Since blogger will be down at 4pm (their local time), and i have no idea of how to convert between timezones, i'll make this post as short as possible.

basically, the past 2 days have been quite traumatic. maths 2 and chem 3 just about killed me. i'm seriously doubting my ability in chem now. maybe it's because i didn't study as hard as i should have (think groups 2 and 7), but the paper was pretty tough to me. how would you answer a question that states "diamonds are a girls best friend. why hasn't carborundrum replaced it in this context?" stupid questions get equally retarded answers. of course, that killer organic question didn't help much either. i can't believe i actually left a few parts blank. i find it even more difficult to believe that i actually thought my paper 3 would pull me up. thankfully the environment section was ok.

for maths, i think stats went pretty well, and 29 (or) was quite a giveaway. that's a blessing, because i'll need all the marks i can squeeze out of the examiners. i think my maths grade is pretty much shot. oh well. not like i was expecting much anyway.

when i looked at my login screen, i realized that the nice folks at blogger offered me a chance to switch to its beta version. i was actually quite tempted, but i saw a little line of text which read "you cannot undo this operation". that made me think twice, because there have been some known glitches in the beta version. in the end, i decided to wait a little while longer. it also got me thinking about life. i think i've mentioned this before, but life would be a lot easier with an "undo" button, wouldn't it? we could skip back to crucial decisions and re-make them, avoid places where disasters happen, and do all sorts of cool stuff. then again, that's technically impossible, so we have to learn the skill of making wise decisions. maybe it's for the best this way.

econs and physics tomorrow. ARRGH. MY EYES, THEY BURN! i REALLY want to skip school tomorrow. but i can't, because i'll be in buckets of trouble if i do. crappiness. might as well go face the music. on the bright side, there's mahjong after that! haven't played for a long, long time. at least there's something to look forward to. makes life more meaningful, agree?

-random thought of the day: Demoralized.-

Prelims are half over! yays. "half over" sounds so much more optimistic than "half more to go", don't you think? next week is a pretty taxing time, with maths 2, chem 3 and 0, physics 3, econs 1 and 2, and NE. all in the space of 4 days.

last friday was pretty much a nightmare. fearing that i would have a repeat performance of the mock exams, i went to school at 11:00am. 10 minutes after i reached school, it began to rain. going to school early made me both punctual and dry. how's that for killing 2 birds with 1 stone? i think it was somewhere along this point where my reserves of luck got depleted. the maths paper was pretty bad. somehow, there was a tiny little mental block that filtered out certain things, like differentiating a constant would give zero. ah well. bad as it was, it was most definitely a learning experience. i found out a way to remember that composite function thing. in order for a composite function to exist, girlfriends must be really friendly and definitely girly, i.e. for gf(x), the range of f must lie within the domain of g. quite a nice and easy quote to remember.

something i learnt has made me quite scared. one of the killer chem paper 2 questions on iron and cyanide was actually taken from the TYS! the fact that i didn't completely know how to do the question showed 2 things. first, i haven't been doing my TYS, and second, i'm not as well-prepared as i think. trust the teachers to be this sneaky. ah well.

life's pretty boring, especially during exam season. luckily, there are things that help to offer a break from the monotony. things like online gaming, which i rarely do. yesterday, i had the opportunity to try out Freelancer and City of Heroes. while i don't really care for the former, City of Heroes is really fun to play. looks like i most definitely will be signing up for a subscription after november.

maths 2 tomorrow. i swear, the guy who thought of late papers is a genius, especially when it applies to maths. and...i'd better go study more now.

-random thought of the day: 4 more days.-

You know, i never thought i'd see the day when i would say that econs was more manageable than chem. and yet, after yesterday's experience, that's exactly what i'm thinking. luckily for me, the econs teachers were nice enough to set do-able questions on production and cost, market failure, and trade. while i don't think i'll get full marks, i won't fail either. as for chem, i think i can safely say that that was the most difficult paper i've ever done in my time in CJC, or indeed in my whole career as a chem student. it was something which we were inadequately prepared for. but oh well. i think i'll do relatively ok.

one problem that has plagued me since secondary school is my tendency to overlook certain details in exam questions, thus causing me to make careless mistakes. sadly, it still resurfaces every time there is an exam. i've made many careless mistakes in the papers so far, and most of them are due to missing key words when reading questions. it's actually cost me quite a few marks in physics and chem. it's quite a waste actually. but other than that, i'm quite contented with my performance, as i've managed to finish every paper on time so far.

maths tomorrow. it just keeps getting better, doesn't it? i really need to start practice soon. time to go off and do just that.

