Wee Seng: we have different expectations and different relative standards, and therefore, my definition of what sucks is different from yours. and btw. liars go to hell. ^__^

 

something's hanging in the air. it feels rather unpleasant, actually. i may be thinking too much. either that or it's because i haven't been taking the flu meds regularly. ah whatever. at least nothing's on tomorrow.

Well, things are looking up somewhat. unfortunately, the "why was i so careless?" syndrome has yet to be resolved. i still found so many careless mistakes in my chem paper. could have gotten 89 or 90 if not for those slip-ups.

i've a feeling it will be the same for maths. even though i passed, i don't think it will be a good one...maybe 52-55? right now, it's history repeating itself. still hoping for passes, not A's. ah well. just hoping for the best right now.

-thingy of the day: True courage is being afraid, but still doing the things you have to do.-

Boring day today. 4 out of 6 periods were free. teachers were busy marking scripts, giving us a break as well. and boy are the teachers efficient. got back  some results already. failed maths paper 1 (and most likely paper 2 as well), while chem mcq got 28/30.  could have gotten 1 more, if not full marks. first question was careless. why couldn't i see that the oxidation state of nitrogen in ammonia and ammonium were the same? i thought one was -3 while the other was +5. (stupid)^(recurring 9).  oh well. i suppose this mark is god enough, unless i get a 74 total. THEN i'll cry.

 

also, this morning's prayer was funny, in a blasphemous way to quote that guy, ".....amen. and umm...the bible verse for today is taken from John 3:16, 'For God so lved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and those that believe in Him shall not...*5 second pause*...umm...perish, but...*10 second pause*...have...ahh whatever.'" we should have stoned him. well, according to denis anyway.

 

and being the straightforward (and slightly sadistic) person that danny tan is, he didn't hesitate to tell us that prelim 3's coming in about...5 weeks. woohoo. end of term 3 to start of term 4. damn it. anyway, i still have transformation to take care of, so i'll be off.

 

-thingy of the day: "Being a hero doesn't mean you succeeded in saving the day. It just means you tried" James Marsters-

Here i am. blogging at 1130+ on a wednesday with a fly buzzing around me. this can only mean 3 things. 1. i skipped school. 2. it's a holiday. 3. i'm sick. well, it #3 today. there's this really bad flu going on inside me. maybe it's through God's grace that it happened after the prelims, and not during. oh well.

i just learnt that i got disastrous marks for my singapore history paper. well, that's 1 fail already. hopefully there's nthing more. must go see dctor at 2:45. time to go back to sleep.

-thingy of the day: "Whatever God's dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates." Stella Terrill Mann-

If I throw a glass, or anything breakable for that matter, against a wall, it will, without any doubt, break into a thousand pieces. And if I repeat the same action with another glass, this glass will break too, and so on and so forth I suppose.

So what? It's just the same thing isn't it? Same action, same result. What you'll end up with are many fragments again and again.

Wrong.

Even if I were to repeat the whole thing over for a thousand times, the glass will never break in the same way, nor will the same fragments ever disperse in the same direction.

Each fragment has its own destiny, its own particular position and place. Altering that, there's no knowing what could happen. That's what makes every small action so important. It's uniqueness. Each event in its uniqueness contributes to a whole course of events. There's no doubt about this in our minds. We're all guilty of the " If I hadn't done this or that, this would have happened instead of that," syndrome.

And just to make my point more clear...

If one were to take a piece of coloured glass with four colours, such as violet, emerald, crimson and gold for instance, and thrown it against the wall, the glass would shatter, and each fragment would end up in a specific place, with a precise role to go with its defined position.

But...

If this was to be repeated and the different pieces end up in different places, what would happen? In this case, one can justly say that "That is the question."

For one can never know. One can only wonder.

Today's food for thought. And a cookie to whoever that can explain the choice of colours and/or identify the passage from which this extract is taken.

