Defying my lazy impulses and going for training yesterday was a pretty good decision overall, though it's made me question myself a fair bit. before we go into the self-doubt, let's recap why it was good.

first off, the junior who went to the UK is back! for only about one more week, though. nevertheless, it was nice to see her during training and the subsequent outing. i think she'll be around for like 1 or 2 more sessions before she flies back next saturday.

when i was entering the dojo, the first odd thing i noticed was the disproportionate number of black belts. upon closer inspection, most of them didn't even belong to the club! sure, i've seen them at competitions and grading, but it was kind of stunning to see them where they wouldn't normally be. after changing up and making the necessary bows (5, compared to the usual of 3 or less), i found out that IJC (island judo club, not innova junior college) was invited to a combined training session with CJC/SJI. being a combined training, it was more for the social/friendship aspect, so training consisted mostly of inter-club sparring. i went for a couple of matches, mostly with big guys. that was the first indicator of deprovement.

the second indicator came just after training, when i asked a couple of seniors to help me refresh my kata. despite having a good partner, the movements felt stiff and jerky, which is my fault. i also seem to have psycho-motor problems, because i can't do the left-side throws properly. this is causing me some worry. i mean, considering my supposed level of skill and technical knowledge, the reacclimatization time shouldn't be this long. things should just fall into place after a quick warm-up, and that obviously did not happen. to use an analogy from bowling, it's sort of like the ability to throw strikes at will (not that i can do that either, mind you...it's just a comparison). anyways, i'm not panicking YET, considering the grading's next june/july/august. there's still quite a bit of buffer time. nevertheless, i'd like to get familiar with judging the distances and fitting my body into the throwing positions. and don't forget, i need to know both the attacker and defender roles, because i have to alternate roles with my partner.

after training, we went to plaza singapura for lunch/a post-training outing thing. it was nice to spend time with the juniors (and fellow seniors who came along) after not seeing them for something like close to 2 months. there was one little drawback, though, which i will talk about later. incidentally, i learnt that there is a possibility of the iphone 5 coming out next july or so, so i'm going to hold back on phone purchases for now. worst case is that the iphone 5 doesn't come out, and i end up getting an iphone 4 or some other phone that looks appealing at that point in time.

the rest of saturday passed pretty uneventfully. gave tuition, which was thankfully the second-last session. once more sometime this week, and i won't have anything to do with that girl again. what a relief, considering that i need to focus on my own upcoming exams, too.

today was nothing special, too. went back to school to print notes and do the usual routine stuff. sent my spectroscopy lecturer an email...hope the response is favourable, because i need all the help i can get.

now, for the one thing that didn't go quite as well on saturday. going for judo naturally meant that i had to see that person. strangely enough, i felt pretty neutral, except perhaps for a slight twinge of jealousy and regret. there nothing hostile (to that person, at least...can't say the same for others). it's weird...like all strong emotions have just up and left. if asked two weeks ago, i would probably have volunteered to up knife mountain, down oil wok (borrowing and literally translating a chinese phrase) for that person. now...i'm not so sure. it's kind of scary, because i don't know when this change happened, or what could have caused it. i mean, you don't just stop feeling for a person overnight, do you?

i'm actually quite worried that this happened. just imagine this scene: ten years later, i wake up one day, go to my spouse, give them my wedding ring, and say, "i don't love you any more. i'll be moving out within the day." yes, i know you all probably think it's irrational, and that a million other factors could (and do) come into play, but considering how my feelings just...stopped, the possibility is there. and like i said before, that scares me quite a bit. then again, i wouldn't agree to marry someone unless i really loved them, so i guess i won't just walk out on anyone. knowing myself, i would fully commit myself if/when the right person came along. guess this wasn't the right one, then. nevertheless, i want to make peace with that person before the year ends. after all, that person is first and foremost a friend, and screwing a friendship (any more than it's already been screwed, that is) over something like this is kind of idiotic. maybe that'll put my hyperactive imagination to rest as well.

ok...four-day work week this coming week, but it's not any slacker than usual. have to submit my last lab report of the semester, as well as the einstein group story. have to make a few adjustments to the latter, though...i don't quite like some minor things about the current version. other than that...one last tuition session, possible consultation with my professor, maybe going back for training on wednesday, and meeting up with one of my friends before he flies off to germany to study music. coincidentally, both his and the judo junior's flights are scheduled for saturday. don't know what time exactly, though...so it looks like i may be spending quite a bit of time at the airport on that day.

