Less than 24 hours separates me from summer. after a whole weekend of studying, i feel pretty good about japanese. in fact, it's kind of how i used to feel before a chem exam in secondary school...like, there's nothing else that i can possibly study. of course, that's not true, seeing as i've never got a perfect score for any exam since primary 1. but i digress. think i'll go to school to study before the exam (which is at 5:00pm). if all goes well, i may even be able to slip in a quick meeting with my tutor to check my revision exercise answers.

from the last post, i've got a few blogging prompts. about my finger, the second joint on my right index finger kind of aches...feels a bit like a very minor sprain/strain. think i got it between transition metals and organic mechanisms. annoying thing is that it's aggravated when i write, especially if i write hard/fast. oh well. i can bear with it for japanese, after which i can let it heal over the summer.

MSN-ing a CJC judo junior has alerted me to the fact that their training only resumes around mid-may, which is like 2 weeks later. that leaves me 2 weeks to build up some stamina before going back to training. have to make full use of this summer break, since it's the last long break i'll have for a while.

-random thought of the day: Think I'm forgetting something...-

Killer modules' exams are over, and i'm just left with japanese next monday before i can officially declare the semester to be over. as far as exams go...this semester feels better than last semester. less idiotic errors, and no feeling of helplessness, which should be a good sign.

now, for a quick review of the exams. transition metals went ok-ish. quite annoyed with myself for not remembering the sequence of trans-effect strengths for various ligands. so, i know i've lost about 6 marks so far for the inorganic synthesis question. of course, i don't think i answered everything else perfectly, but it feels decent overall. taking my above-average mid-term results into account, it seems like i'm looking at a...B+? A-? maybe even an A, optimistically speaking, though i have to admit that the chances of that happening are bordering on zero.

organic mechanisms was everything we expected. i don't think anything caught us by surprise, because most of the questions were recycled. it was kind of a troll paper, because the professor asked an exact same question (radical vs. ionic mechanisms) in the second test as well. so, we weren't expecting it to appear again. luckily it was still reasonably fresh in my mind. that aside, i know i forgot to draw one product for a diels-alder reaction. though it may seem minor, the paper was doable enough that such a minor thing may be the key difference between grades. who knows? going by my results for the CAs and online quizzes, i'm thinking...B+ or A-. hopefully my group's project was decent enough to earn the bonus marks and boost the grade.

regarding lab and UROPS, i have no good estimate for my performance. but based on feeling, i'd (very optimistically) say A-/A for lab, and B/B+ for UROPS. lastly, japanese. i don't want to sound complacent, but looking at my results for the quizzes and stuff, i THINK my grade should be an A- at worst...unless i screw up next monday *touch wood*.

after evaluating all this semester's modules, it seems like i may be able to pull off another miracle for the second consecutive semester. if the trend from last semester continues, and i'm underestimating my results, i'll be in an even better place, CAP-wise. but let's not get greedy, yes? the target is to just get above 4.

to celebrate the end of (most of) the major exams, and the end of exams for some of us, we (the chem kids) went down to vivocity for lunch at earle swensen's. unless i'm severely mistaken, the other normal outlets are just called swensen's. makes me wonder why this one's so special. could be because it's their most atas branch. anyway, part of the reason for going there was the existence of something called a salad bar buffet. order a set meal, and get full, unlimited access to the salad bar. it was actually pretty good...nice taste and variety. only downside was that restocking the depleted food took a while. it's definitely not worth going there just for salad, since the normal price for the salad bar alone is $12.90. if they can give it free with a set meal, $12.90 is plain extortion.

following that, we walked around for a bit while waiting for 3:00pm. one of the stops we made was at action city, where we saw this thing called a boogie board. while it's name is reminiscent of equipment to bring to the beach, it's actually a tablet which you can write on, and erase with the touch of a button. basically, a super-thin replacement for a huge stack of rough paper. i was quite tempted to get it, for japanese practice, or any other rough scribbling that i foresee myself doing. only thing is, it's a bit small (8.5-inch LCD screen), and whatever's been written down can't be saved. i know there's a version where saving the images is possible, but i think it's really expensive. well, i think i'll do a bit more research on it before making any decisions.

we were waiting for 3:00pm for one reason: starbucks was having a 1-for-1 promotion for selected (well, 2) drinks, so we had a coffee break. it's always nice to spend time talking to friends. i also had quite a depressing thought...that this is the last semester in NUS for some of us. out of the chem people i know slightly better, 2 are graduating this july, while another 2 will only be in school for 1 more semester, as compared to the honours people, who have a whole year to go. currently, i think there are like 6 of us who have honours plans. even then, it'll probably be more difficult to meet up, since we're under different professors and have different schedules...more different than now, for sure. still, it's no use thinking about such depressing stuff. i'm sure we'll find a way to hang out in honours year.