IT'S OVER.

prelim 2 is now just a memory. not a nice one, but one that all of us will remember for quite a while. until prelim 3, anyway.

some post-paper reflection. amaths was surprisingly manageable, but i think i'll fail despite having tried my best to answer the questions. luckily, vectors was an optional question. that gave me about 7-12(?) marks more, and increased my hope of passing. unfortunately, i think some careless mistakes will negate that effort.

i don't know; it seems so sudden. it's like HBK pulls a lever, and suddenly, the whole school (or the sec 4s, at any rate) is/are in 'exam mode'. now, he just pushed the lever back to 'normal mode'. luckily for me, i have a day's rest. but what about those guys with lit and music? will they have enough time to switch mindsets from mugging to semi-relaxed? well, i certainly hope they do.

in a bid to shake post-prelim tension off, i headed to OE (Orchard Emerald) in hopes of learning something new. and learn something new i did. thanks to Berwyn, who was the main reason i was there anyway, i found out first-hand how truly horrible i was at MVC2, crushing the previous impression of my skills which was built uopn machines with difficulty set to 'easy'. to put it nicely, i was horribly trashed at stage 4. but on the positive side, i did learn how to pull a half-decent Gambit air combo off, as well as Cable's Tiger Knee. the great thing about MVC2 is that if you do something new successfully and more than once, thus proving that it was no fluke, you have this great, surging, gushing, swelling sense of accomplishment. just what i needed.

-thingy of the day: "Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity." Frank Leahy -

It's the return of the freaky dreams. just last night/this morning, i dreamt that i was walking along the area just a staircase away from my school canteen. funny thing is, that area was on the same level as the canteen (it's actually lower...staircase, remember?), and it was with smeone whom i wouldn't normally walk with. and something a little PG-13/R/bordering on NC-17 happened. then some other random things took place, and in another unrelated dream, i was fighting this mysterious guy, and i kicked him, then woke up with my foot hurting. i guess i performed the action subconsciously. there's a message in this somewhere. i know it.

so. amaths tomorrow. to put it simply, i'm not ready. in fact, i'm never ready for maths of any sort. well, for the predictions on the paper, know your differentiation and integration really really well. a little binomial never hurt either.

after tomorrow, i'm major-exam-free until september. relief. nope, not happiness or sadness about results. just relieved that it's over. in a survey done within the last year, the majority of sec 4 students said that relief was the first emotion after they got their (good) results back. shows how much pressure they (and we) have no? ah well. feel like watching spiderman 2 again (if it's still showing) after the paper. maybe another movie as well.

and damn it, i swear, some parents (read as: "mothers") are too much. if they say their son has no disclipline, i can take that. but they go on and blame EVERYBODY, the school, the son's friends, the son...everybody except herself. not that i'm saying her blame's totally misplaced; it's just that she has to place it more...evenly. to quote a certain maths/pe teacher, "When you assume, you make an ass out of yourself." That's exactly what she did.

-thingy of the day: "Why ask questions to which you already know the answer?" Magneto/Prof. X-

It's official. Open Up Your Mind is a year old. *pops firecrackers and makes it look party-like* over the course of this past year, it has undergone several changes, from background to URL to content. of course, it's been my stress reliever, my anger venter, my time waster, my inanimate confidante. it's been really fun writing.

unfortunately, there was no time (and quite frankly, i didn't want) to make a new layout for the occasion. but then again, it's not mandatory, is it? oh well. thanks for your time spent reading this. ^__^

Please excuse my language today.

well, i was happy for a total of 8-odd hours because i (and the rest of my family) thought we'd be rid of a big pain in the butt. unfortunately, god has this way of screwing up the things you want most. and that's precisely what he did. after some initial progress, the not-so-little fuckhead in the kitchen of my cousin's house thought it would be fun to say, "no, i'm not going anywhere unless you give me all the money my daughters have given (more like loaned) to me over the past 20 years so that i can go and meet friends who will desert me after the money's used up, and hire prostitutes to give me AIDS, gonohorrea, syphillis, herpes and every other STD, and possibly some new ones that the world hasn't seen yet. also, give me the title deed to my flat so that i can sell it and take up a space on the benches for homeless people, which look so attractive after they were featured on Weekend Today."

in case you haven't figured it out, the dumbfuck mentioned above is my mother's senile father, who has no relation to me because my cousins and i refuse to acknowledge his *what's that word?* relationship/significance(?). you know, it's not the fact that he's kpkb-ing; he's been doing it for the past 4-7 years. it's the fact that we were *this* close to getting rid of the humongous (pun intended) thorn in our flesh. maybe i'm not seeing god's bigger picture, but right now, it's pretty difficult to do so. oh well. maybe the grim reaper will visit him tonight, no?