-random thought of the day: Ever get the feeling that you don't know yourself as well as you ought to?-

In the past 24 hours alone, i've had more coffee than i've had for the previous 3 years. that's not saying much, considering that i'm not much of a coffee drinker anyway, and that the total in that time comes up to only about 8 cups. but still, it sounds impressive, especially the 3 years bit.

anyway, i've been at the computer for a large majority of the day, finishing up my 3 outstanding lab reports which i will submit in less than 12 hours' time. i'm mostly happy with them, except i think that they could use another once-over before printing, in case any typos slipped past while i was battling the urge to sleep. i figure i'll print them in school later, when i (hopefully, but am most unlikely to) feel more awake.

you know, i had the worst dream a couple of days ago. it wasn't a nightmare or anything, but it involved THAT person. why did the dream suck, you may ask? because it showed me a scenario that's close to impossible to attain in real life. and it hurt quite a bit. nevertheless, nobody (except me) knows details, so life still goes on.

sometimes, i wonder if it's true what they say — absence makes the heart grow fonder. right now, it's been something like...close to 2 months since i saw that person, and the usual sense of resignation i get when i think about them is slowly being replaced by...neutrality. maybe that's time's healing at work. unfortunately, every time i walk underneath my block and see the nail protruding from one of the concrete pillars, i'm still tempted to grab another person(who is linked to the someone mentioned above)'s head and perform the joker's disappearing pencil trick, with the pencil being replaced with the nail in question.

it's close to 6:00am, which means that i have to start preparing for school. SJI boy is sitting for his chem paper 2 this afternoon, and if all goes well, i'll drop by SJI after my lab to answer any questions that he (or any of the other judo kids) may have, before going back to school for the spectroscopy lecture at night. rundown of other events: tuition, most probably back-to-back scheduled for tomorrow and sunday. i've promised myself that this is the last time i'll see that girl, so i figure i can put up with her for 2 more sessions. with any luck, i'll finally be able to go back for judo training tomorrow morning as well. right now, my eyes need a break, so i guess i'll stop here and maybe add on to this post tonight.

-random thought of the day: Tired.-

To say that i'm clueless about my 2 current lab reports would be like saying that the land-clearing in indonesia produced "a little bit of smoke"...the understatement of the year. fact is, i'm utterly lost! for the first time in my NUS science life, i have zero idea about how to even go about interpreting the data from the 2 spectra. i've tried a few logical things, but apparently, the peaks aren't in sequential order. well, at least it's due on friday...i still have 5 more days to get help.

i'm sick. physically, that is. it's thanks to the haze (which, if you haven't figured out yet, is WAY more than just a little bit of smoke). at the moment, my nose is mildly blocked/stuffy, but my throat is in much worse condition from all the coughing i've been doing. what's worse, this is not a good time to fall ill! ok...arguably, there's no "good" time to fall ill (unless you're doing NS), but this time is worse than others. i mean, the upcoming week is abnormally busy, and finals are approaching over the horizon. studying is already difficult enough by itself, not to mention studying with a headache. needless to say, this sickness has prevented me from going for training for the second saturday in a row. i'm itching to go back, because i need to refresh my knowledge, and get more coordinated with my kata partner.

as of this past saturday, i've sort of stopped all tuition for the semester. SJI boy is as ready as i think he'll ever be, so i'm leaving it up to him now. the most is i'll see him one more during the week, though i don't know how it'll work out...or if it'll even work out at all. i'm not going to jinx anything by predicting results (not out in the open, anyway), so i'll just wait until next year to see if my expectations were met.

the other girl is somewhat screwed. we're talking about an A-level candidate who doesn't know what isotopes are! any of my tuition kids, past or present (with the possible exception of the SRJC girl from a long time ago) can give you that definition in under 5 seconds. this girl strikes me as someone who needs a lot of spoonfeeding. considering that it's so close to her exams, i'm willing to make an exception and do it. but in order for spoonfeeding to work, there has to be some sort of basic foundation there, right? it may not need to be much, but it still has to be there. she has ZERO independent thinking, as far as chem is concerned. example: i drew orbital energy level diagrams of carbon to explain hybridization. she couldn't tell the difference between unhybridized and hybridized carbon! doing that isn't difficult, by the way. just look at the number of orbitals in each energy level.