i don't think i've mentioned this yet, but i'm currently blogging from school. the plan was to come to school for group seminar and study japanese afterwards, but there's just no drive to study now. reading through the books, everything seems manageable. the only possibly tricky thing is reading and writing some kanji, but i figure i can take care of that tomorrow. just hope that i don't become too sure of myself and forget the basic stuff. which reminds me...i should probably bring my japanese i book to school for extra revision.

second-last thing. today's my dad's birthday. there's supposed to be a dinner at nex, but quite honestly, i don't feel like going. there are 2 reasons. (1) it's nex at peak hour, and the crowd is bound to be horrible. (2) family outings make me feel...awkward. don't know if i've said this before, but sometimes, i feel like i have more in common with my friends/relatives than my immediate family. there are occasions where i have had serious trouble believing we share the same genes. or maybe i'm somehow mutated. who knows? but back to the main topic...to go or not? i know the logical/expected answer is yes, but i'm having trouble convincing myself of that. think i'll meditate on it a while more...though chances are i'll end up going.

lastly, some quick blogging prompts for future reference. my finger hurts, going back to training, honours, and whatever else comes to mind when i next blog.

-random thought of the day: Sleepy. Shouldn't have come to school.-

Joining my friends in school to study this weekend seems to have done some good. i'm a bit clearer on the concepts. the minor worrying thing is that now, i'm feeling a little overconfident...though deep down, i know that i haven't got 100% of the content down yet. it's not that bad for organic mechanisms, because i know what i don't know. the content for transition metals seems to be easy enough, but i bet there are little things which i'm not completely clear about. guess those can be worked out tomorrow.

it's kind of horrible...i'm not too confident that my CAP will go up this semester. achieving an A- average seems practically impossible, and hearing one of my friends talking about his potential As is pretty...demoralizing? sad? while my CAP is a major cause for concern, i can't really be bothered to worry about it at this point. no point stressing myself any more than absolutely necessary, right?

something made me really happy today. managed to catch the person online for a quick chat. i know it's not much, but it really lifted my mood. crazy things, feelings. i just hope things work out, both here and for the exams.

-random thought of the day: Feeling a little down.-

It seems that blogger has switched me to the new interface. while you probably don't see any difference on the surface as you read this, behind-the-scenes looks totally different. since i've been switched, i've decided to keep to my word and stick to the new interface despite still having the option to switch back to the old interface (though probably only for a little while more). there are some things i'm not entirely happy about, like losing the ability to expand my previous posts in the edit post window. this means i don't have a quick/easy reference to previous posts, and i can't read them without accessing the main blog any more. but i think there'll be ways to work around it. and it seems that this new interface isn't really 100% complete, either. trying to use certain functions will sometimes cause redirection to older pages. well...hopefully they iron out all the kinks soon.

can't believe that reading week is over. technically, there's still tomorrow, but you get what i mean. even though i've gone through both core modules' notes once, it still doesn't feel like i studied enough. but the fact that i didn't face problems with most of the past exam questions which i attempted for organic mechanisms is proof that some good did take place, at least. too bad the previous professor for transition metals didn't release his exam papers. makes it slightly more stressful, not having something to test your knowledge against. of course, i've been utterly neglecting japanese in order to prepare for my cores. considering i have 4+ days to study for it after my last core module paper, i guess that's ok.

right now, there are 4 more days until transition metals, and 5 more until organic mechanisms. funny; i feel more prepared for the latter. looks like i have to work at transition metals a bit more. should be doable over the weekend. and speaking of weekend, the tuition kids haven't got back to me yet. if i don't receive their sms by tonight, i'll just assume it's off tomorrow. saves me the trouble of travelling to the place from school, and then back to school again after tuition. but if it happens to be on, i just hope i can get the car. wasting valuable time on public transport is not smart, especially when time is running short.

last thing on my mind at the moment. most friends don't know everything about each other, unless they grew up together. even then, it's pretty rare. i grew up with my cousin and still can't say that i know him inside-out. if you were to find out that a (reasonably good) friend of yours has a trait that you really hate, which you previously didn't know about, would that affect your friendship? say it's something completely innocent, like if your friend was a vegetarian (i know dietary preferences are quite difficult to conceal, but just for argument's sake). now, if for some reason you've been taught to hate vegetarians from young (once again, for argument's sake), would that affect your friendship? or how about something more serious, say if your friend was...a smoker? a drug addict? would you draw a line, that if crossed, your friendship would terminate? if you would, where would you draw it? kind of a depressing train of thought...makes me question my friendships sometimes. but at the end of the day, i still stick by newton's third law: i treat people how they treat me, if not better.

time to sleep, since i have to be up early for group seminar tomorrow. could be a side-effect of the stress, but my recent dreams have become quite messed up. nothing scary or bad, just really random and weird. it's just a phase (i hope).