 

anyway, on a more positive note (anything's more positive than that asshole), i slept from 10pm to 11 the next morning, accidentally missing maths *oops...*. anyway, i'm feeling ever so much more energized, and ready to start mugging amaths formulas and whatevernot...tomorrow.  it *is* almost 11 at night now.

 

-thingy of the day: That light at the end of the tunnel? That's not salvation. (paraphrased)-

As you may know, i'm terribly bored. there's nobody to talk to. everyone's either busy, offline, or just don't feel like talking. sad, isn't it? at this point, you should all be calling me crazy with accusations such as "THERE'S AMATHS ON MONDAY!!" but right now, i couldn't care if the paper was 5 minutes later. i need a break. and there's maths at 8 tomorrow morning. just when i thought i could sleep in for once. i'm sorry if i sound nonsensical; i'm just really drained after a week of exams. sleeping now doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

As expected, history didn't turn out as well as i, heck, as anybody, could hope for. i'm betting the whole level, except for the muggers, studied the wrong topics. hot favourites like briggs/templer, cold war, and fall of communism didn't appear, but other topics such as 1917 russia, stresemann, FMS and malayan union did. really treid to recall the info, but as i told DM Toh, i studied the wrong thing. luckily SBQ was manageable. looking at a 40 optimistically.

 

luckily the day balanced out with chem. true to Mr Lee's words, and fortunately for us, the paper was easier than i expected. and happy are those who took my (actually Mr Lee's) advice and studied QA. except for a few trick questions and some which i totally have no idea about, everything went well. expecting about...78.

 

well, it's the weekend. 7/8 of the road's been run already. just need one final boost to see me through amaths, and then prelim 2's a thing of the past. until then, i'm running. incidentally, i'm wondering about this scar onmy forearm. i really have no idea how it got there, and i do *not* slice myself up. anyone have any idea where it's from?

 

-thingy of the day: Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth. Benjamin Disraeli -

Oh boy. maths was not as good as i'd have liked. simply put: NO BLOODY TIME. but i can't really blame the teachers. i have to improve and meet their standards. geog was...reasonable, but i'm thinking borderline pass again. looks like another season of Cs and Ds. CDs?? ok...i know. spastic.

 

well, there's chem and history over the horizon. Mr Lee said that the paper's quite easy, but then, that's coming from the guy who can draw Panadol's structural formula. so ultimately, the students will have to be the judges again. btw. if you trust me, revise QA. if not, revise it anyway.

 

history...oh boy. more like oh no. to be completely honest, i still only have a fuzzy idea of the chapters coming out. and as Murphy's Law states, "Anything that can happen will happen at the worst possible time". it's working now, there are no pure history students online. oh well. time to take initiative and start messaging everyone i know.

 

-thingy of the day: Don't run with scissors unless you have proper scissors-handling equipment.-

So much for the optimism. maths was ok; can actually look forward to a c5 now. surprisingly, there was no polygon, number patterns, or variations. but there was probability. ah well. i think i've lost 7 marks already through the calculatorlessness (go figure) and through mistakes.

 

as for physics...oh boy. the sadists from the physics department were out to kill us as welll. incidentally, guess which teacher's in both the physics and english departments? i suspect he's the "last boss", so to speak. as predicted, electricity killed me, and so did optics and sound, but to a lesser extent. damn. they'll only be happy when they fail about half the students. really should have dropped physics.

 

and then there are maths paper 2 and geog tomorrow. nothing much to say for maths, but for geog, the focus' on industry and development. and before i forget. don't forget to bring your bendy rulers for drawing curves. and geog students, remember the string. although the ruler could serve as one as well.