she also keeps saying she hasn't started on transition metals, so she doesn't know anything and sucks at it, blah, blah. she's been telling me that ever since i took her on, which was like 3 weeks ago. my question to her now is, "when are you going to start on it, then? december?" IT'S SO DAMNED ANNOYING!!! you know what? for health reasons, i think i'll just see her one last time, and let her meet her doom fate. something in me will explode with prolonged exposure to her density. in fact, i'd be willing to bet that if she took O-levels this year instead, SJI boy could beat her easily.

i should probably head to sleep...i do have a spectroscopic mid-term tomorrow, after all. thank goodness it's (1) only one hour long, and (2) open-book. i'm going to take "open-book" quite literally, as i'll be bringing in some library books for some additional inspiration. there are points which i haven't expanded out fully, as well as things that i want to say but haven't said. but, those will be saved for a future post (if i remember). sleep takes top priority for now.

-random thought of the day: How do you go about dropping a tuition kid?-

Glancing at the newspaper before going to school today confirmed what i'd suspected since late monday — the haze is back. it started with a very slight chao-tah smell in the air, which i thought might have been one of my neighbours' failed kitchen experiments. that possibility was ruled out when the smell followed me to school. and in case you're wondering, i didn't set myself on fire. the second indicator was when everything looked slightly out of focus...like my glasses (or the air) was dirty. turns out it was the air, because things looked the same even after i cleaned my glasses. thirdly, the night sky looked brighter, somehow. as in, the light coming from the spotlights on the NUS fields was somehow more diffused. thanks to my spectroscopy module, i know that it's mainly due to rayleigh (pronounced "ra-lee") scattering (and some raman scattering) when the photons meet and collide with haze particles in the air, and the energy causes excitation to virtual states, blah blah. but enough science. what i want to mention here is that my nose is starting to run a little due to the irritation, and i hope it gets better soon. more importantly, i hope it doesn't get worse!

last night, i had a brilliant idea. you know how i have problems with getting up to go to school on most mornings? well, what if i was up like, 3 hours before i had to actually wake up? it guarantees that i'll be wide awake when my actual waking time comes about, and i can even use those extra hours to get more revision/work done...like lab reports, to name one major source of work. of course, i'll have to compensate by either (1) sleeping earlier, or (2) drinking lots of coffee in the mornings. while i strongly prefer option 1, i may have to resort to its less appealing counterpart as exam season rolls around. so far, the plan's worked well...which basically translates to "i started doing that today, and it worked well", so i'm hoping that it'll continue to work in future.

this next part might sound a little racist, but i'm just reporting facts from my experiences. on my bus travels, i've noticed that singaporean bus drivers tend to place their passengers' comfort first, unlike china-national bus drivers, who seem to care more about adhering to schedule. case in point: the NUS shuttle buses, and in particular, the BTC1 shuttle bus, which i've been taking part of the way home almost every schoolday. for some reason, most of the shuttle buses i've boarded were driven by china nationals. and they tend to speed beyond the reasonable limit for the road they're on, take corners dangerously, jam on the brakes at zebra crossings and when stopping...basically making the journey rougher than absolutely necessary. compare this with the same bus driven by a singaporean. i boarded one such bus last night. nice, friendly bus uncle aside, the ride was smooth, with considerably less pitching about. now, i don't need a friendly driver who greets passengers as they board/alight. in singapore, i'd consider that value-added service already. what i DO expect, is not to have to brace myself every time the bus turns or stops (and this is while seated, mind you!). in fairness, there are excellent bus drivers who come from china, just as there are locals who are better off being passengers as opposed to drivers on a bus. nevertheless, this is the general trend that i observe. i say again, no racist undertones are intended.

while on the topic of public transport, i realize that i haven't mentioned something that i feel quite peeved about. i acknowledge that this is old news, so please forgive my horrible lateness. anyway, it's about a certain statement that the CEO of SMRT made this past june/july. it goes, "people can board the train – it is whether they choose to." to put this in context, she's referring to boarding the train at peak hours, when it's ridiculously crowded. for better understanding, the full article can be found here.

