quick extra trivia bit: wand and house assignments are done by answering questions, something like personality tests. only thing is, some of the questions are abstract enough that i can't tell what they're testing for. to my surprise, the tests are actually pretty accurate! their results reflect my personality quite well...ravenclaw's a good house to be in, since i do think i'm smart (though my grades don't show it). gryffindor might have been nice also, but what's done is done.
incidentally, i think the book has oversold gryffindor. it's the main character's house, and so, throughout the books, readers see and know more about it and its people than any other house. i think that's also why everyone wants to be sorted into it. similar story about wands. everybody wants a springy holly wand with a phoenix feather core. did you know that the hardness of a wand is related to how easily the user adapts to change? mine's hard, which means i don't adapt easily...another accurate result.
contrary to what i thought during summer, i still can't seem to give up my cooking habit. so, wednesdays are kind of like my designated cooking days. don't know why, but i really enjoy cooking. especially i've since started to do some more adventurous stuff, like making pasta from scratch. have to thank jamie oliver for that one. the only annoying bit is actually rolling the pasta out to the required thickness/thin-ness. makes me wish i had one of those crank-operated pasta machines. they seem to simplify the process a lot. only problems are i don't know where in singapore they're available, and i think they're pretty expensive. oh well. rolling out the pasta is actually a pretty good workout, since the dough is very resistant to stretching.
i have to admit, though, i'm a pretty intuitive cook. as in, i season by feel, and don't plan my recipes out beforehand. instead of planning, i mostly raid the fridge and see what i can throw in. sometimes, (well, often), i forget things, and have to rush to get them into the pan, or the other stuff already in there would burn. then, when i rush, i forget things like seasoning, or to add in an ingredient which i had originally wanted to add. seems like i'll never make it in the restaurant business...but that's ok. after all, my cooking is more of a hobby/survival skill than it is a money-making thing.
and speaking of money-making, my adsense (re-)application has been approved! so exciting. now, all i have to do is add the advertisement code to the template, and see who clicks. oh. about the template issue. turns out that i can (and did) revert to the old template. i must admit, though, that switching to the new editor is becoming increasingly tempting. guess i'll switch when blogger makes it compulsory. meanwhile, i can keep practising my HTML skills.
since the last post, the main events that have transpired are a couple of tuition sessions, and a test. for tuition, i've seen 2 CJC kids. SJI-CJC boy (whom i've been teaching since he was in secondary school. for convenience, he shall be CJC boy 1 in this post) and another SJI-CJC boy (with whom i've just started this year...you guessed it, CJC boy 2). CJC boy 1 is maturing...as in, he's putting more effort into paying attention during class. at least that's the impression i get. i seriously cannot understand why he's been slacking so much, especially since he's smart. or maybe it's because he's smart. if i can guess his thought process, he probably thinks that he can put things off until the last minute and still learn everything in time. while that is possible, there is a limit. one year's worth of content for 4 subjects is definitely over that limit. whatever the case, i'm happy that he's bothered to find out about stuff which he didn't catch in school.
CJC boy 2's case is a bit more worrying. he's in J2 this year, so there's really not much time left. while he knows his content somewhat, he's just SO BLUR!! i seriously do not expect a J2 kid to misread "methane" as "ethane", or to mix up the conditions for addition and substitution, or the terms "electrophilic" and "nucleophilic". no matter how i teach, i can't correct blurness. it's worrying, you know...an 18-year-old making secondary school mistakes. i just hope he wakes up during the paper, and reads every single word carefully.
the test which i had was organic synthesis, on monday. in my opinion, it was the easiest core module test i've taken in a while...perhaps ever. the 4 questions were do-able, and i got both retro and forward syntheses down. optimistically, i'm looking at a 35+/40. i'm almost scared to think that way for a core module, since i've never scored that well on a heavily-weighted test before. best thing to do right now is to keep my fingers crossed, and hope for the best.
the plan for the next couple of days is pretty normal. school, and more school. thank goodness my group finished our experiments early, which means i don't have lab this coming friday. on the flipside, that also means that i only have a one-hour japanese tutorial. kind of nice to be given an almost-day-off, though i do feel kind of sian that i still have to go to school. but i suppose it'll be a good opportunity for me to have a study day. goodness knows i need the opportunity to brush up on my instrumental analysis. meanwhile, back to my lab reports.
-random thought of the day: Must remember extended vowels in Japanese!-
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