-random thought of the day: Pretty lightning...-

How can half of reading week go by just like that? doesn't really feel like 3 days. as it is, i'm a little behind on my studies...but that's my fault for slacking yesterday. still, if i factor in studying over the weekend, everything should fall nicely into place. so far, i've read half of each of my 2 core modules' notes. the content seems manageable, but (1) my current retention rate is low, and (2) tutorial questions require odd applications of the concepts. i figure that things will work out in the end, though. after all, there are 6 more days until the first paper. sounds like enough time to work out all the problems.

since reading week started, i've been feeling more sleepy/lazy. not a good sign. maybe it's a physiological response to the thought that summer is approaching? guess nobody told my brain that i'll probably be working for most of the summer break. oh well. perhaps i just need to focus.

-random thought of the day: Should I give tuition this Saturday?-

Getting through the past week has taken nothing short of a (few) really big miracle(s); what with 4 presentations and a report to clear in 5 days. right now, i'm just taking the weekend off before intensive studying begins next monday.

so...the past week is not something i'd like to repeat anytime in the near or distant future. monday and tuesday were mostly ok...just a lot of mental stress due to preparation. japanese oral interview went decently enough, except that i forgot to give a key piece of information ("the house is located on the left") in the directions part of the interview. the other parts were better, though the casual conversation felt kind of fake. still, i think i'll do well enough.

the UROPS presentations, on the other hand, was bad. the first professor was nice enough, though he asked a pretty tough question on atom economy, to which there was no really good answer. still, he wasn't half as bad as the next professor, who basically tore my presentation apart. to be fair, his questions were valid, but just unbelievably difficult...like they focused on less significant parts of the project that i didn't research too deeply into. so...i don't know. i just hope that the overall grades balance out in the neighbourhood of a B+/A-.

organic mechanisms went ok too...for my part at least. overall was a little below my expectations, but as long as we get the bonus points, staying up until 3+am to finish the report will pay off. one of friends who sat in on the presentation said that i like to use the word "so" as a transition/filler. interesting feedback; i never really noticed it.

in order to celebrate our survival of hell week (for that's really what the last week was), some friends and i went to this italian place at u-town for dinner. apart from the food being good for its price range, the interesting thing about this particular restaurant is that (i think) it's the first place that sells alcohol on campus! of course, they can only sell after 6:00pm, but still, it's a step forward. i'm mildly embarrassed to admit that i got drunk on heineken. in my defence, though, i haven't drank for nearly 6 months, and i had wasn't well-rested because i was rushing the organic mechanisms report the previous night. was an interesting experience, though...never thought i'd have the opportunity to see alcohol on school premises, let alone actually drink in school.

mmm...what else? oh. i'm quite happy that that someone wasn't ignoring me. just busy for the past 2 weeks. hopefully our online times coincide soon.

next week is reading week, and i'll probably be in school every day to study. the order of my finals are transition metals 2 wednesdays later, organic mechanisms the day after that, and japanese 2 on the subsequent monday. probably won't do a study plan, but i think i'll focus on the chem modules for most of reading week, with occasional bits of japanese when chem stresses me out too much. not too sure about the exact order, either. maybe i'll bring both modules' notes to school and alternate when i feel like it. sounds like a plan. which reminds me...i have to print some past-year papers for practice purposes. but that can wait until monday. main priority for this weekend is recovering sufficiently to face reading week head-on.

-random thought of the day: Bored science kids should never be given a laser.-

Finishing the practical exam today means that all my lab work for this semester is DONE. almost done with the lab modules too, save a lab report which i have to submit by monday. it's mostly written already...just have to organize the references and i'm more or less done. and not forgetting the UROPS presentation, which i think you all are sick of hearing about already.