do you know how open to attack this statement is!? when i first heard it, the immediate thought that came to mind was, 'auntie...wake up your %#@&ing idea!!!'. side-note: she's apparently the highest-paid CEO that SMRT has ever had, so i expect that she would be rich enough to drive (or be driven) to work every day. like several other bloggers have said before, we challenge her to survive some period of time (in my case, i'll use one NUS semester) relying solely on public transport, with minimal taxi usage...say thrice a week at maximum. she has no excuse to refuse, actually. for one, people both older and younger than her use the train every day, so her age doesn't matter. furthermore, she's the CEO of the company, so she should show her support. and of course, she can't use her CEO status as an excuse not to take the train, or that would be elitism. i guarantee that by the end of the first week or two, she'll be singing a different tune.

the other way to attack this would be to agree with her. sure, i can choose to board the train, even if it means pushing and elbowing others so that i can create some empty space to occupy. then this would go against the government's whole "love your ride" campaign, because i highly doubt anyone would love their ride after being pushed and shoved from all directions. so...her "advice" contradicts a government campaign, which is not smart. anyway, that's partially why i'm taking the buses more often, and avoiding the MRT during peak hours, unless i'm really pressed for time and that's the only alternative.

enough about transport...that woman's words still make me want to do something very violent to her. let's talk about tuition instead! i am so, SO happy that SJI boy is taking his work seriously now, considering that O-levels are next week. in fact, this past tuition session that i had with him was arguably the best one ever, since he got most of the questions right, with minimal careless mistakes. even though he doesn't know it, that was a pretty good birthday present.

i'm going to start a new paragraph for the girl, because i don't want to mention her in the same breath together with the rest of my tuition kids. she's seriously killing me. you know, based on the signals she's sending me, i can't believe that she didn't fail her A-levels last year. i mean, not knowing about hybridization when the exams are like 2 weeks away!!? it's incredibly stunning. at any rate, i've decided that this saturday will most probably be the last time that i see her. not only is my patience wearing dangerously thin, i also have to study for upcoming finals and whatnot. so...yes. i'm not being heartless (much), but there's only so much i can do for someone who's this hopeless at this point in time.

anyways, i'd better be off to sleep. sleeping at 11:30pm and waking up at 4:30am means that i get about 5 hours of sleep (excluding time spent tossing and turning, etc.). i can survive like this for 2 or 3 days, but beyond that, who knows? guess i'll have to test my limits here.

-random thought of the day: Damned haze.-

"Happy birthday to me...happy birthday to me..."

ok, so i'm 35 minutes early, but i figure that it'll be 12:00am or later by the time i finish this post. besides, no harm in celebrating a little early, right? i mean, it's not like time is going to freeze at 11:59 or something.

anyway, i'm going to be 22! it's still the early twenties, so i guess i can still be considered young. oddly enough, it seems that my preferences are not those of a typical 22-year-old. for instance, instead of partying the night away and getting wasted beyond belief, i'm just going to sleep, like any other normal night. perhaps that has something to do with my usual tuition arrangement tomorrow. yes, i'll be working on my birthday, which is kind of odd, since i used to consider that a major sin. guess practicality wins out here. not giving tuition = no $$, after all.

this year, i'm not expecting many wishes, considering my facebook is off. family aside, i doubt anyone will remember. i don't blame them; after all, i can't remember all my friends' birthdays, so i don't expect people to go out of their way to remember mine. still, it would be nice to see who defies that trend (without getting tipped off by this post, of course).

even though i (as usual) have serious doubts about receiving any gifts this year (my family are more of the red packet type of people), i'll just put on record how incredibly thrilled i would be if someone decided to get me a car....even better if the road tax and insurance were already settled. hey, if i'm already wishing for the almost-impossible here, why not push it a little? of course, nothing too expensive/fancy, or i'd sell it and get something cheaper that appeals to and works for me. if a car's way too far out of your budget, i wouldn't mind an iphone 4, too.

actually...hold that iphone 4 thought. i've been doing some number-crunching. according to the figures on the starhub website (accurate as of this post), getting the cheapest plan and paying more upfront for the phone will actually save me more money in the long run, assuming that my choice of phone is independent of my choice of plan. to put some solid figures in, getting the cheaper plan and phone can cost either $1412 or $1542, depending on the capacity of the phone. the more expensive plan will set me back $1622 or $1772. the only difference is what the money is spent on. by opting for a more expensive plan, i'm paying more for additional talktime, whereas i'm paying more for the hardware if i take the cheaper plan.