-random thought of the day: Nearly half the battle is over...-

MSN is not letting me sign in, and it's getting on my nerves.

today was a pretty un-wasted day. went to the new library to do some physics. the library's pretty impressive, with 4 floors and a few interesting science exhibits. they mostly concentrated on physics though, with things like magnets, and electromagnetism. i guess chem and bio experiments/phenomena would be too messy outside of a lab. funny thing though. big as it is, it has relatively few chairs and tables for the great number of students who go there.

anyway, i digress. back to the topic of physics revision. well, for 2.25 hours' work, i guess i am pretty satisfied. still a little unsure of some things, but i'm going to school early tomorrow to iron them out. you know, as i type this, i'm thinking that i know just about everything that i need to know. but that's only because i don't have my book next to me, with all the nice stars, underlines and "confirm later!" notes. as you can see, occasional overconfidence is one of my flaws. still, i can confidently (and accurately) say that my quantum, nuclear, electricity and physical quantities are pretty ok. the rest, however, are a different story. somehow, i get the feeling that there's this really big, important topic which i forgot to place emphasis on. oh well. i'll try to spot it later when i do another round of revision before sleeping.

so much for physics. after that, the next item on my priority list is econs. oh man. i'm in shit deep enough to provide a year's supply of fertilizer to all the farms in china. worse still, it's the essay paper first. tomorrow will not be a good day at all. but i suppose i should be grateful, because this timetable is modelled after the actual A-level one. it should give me a good idea of how much writing i have to do on the day itself. sad thing is, it's followed up by chem. luckily there's a 3-hour break in between, or i'd just die.

speaking of "die", there's a wake going on downstairs. it's for an old lady who lives, or rather, lived, in my block. come to think of it, i don't think i've ever seen her before. in fact, i don't think i've seen the majority of my neighbours before. assuming 5 people live in each unit, there are approximately (5 X about 10 units per floor X 13 floors) 650 people in total. out of these 650 people, i know about 10 of them or less. wow. the situation today is a far cry from that of the early 20th century, where everybody knew everyone else. but oh well. in today's society, i believe that would feel rather uncomfortable, especially among teenagers.

in the midst of this giant cloud of prelim pressure, i nearly forgot to mention that it's been 5 years since america was attacked. hard to believe it's been that long. time does go by quicker when you don't think about it. well, though i wasn't one of those directly affected by it, i do hope that the families and loved ones of those who were harmed in some way or another can (or have already) move(d) on and let their lives return to normal, or as least whatever "normal" means to them.

youtubing is kind of fun, especially when you're bored. thanks to youtube, i've discovered quite a few judo videos (which have taken up residence on my friendster profile) which i watch once in a while to remind myself why i took up the sport and that there's more to it than just the hiong training. i can't wait to join a few training sessions after all the exams are over, seeing as our ban from the dojo is still in effect. there are also some comedy videos, most notably those featuring Rowan Atkinson and Russel Peters. really great for a laugh if you're having a bad day.

ok. i think i've said enough for one post. wow, it's already 11+. must sleep earlier tonight. it's going to be a rough 2 weeks ahead, and god knows i need all the energy and luck i can possibly get to see myself through this.

-random thought of the day: MSN is STILL not working.-

Reflecting upon what i've been doing the past few days makes me feel quite guilty. that's because i've only done the barest minimum of work and revision. i still don't feel confident of meeting my AAAB target, and i know i most likely won't, because my econs is totally shot. maybe i need to rethink my goals.

guilt aside, it has also been quite fulfilling. i finally made my annual visit to east coast. surprisingly, it wasn't that crowded for a holiday. so, what i did there was basically take a walk along the beach, sit down at some point, and think. compared to my previous 2 trips, this one was less helpful. somehow, the thoughts didn't flow that well. nevertheless, i've managed to identify some distractions (blogging being one in a long, long list). now, i just need enough willpower to work on pushing them aside. think along the magnitude of "power needed to move Everest". calling it difficult would be like saying the titanic was a sailboat. though it didn't help much, at least it helped a little. i'm feeling more at ease with myself now.