 

-thingy of the day: Instead of counting what little marks we lose, we're counting what little marks we gain.-

It's one of those increasingly-scarce times where the dark skies thin out enough to let some sunlight through. in less vague terms, there's hope for ss. i've found new faith in rumours, as the prophecies were right. sec 3 for SBQ, which i treated as decontextualized anyway, and venice/good governance for SEQ, which i mugged on last night. optimistically, i'm hoping for 32-34/50, but there's this strange premonition of a 27. oh well. i can truly say i've done my best, although upon reflection, some explanations seem inadequate.

time to look forward. maths and physics. for the first time, maths paper 1 and 2 are separate. why? good question. there's this premonition again. factorization, number patterns, kinematics, inequalities, variation. kind of predictable, actually. although complete the square's been nagging in a remote corner of my brain.

 

for physics, electricity's gonna kill me (figuratively speaking). optics as well. maybe sound too. really need to re-mug everything.

I shouldn't be here. but after spending the last few hours catching up with old friends (ss books), i need a little reprieve. if that doesn't mean "break", as in rest, not shatter, i'm sorry. my mastery of the english language is horribly weak, as seen when the paper slapped me across the face with that realization this morning.

 

anyway, in case you haven't guessed, there's ss tomorrow. danny tan *angelic choir hits a high note* said that x-ref's gonna appear a lot, and rumours say that venice/good governance will be for SEQ, while sec 3 stuff's reserved for the SBQ. as i have chosen to believe this, my emphasis is on sec 4 work. whee. then hoping to hold a physics/maths marathon tomorrow after the paper. any willing victims? ^__^

If there's one thing i cannot tolerate, it's people taking my stuff. don't get me wrong now, i'm not adverse to sharing, but it would be nice to let me agree first. unlike this certain *someone* who stole (i refuse to use "borrowed") my ss book over the weekend, causing me much worry and wasted hours wondering where it was when i went back to school  a little later in the day to find it. damn it. but i won't push all the blame away; it was my fault as well for leaving it there. if only i had taken it with me on thursday. then again, how was i supposed to know i'd get fever on early friday morning? oh well.

 

on a slightly less angry but gloomier note, prelims are here. just had english today. i swear, the english department (which incidentally, is made up of sadistic mad asses) is out to massacre us. essay topics were surprisingly un-juicy as compared to prelim 1, but the passage was equally (if not more) challenging. vocab was, as usual, hell. and let's not get started on functional.

 

passing all subjects suddenly seems like a joke. this should be the time to aim for b3s, if not distinctions, instead of just *passes*. i wish to tell the HBK administration what a great job they have done in taking our confidence and shattering it against the wall of failure. 3 prelims. right. we're the first (and possibly the last) year that this will happen, because if the news is right, there's no more first 3 months from next year onwards. with the way things are going, i can just picture my results. prelim: 25. o's, 46 because we're all burned out. nevertheless, a1 for chem's still gonna be there. i don't care. time to get mugging to make up for the lost hours brought about by a certain moral-less person.

 

-thingy of the day:  If you pronounce "Saddam" backwards, it sounds like "mad ass"-

Damn, chinese Open Up Your Mind's getting addictive. it's all because i don't understand what the lyrics mean and that the tune's addictive, but i suppose it's partially my fault as well, what with listening to it on loop and all...

 

but i digress. the main reason of this post is to...*what was it again??*... let the general public know about my latest music tastes. speaking of which, i have also (re-)discovered Michael Learns To Rock, or MLTR for short. i don't know why, but when i play their music, i feel like i'm back in primary school, when i heard it for the very first time. it's funny that their music means so much more to me now. maybe understanding the lyrics of a song can either make you fall in love with it, or make you despise it/hate it to the core.

 

aanyway, the *100% REAL* motive of this post is to get all philosophical about change. over lunch today, it struck me (like a club to the head) how much a person can change over 4 years. both physically and mentally. definitely amazing. but it was fun meeting up with classmates from 4 years ago. wait...sounds like a potential horror movie title. ^__^ anyway, have to run. i need to mug about 3 subjects in 2 days.