this leads to the next question — which plan to go for? starhub has the deal where students get free unlimited SMSes, so i'm not worried about that. both plans also offer the same amount of data usage, so that's fine too. the difference lies only in the total outgoing talktime offered...100 minutes per month for the cheaper one, and 300 minutes per month for the more expensive one. considering i'm not really a phone-y person (the pun is there if you squint really hard) and don't have anyone special to spend exceedingly long times on the phone with, 100 minutes doesn't sound all that bad. from my previous bills, it seems that i barely use half of that time anyway, so i'll probably be going to the cheaper plan. but this means that i'll be paying $500 or $630 for the phone itself (depending on capacity once again)! horrors. nevertheless, i have to remind myself that in the long run, i'm actually saving money by doing this, unless i do something unexpected like upgrading my plan halfway. and it'll give me way more incentive to take care of the phone, unlike my omnia, which is rather scratched up.

still, as i've promised myself, this will only happen (provided that it happens at all) after my finals, earliest. who knows? by then, prices may change, or better phones will be out, and i may have to do my analysis all over again. no point planning too far ahead, but at least i now have a better idea about the associated pros and cons. so...back to the main post.

sleep deprivation sucks, as i found out (again) first-hand on friday. i really don't know how one of my friends has been surviving on an average of 3 hours of sleep per day since the start of the semester. maybe he sleeps his entire weekend away, but i doubt it. staying up for most of the night (i snuck in a 90-minute power nap at about 3:00am) really left me blur for most of friday. to make things slightly worse, there was coaching as well. luckily i pulled through, partially because the kids actually behaved for a change. i guess they knew my birthday was coming up, through some sneaky means which i will not even try to guess.

despite being excited about training today, i simply couldn't drag myself out of bed and down to CJC. in fact, i was in bed until about 11:30am, feeling like i was hung-over and trying to recover from the after-effects of the (almost-)all-nighter. and i was so looking forward to throwing some juniors around, too! oh well...there's always next week. it would be worse if i trained while half-dead and broke something somewhere...even more so if the something belonged to someone else.

a brief mention about wednesday. it was my cousin's birthday, and as usual, he reminded me that there are 4 days in a year when he's officially older than me. ok, he's older than me all of the time, but you get what i mean, yes? in addition to that, cat high turned 75 too. a few of us went for the annual dinner, which i haven't attended since...2006 or 2007. anyway, it was a pretty...*insert word here that means something of slightly less magnitude than grand* affair. somehow, singing the school song always gives me a rush of patriotism/loyalty to the school. doesn't happen for any other school that i've been in, though. i really liked the door gift, which was a set of an OBA collar pin, a shiny uniform button, and (my personal favourite,) a school badge. though these items probably didn't cost much to make, there's a lot of sentiment attached...especially to the last 2, seeing as we wore them practically every day for 4, 6, or 10 years. ah...good times.

true to expectation, it's past 12:00am already, and i'm officially 22. or if you want to be technical about it, i'm 21 until about 10:30am. anyway, i have to get to bed, since i have tuition to give in about 9 hours' time. hopefully the kids can sense something different in the air tomorrow, and give me an easier time.

-random thought of the day: I still don't feel at 100%...-

Last post, i apologized for the reduced frequency of posts. unfortunately, i must apologize even more, because posting frequency will most likely not improve for the rest of the year. there's a perfectly good reason for it, of course, but i can't reveal it yet. the secondary (and still perfectly valid) reason is that i have to focus more on my schoolwork, so blogging has to move out of the picture a little. i'm not giving up, mind you (blogging has become too much of an ingrained habit), just that i'll be blogging at most once a week, or sometimes even less that that.

the past week was definitely not good. i've been raped by two professors' mid-term papers. needless to say, a certain part of my anatomy feels very abused. and by "certain part", i mean my brain, of course. minds out of the gutter, now. seriously though, it sucks, because i realize that the mid-terms are not difficult. just that the stress of working under a time constraint leads to silly errors being made. my spectroscopy professor went through the questions, and i'm sure that if he had given us more time (like 2 hours instead of 1), scoring higher than my 3/11 would most definitely be possible. and oh my goodness...you wouldn't believe the careless mistakes! things like subtracting instead of adding, forgetting to square the wavefunction before integration for a probability calculation...i felt (and still feel) SO annoyed with myself.