there was a wedding! the second son of my second uncle (aka. my cousin) got married today. except for the tea ceremony, the entire thing was christian themed, so a religion-less person like me felt kind of awkward there. still, it wasn't that bad. in fact, it was pretty good, as far as weddings go. what really made me laugh is when the pastor said, "this is a christian wedding, as both the bride and groom are christians." it could be because i knew this beforehand, but it sounded a little too obvious to me. so, another one of my cousins is happily married. that's 5 out of 12 of them already. gives you an idea of how young i am relative to them, doesn't it?

prelims are next week. oh boy. must study tomorrow. physics and econs are going to be my best friends for a while.

-random thought of the day: The Bishan library's open!-

Steve Irwin passed away today. that's what i heard on the radio in 7-11. i didn't trust my hearing at first, but checking yahoo news and wikipedia confirmed it for me. kind of ironic that he died by stingray and not by crocodile. but then again if a crocodile had killed him, people might begin to doubt his skill in handling them. anyway, the reason i'm mentioning this is because of all the turtles on my MSN list. about 12 of my 44 online contacts have suddenly added it to the start or end of their display names. apparently, they're doing this as a form of tribute to the late crocodile hunter, mainly because a species of turtle which he discovered was named after him. of course, there's that little technicality of not having a crocodile emoticon as well.

i don't feel particularly affected by his death. i guess it's because i've never really met him, and he wasn't that great an influence on my life. of course, i did occasionally tune in to animal planet when i was bored, and i caught a few of his shows. personally, i didn't find it really spectacular, but i guess i admired his bravery for facing adult crocodiles down without a shotgun (or at least tranquilizers). still, i can't say i was his best friend or even his greatest fan, so i guess his passing leaves me feeling just a little sad. i just worry for his 2 kids. they're like, what? 3 and 8 years old? even at 11, 13 and 14, i found the deaths of 3 of my grandparents difficult to accept. by taking my feelings at those points in time and multiplying them by a a large factor, i can only begin to imagine how they must feel. i just hope they take it well (or as well as one can take such bad news, at least).

so far, that's been the only major bit of news in the past few days. everywhere i look, it's the same old stuff. pre-prelim worry, not getting enough work done, etc. etc. it's really quite stressful. i've got my prelim timetable and the CJC calendar of events up on another window now, and i don't like what i see. crap. i'm feeling the pressure. i have to be in school for 7 out of the 10 days of the prelim. and we're starting with physics, which i think is a good thing as it might help to build my confidence. i think i'd just die if we started with econs.

and while on the topic of econs, i got my mock exam results back. 17/30 for MCQ, 12/20 for DRQ, and 19/30 for case study. assuming everything is weighted equally, that's a 48/80, or 60%. a B on the dot. not too bad. final scores, AABB and a borderline C6/C5 for GP. you know, i think GP will kill me at the end of the day. i seriously need help for it.

as time stands now, i have 7 days for 4 subjects. i can't say it's a lot, but i can't say it's little either. about 2 days each for physics, maths and econs, and one day for chem actually suits the allocated time. but then, i won't have a buffer region or a day off. hmm...i guess some adjustments need to be made, but we'll play it by ear as we go along.

oh, about that teachers' day thing. i guess i don't feel that guilty any more, seeing as most people blogged about how they didn't go back. so i'm taking comfort in that. it's really sian to have prelims when other schools are celebrating. and i was looking forward to going back to meet up with old teachers and friends. maybe next year. i'm hoping hard that nobody else leaves, because it's pretty awkward seeing all the new faces already.

and lastly, the GP prelim. to say it was a bitch is doing it a favour. usually, i know which section or which paper will kill me, but this time, i'm equally divided. i'll think my essay was good, then think my comprehension was better, then go back to favouring my essay again. so, i really don't know what to say about it, except that it was screwed up.

ooooooooooook. this post was shorter than i'd originally envisioned, even though i took a heck of a long time to write it. sometimes, thoughts don't flow that well i guess. nust get down to studying soon. i'll blog again after i've made my annual journey to east coast.

-random thought of the day: How does Michael Jackson do that anti-gravity lean?-