sucks even more….5 more months to freedom…

let’s see what bright future i can look forward to after a-level. it’s nearly there. i can smell it. not the a-level duh. the holidays after As. i’m gonna have at least an 8 months break before uni starts! what a great lot of time to waste and kill…so let me see what i can do after As. i rmb writing bout my plans after  SPM. was supposed to have a  3-5 months break before starting form 6 or college, but things change. instead i got only a 2 weeks break before coming down south to singapore. had it been good or bad is debatable. but let’s see some items from my previous list and compare that to my current new list for plans after As.

this is my list fr 2 years ago in my old blog of the things i wanna do after SPM. of course all these din materialise

• Study C Programming Language
• Get a job as a Street Cruiser with either Hitz.fm, 8TV Team, Xfresh or Red 104.9
• Learn my Mandarin. Talking, reading and writing.
• Get my driving license. That is if my mom doesn’t allow me to take it after my birthday in April.
• Go on holidays with friends to states in Malaysia and maybe get myself an air ticket to Czech Republic to visit my uncle.

except for C where i learnt a lil of the basics and improving a lil of my mandarin, all the others i din do at all.

now for the things i wanna do after As (not in order of priority):

1) learn my chinese - i’m god damned serious about this. it’s time i finally pick up this one really useful skill that i did not pick up when i was younger. i’ve a strong feeling i’m gonna be in china one day earning my bucks

2) get a bank internship - try try la….i’m gonna study economics/finance in uni anyway, so this would be a good start on how my future job’s gonna be…can gain some experience

3) learn investment - this is quite a handy skill to pick up. learn early then can use my ‘gaji‘ (pay) to start investing in some long term assets that can yield high returns. those bits of finance edu i get from my econs quiz really made me realise the power of compounding interest. start saving early, the money grow faster n more at a later date

4) learn driving - this is the most important thing that i need to pick up coz it’s the most important skill to survive in kl. the inability to drive is like a major handicap for anyone living in kl. it’s such a disgusting feeling all these while going bak for holidays having to rely on people to fetch me around. after 2 years of dilly-dallying around singapore, i can finally learn my driving.

5) holidays - i wanna go backpacking. where? unsure of. wanna visit my uncle in czech republic. he’s been asking me there ever since he went there 2 years ago. well, if i’m gonna study in uk then no use going to visit him now n waste my air ticket to europe; better go later. touring around asean sounds pretty interesting too….anyone interested to join?

yeah. that’s kinda all that i can think of now. let’s see 1 year down the road. see how many of these plans have i completed. it’s gonna be the most exciting time of the life. no more studying for 8 months, the longest study break ever. haha