as for physical chem, i'm prepared for a not-pretty grade. considering i was rushing lab reports and didn't really study for it. to be honest, i'm just hoping that my lab marks pull me up sufficiently to avoid a final grade of C. well...no use crying over spilt milk...have to study my engel and reid until it becomes angled and read. in addition, i've asked my spectroscopy professor for physical chem help. no, i'm not unbelievably confused. it's just that the spectroscopy professor used to teach the physical chem module until a reshuffle this semester. not that i'm disrespecting the current physical chem professor or anything, but somehow, i guess his teaching style and my learning style are incompatible, unlike the spectroscopy professor, whose teaching style i love very very much. he's reluctant to help, though...something about professional courtesy, which i can understand and appreciate. nevertheless, i'm determined to get some help from him, because i'm toast for the final if i don't.

most of my stress in the past week came from school. after friday, everything just completely relaxed. can't relax for too long, though...i've still got lab reports coming in at a steady rate, and studying never really stops. i just wish that the work would be better paced. or maybe it's me...i have to pace my work better. letting everything build up is definitely not good.

oh. as ashamed as i am to post this, i received my first speeding ticket. 6 demerits and a $150 fine. but that's not why i feel horrible about it. the main thing that kills me is that my dad took the bullet for me. the car is registered in his name, so the letter was sent to him. by the time i found out about it, i couldn't do anything to reverse it. my next-best option was to pay him back for the fine. it sucks! while i appreciate the intention, i'd rather suffer for my own mistakes. i can afford 6 demerits, anyway, since i can accumulate up to a maximum of 13 points in my first year before my license gets revoked. receiving the summons was annoying, because there's now this constant sense of dread/fear that some ninja traffic police officer is watching from his/her hidden vantage point. and as a side-effect, i'm now consciously monitoring my speed again, much like i had to do while learning. that's not good, because most cars are going above the speed limit, anyway. so, by obeying the rules, i actually become the minority. ironic, eh? at least i can take comfort in the fact that those 6 points will be erased after 365 consecutive offence-free days.

despite how it sounds, the past week wasn't ALL bad. the biggest thing i have to be happy about is that as of this past friday, i no longer need to display P-plates when i drive! it's good because now i can drive whenever the occasion calls for it, without hunting for those fluorescent orange triangles on a fluorescent yellow background. not to mention that my point cap goes up from 13 to 24. on the other hand, not displaying the bright mark of newbieness also means that other drivers will be less nice on the roads. as it is, i've already met more than my fair share of idiot drivers with the P-plates on. now with them off, my hopes that the situation will improve aren't too high.

up till now, i still can't understand why drivers just won't signal their intention to filter lanes. that has to be my top gripe with the majority of singaporean drivers. a close second would be that some drivers seem to think that their cars have contortionistic properties. the car's length or so of space i leave between myself and other car in front is called a "safety distance", not a "slot-into gap". i acknowledge that cutting across in this fashion is sometimes inevitable, like when you're about to miss your exit on the expressway. but doing it on a nice, straight road with no turn-offs is just annoying, because then they're doing it just to get ahead. would it kill to be behind just a little!? sure, there are life-and-death situations, but how often do you meet such cases? all in all, i think the traffic police should focus less on minor infringements (i was speeding safely, since i was practically alone of the road. and yes, i still feel a little sore about it) and actively go after the people who are real threats to themselves and more importantly, other drivers.

tuition is slowly winding down, which is both good and bad once again. good because i have more free time, bad because i earn less money. worse still, tuition with SJI boy today suddenly tempted me to get an iphone 4. just one more item to add to my list of wants. of course, this one is more affordable than either a laptop or a car, so the chance of me getting myself one for my own birthday-cum-christmas present is correspondingly higher when compared to the latter 2 items. and yet...i'd feel horribly guilty if i did get one. it's like i didn't do anything to deserve the phone! considering that my grades could swing either way (though i'll know exactly which way by christmas), there's nothing to really justify me getting a new phone, except that it's my money and i can do what i want with it. but on the flipside, my omnia's GPS is kind of shot, the battery life is diminishing, my screen protector's scratched, and that affects my text input. lastly, the lack of precision without a stylus is really starting to annoy me.

right now, the main thing (other than cost and paperwork) that's preventing me from jumping ship is that i'm worried about the iphone's camera and some other issues/complaints. SJI boy tells me they fixed the "death grip" problem already, so that's good. of course, there's the ever-present thought that tells me to hold on, in case the iphone 5 comes out just as i get the iphone 4. well, i figure i'll sleep on the decision for a while...say until after finals. meanwhile, i can also use the time to do research on the iphone 4, to see if it's really as desirable as i perceive it to be.

and speaking of sleeping on something, i have to go to bed like now. i have school tomorrow morning, after all. in case you're wondering, i'm not going to sleep before 10:00pm. it's just that the post editor shows the time the post was started, not the time it was published. last thing: a quick rundown of the coming week. it's week 9, and my odd weeks happen to be tougher since there are more tutorials then than even weeks. i'll survive. i'm seeing that girl (i think i'll call her "havoc girl", since she's only 19, but smokes and has a tattoo) again sometime probably on wednesday, before going for cat high's founder's day dinner. other than that, i have a lab report and my part of a term paper to write. so...this coming week will most definitely not be slack.