 

-thingy of the day:  It's a bad idea to set deadlines which you can't meet.-

Oh boy. blogger looks like mini-MS Word now. then again, that's not a bad thing. makes it easier to manage and write.

 

did nothing useful today. but i'm not *really* to blame;  i'm sick. fever/headache/other stuff. yes, i can see 4-6 going "EXCUSES!!!" right now. but no, this is serious. only 3 days from prelims to boot. hopefully it'll all be over by saturday, then i can invest some much-needed hours of mugging.

 

of course, seeing how old, useless, lousy, retarded etc. etc. my computer is, i've just got wireless internet for the laptop. so happy. *fireworks* but i have to go. feeling not-so-good again.

 

-thingy of the day:  wow.-

Libra - Your Horoscope for July 12 - 18 You find positive influences which allow you to work through certain difficulties in a love relationship or personal matter. Healing and resolution of particular issues can begin by opening your heart to giving and receiving more love and acceptance in a relationship now. A current partner or someone special who comes into your life at this time can bring you new awareness and understanding of your innermost feelings and values. You'll find the guidance needed to remove blocks in your mental, emotional, or spiritual life. Support from close friends, family, and the women in your life gives you confidence now. This is a good time to mend fences and ameliorate problems in your home life.

Let's play evaluate the horoscope!!

Positive influences...can't think of any.

Opening my heart...trying to.

Still waiting for that someone to walk in...

Finding guidance...a teacher?

The women in my life...probably.

Mending fences etc. etc.? What good timing. There's an issue I need to bring up regarding the sale of a certain house...

Well, if this horoscope's any good, my week'll be looking up.

-thingy of the day: It's amazing how "see well" and "look good" can be worlds apart.-

The week's finally over. that's good and bad.

these few days haven't been easy. i know i'm in no position to say that, considering how many millions of people have it worse off than me, but the last 2-3 days totally sucked. i need to become less...tense (i'm not high-strung yet) and simply stop taking such a serious view of things. quite ironic that i'm advocating open-mindedness, no?

-thingy of the day: God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.-

Ok, just a quick post before i go off and before this condemned machine decides to slow down.

chinese oral. die. reading went ok, only got 1 prompt for BZBD (dead already), and i think my conversation went out of point a little. but the examiners were nice though. very friendly. unlike the monster in blue at the opposite table. but looks can be deceiving; for all i know, my examiners may be stricter.

now that that's off my back, that makes 1 less subject to prepare for. until august anyway. where i *may* have to retake the paper in december. *prays for no*

well, typed this up in 3 mins. record time. really have to go now.

-thingy of the day: Beauty is a subjective term.-

I keep forgetting, but here's a review of Spiderman 2 (spoiler-ful, read at your own risk):

Overall, a great movie. Wonderful effects, plot, character development and basically, everything's done to (near) perfection.

Storyline-wise, Peter's struggling with life, love, school and money. Not too easy. But somehow, he manages to make it through. His grades are slipping, the love of his life's about to marry someone else. Not to mention that his powers are starting to malfunction. Adding on to this is the burden he's carried for 2 years; the truth to his uncle's death.

Of course, this is the perfect time for the sadists at Marvel to throw him a new villain, ie. Dr Octopus. The movie did some improvasation to the storyline; apparently there's this limiter chip thing which prevents the tentacles from controlling his mind (did I mention how painful it looked when the tentacles attached onto him?).

Unfortunately, the poor doctor miscalculated, got an electric shock, killed his wife, and royally screwed up his experiment. This caused the chip to blow up (excessive current, something about resistance and short-circuiting [wow! Physics *is* useful!!]) and allowed the tentacles to take control of his mind. This caused him to seek "funding" for his new project by robbing a bank. Coincidentally, Peter and Aunt May are there to handle some money matters as well. Aunt May gets the impression that her nephew is saving his own life when he's actually running off to change outfits. At the top of this clock tower, Spiderman finally catches up to Dr Octopus and they fight for the first time. With a little help from Aunt May, Spiderman ensures nothing is damaged, except for the clock tower.

