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

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.

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

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…

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?

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!

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…….

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…

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

It’s just mid years! chill out. there’s still the semi-biggie prelims to fight for and also the biggest prezzie to get - the As….so chill out. btw i think it’s kinda stOOpid of the school to make like 80-90% of students fail their exams. i mean like setting super hard papers that is almost impossible to score. like what’s the use of taking an exam without any realistic fighting chance to pass it?

It’s such a joke…the school/teachers set super hard paper only to see all their students fail. now everyone’s demotivated, demoralised…some are inspired to study harder, some will just fade away n not study anymore…..which do u belong to?

crap.

so i’ve just set a new personal record for failing with the worst marks. thanks yea singapore for giving me all my failures in life. i’ve never really failed much except for one stupid public test in primary 3. u shocked the hell out of me when u handed me my first failure in phy in term1 common test. now u gotta do it again albeit in a much more spectacular fashion.

u think i care? so what if i failed? it’s just a stOOpid test. life is not all abt exams. and since when did all the top scorers continue to do well in life? so my friends who are reading this, dun be disheartened. many successful ppl are not top students in their school. it comes in a package, u noe. it’s the mindset, attitude, social skills…..n not paper skills….tat cant bring u far. only as far as securing ur first job.

trust me. it’s just one small test. no big deal. fail or no fail, so what?

when u have hit rock bottom, there’s only one way to go, which is up.