-random thought of the day: Judo training resumes this coming Saturday! Stress relief time...-

Updates are becoming more sporadic, and i apologize for that. but no matter how much i don't like it, i can't really control when the updating mood will strike. seems like the perfect combination of mood and timing hasn't been presenting itself recently. despite the fact that i'm barely treading water in my sea of work and studying, i'm making some time to blog now, for fear of exploding when all the stress has been kept in for too long.

let's talk about tuition first. one slight disadvantage about having tuition as my main source of income is that it's rather seasonal. i mean, no student would want tuition during term breaks, right? unless the student happens to be an anomaly like genius girl, that is. as of this past sunday, i've stopped tuition with RJC girl, since her promos are almost all over. RGS girl is uncertain, because she may or may not want tuition next week. i think i'll be seeing MGS girl for the last time this year on this coming saturday. SJI boy isn't going to stop tuition since his O-levels are something like 3 weeks away(!)...at least, i'm assuming he won't. this leaves me basically income-less once november starts, which kind of sucks, especially since i tend to spend more than usual around christmas.

one of my friends recommended a tuition kid to me. this girl used to be one of his kids, but he didn't have enough time for her. i can't give her one of my usual nicknames, since she's currently not in any school. she's taking A-levels as a private candidate this year, and guess what? she only started studying chem in july. i've met her for one session already, and my assessment of her mostly matches what my friend tells me. long story short: she wants to run before she can walk. i mean, on one hand, she tells me that she hates chem and hasn't been paying attention in class since sec 4. on the other hand, she want to dive immediately into topics like ionic equilibria, which even people who are proficient in chem (not to boast, but that refers to me at A-levels) find tough both to learn (then) and to teach (now). she says she'll try to learn along the way, but i highly doubt that she'll learn much if we focus on questions. not that i'm doubting her intelligence or anything, but considering that she can't even remember the number of p and d orbitals each quantum shell possesses, i don't have my hopes up too much. i just hope that i won't be annoyed enough to drop her just before the exam.

that aside, school is becoming a major source of stress. it's weird how the workload is never "just right". this semester, i thought the beginning was slack, and then it picked up sometime around week 6. now, at week 8, i suddenly find myself swamped. it wouldn't be that bad if it was just assignments, but i have to take studying for the mid-terms into account too. at present, i've sat for 2 mid-terms, the einstein one and the spectroscopic principles one. the results are back already, and i scored A+ for the former, and 3/11 for the latter. yes, you read that right. three out of eleven. then again, the professor said that that was about the class average, so i'm sort of comforted by that. not by much, though. still, in my defence, it was not an easy paper...not when the professor marks based solely on your final answer, meaning that workings don't count for anything. add that on to the pressure of doing 11 questions in 1 hour, and you can see why the class performed horribly on average. almost makes me wonder if the professor feels the same way as i do when i watch my tuition kids take my tests. maybe i should be nicer to my kids in the future?

i've heard some interesting songs on the radio recently. here's the first one:

you know, it's quite amazing. i caught this song on the radio when i was driving back from school one night. midway into the chorus, i was pretty sure than bon jovi sang it. doing a quick check on the lyrics that i remembered proved me right. somehow, it just seems like something that they would sing. the next song is something which i just heard today, over internet radio:

when i first heard it, i felt this great surge of sadness. i think it's due to the singer's voice. either that, or it's the meaning of the lyrics. maybe both. whatever the case, it makes for good listening material. have to remember to include it in my next car-tunes CD.

well, i think that's all i can think of posting right now. i have 2 lab reports to finish by tomorrow. not to mention preparing for friday's lab, and studying for the physical chem mid-term, which — wouldn't you believe it? — happens to be on friday as well. oh joy.

-random thought of the day: Maybe taking that new tuition kid on wasn't such a good idea...-