After a few more encounters, including the deal between the doctor and Harry Osborn, the announcement of marriage between John Jameson and MJ, Peter finally telling Aunt May the truth about Uncle Ben, Aunt May moving out, and the loss of Peter's powers, which means his grades go up, Spiderman and Doctor Octopus have their final encounter. Of course, Spiderman has to regain his powers and stop a speeding train first, revealing his identity to a few hundred people in the process.

Finally, they go to the warehouse by the river, where the first experiment failed. There, a bigger, deadlier machine is set up. But something's wrong. The doctor never amended his calculations! Oh no! Luckily, Spiderman comes (literally) swinging by to save the day. Eventually, Doctor Octopus gains full control of his tentacles (for about 2 minutes), and sacrifices himself to stop the experiment. MJ ditches John at the altar, and Spiderman goes about saving crime again.

Well, so much for the storyline.

Character development was so...wow. Good doctor becomes bad due to wife's death and little voices in his ear, then becomes good again because someone told him what he told him at the start, and proves that he's good by sacrificing himself. I don't know what others think, but I think Alfred Molina did a terrific job. It looked so...different, seeing him say "No, I'll do it." and subsequently walking to meet his doom. We all saw him using the arms to walk countless times throughout the movie, but that last time was special.

As for Spiderman, it's the typical "I have a choice. I say no first, then say yes again later." Come to think of it, his choice is kinda limited. But he handled it admirably. Although I feel his voice was a little too high in about 30% of the time he was Peter.

The ending left so many possibilities open. Who's the bad guy in Spiderman 3? Will it be Dr Curt "The Lizard" Connors (who apparently lost his right hand in the movie, instead of the left)? Or maybe now that Harry's discovered the Goblin Lair, it'll be Green Goblin 2. There have even been rumours saying John Jameson's ship brought the Venom symbiote back. Ooh boy. Whatever it is, I'm definitely catching it in 2007. Rating: 95/100.

Libra - Your Horoscope for July 5 - 11 This week you'll seesaw between optimism and impatience, between faith that everything is working out and a restless desire to take immediate action. Philosophical discussions are apt to become heated. Avoid pompousness, arrogance, and intolerance. You will neither win freedom nor influence people that way! Proselytizing or self promotion can lead to estrangement now. A lack of caution and overenthusiasm are pitfalls for you this week. This can also be a time of leaving, separating from friends, and choosing a new way.

Accurate? i don't know. the sunday times had a different version though. let's see...optimism/impatience? chinese o's. heated philosophical discussions? not too sure. avoid arrogance? good advice no matter who you are. that estrangement thing? i get it. "i'm gonna get full marks for the oral!!!" lack of caution? let's see..."mr examiner, you're a <something not nice>"

ok. so it's pretty accurate. but then again, i suppose almost anyone could find meaning in that. sunday times' version told me to take a break if things get too tough. maybe another seaside walk's in order. maybe not.

oral's tomorrow. need to build confidence. that's the only thing i'm lacking, apart from a good chinese vocabulary. hopefully can achieve a 23/30, scraping an a1 for it. oh well. i'm off to practise reading. ^__^

-thingy of the day: A careless word may kindle strife; a cruel word may wreck a life; a timely word may level stress; a loving word may heal and bless.-

Youth day. wow. *most* of the teachers were pretty nice to us, something that most likely won't happen again until after the o's. but first, a large "thank you" to all the teachers for organizing everythng, and providing some comic relief. especially danny tan. he's never gonna hear the end of it. not while i'm in the school at least. for those people who haven't got a clue, danny tan was doing this really exhibitional indian movie-like dance. really a sight worth seeing.

speaking of the o's, lc tomorrow. remember to listen to 92.4fm at 8:30 in the morning to know what the passages/questions are. and i have this ominous feeling my com's gonna screw up. so i'd better end it quickly, ie. here.

-thingy of the day: there are at least 5 people in the world who love you so much that they'd die for you.-