the exam itself wasn't killer; in fact, the experiment was actually quite simple, and not remotely close to whatever i'd predicted. turned out to be nucleophilic substitution of triphenylphosphine onto 1,4-dibromobutane, followed by reaction of that product with NaOH to generate a bis-diphenylphosphine oxide. sounds more complicated that it actually is, i promise. it's quite an odd (lucky) coincidence, because the reaction we did today is a bit similar to some of the reactions i did for UROPS. unlike last semester's practical module exam, i managed to answer all the questions this time round. one thing that mildly annoyed me was that one of the TAs turned the power of my hot plate off, which means that i was just stirring for 10 minutes when i was supposed to be refluxing. thank goodness i noticed that my flask wasn't getting hot after a while, and managed to rectify the problem with time to spare. murder would have taken place if the reflux couldn't be completed on time. since i know there were definitely some mistakes in the experimental report as well as in the quiz, i'm not aiming too high. while an A would be nice, i think i'd be happy enough with an A-.

something tells me that i may have unintentionally offended that someone whom i've been talking to, because they haven't been online or even responding to my messages. seems kind of abrupt to me, because i don't think i said anything really bad. on the other hand though, that person may simply be busy, and i may just be reading too much into it. oh well. nothing i can do about it at the moment. just hope that it's nothing serious.

a while ago, i remember talking to one of my japanese tutors, and i mentioned that converting between the various forms is not natural for non-native speakers...like, we have to think for a while, determine what group the verb is, figure out the conversion rule, then apply it. native japanese speakers do it so easily! and from what i heard, they don't learn the conversion rules like we have to; they just pick it up from daily life. she then said that it's similar for japanese people learning english, like they also learn rules to convert verbs into the various forms, some conversions being unnatural to them as well (eg. eat, ate, eaten). honestly, i didn't think of it that way, because it's so natural to me. guess it's the same for them, only in japanese. wish i could achieve their level of fluency, though.

oh. something else severely annoyed me. if you remember, i had to perform a skit (with my partner) for japanese tutorial this past wednesday. we had arranged to meet at 5:30pm on tuesday, which would give us half an hour to rehearse before lecture. imagine how i felt when he didn't show up. i couldn't care less if he didn't go for lecture, since it's his own problem if he doesn't get marks for the lecture quiz. more importantly, it's so irresponsible of him to just forget about the appointment. the main reason i was so upset was that i had wanted to do a stunt, which involved a rather dramatic breakfall. we (i) still did it in the end, it looked so staged since we didn't rehearse it! especially when he panicked when thought he had seriously hurt me. as if he could. the only way he could hurt me is if i was blindfolded and already in severe pain.

but i can still kind of accept the stunt looking fake. what ABSOLUTELY ENRAGED me was that he changed his part of the script without letting me know! totally destroyed the feeling that i was hoping to create...not to mention that his edited version was harder to understand, and didn't match the final version that i submitted. for someone who didn't join in the consultation with the tutor, he had no right to change anything. even then, if he had wanted to make changes, the least he could have done is emailed me about it. while i would still be unhappy, i would not be tempted to plot his slow and painful demise, as i am now so inclined simply by recalling what he did. to my extreme displeasure, our tutor decided to retain the skit pairings for this coming wednesday's oral interview. i wonder, would NUS expel me when i seriously hurt him if he forgets about our practice session scheduled for the coming tuesday? probably. but would it be worth it? yes, if i cause some serious damage. well, i'll deal with it if it happens.

in my interactions with people in daily life, i sometimes wonder if honesty is always the best policy. sucks that you (i) can't be 100% honest with everyone 100% of the time, for reasons that i can't really disclose here (see what i mean?). by not being honest, i don't mean outright lying. just...withholding the whole truth. makes me a pretty horrible friend, but at least what i'm not telling them isn't bad for them (i think). somehow, i think that things are better as they are now. no point fixing something that isn't broken, right?

looking at the series of events lined up next week, i won't be able to rest easy at all. ironic, since i expected the last week of school to be more slack. anyway, main events include the organic mechanisms test on tuesday (guess who hasn't started studying?), japanese oral interview on wednesday (guess who hasn't practised?), and UROPS presentation on thursday (guess who hasn't rehearsed?). not to mention printing out my UROPS report for the examiners, and submitting the organic mechanisms report (with accompanying presentation) on friday. but the last 2 are minor things which can be done pretty easily. maybe not the presentation, but we'll survive. after that, only 3 finals to go before i'm free for the summer. just keep looking forward to that.

-random thought of the day: Probably not going for combined training. Too bad.-

Early day tomorrow, so i'll make this post short.

first off, you will not believe the immense sense of relief i experienced after handing in my UROPS report. that's like more than half of the battle over with already. all i have to do for the remaining bit is to present to 2 professors. should be within my ability, i think.

in other more-good-than-bad news, the organic mechanisms report deadline has been pushed back a week. while that frees up some time immediately, it'll come back to bite me later. at least we have some time to add a bit more to the report.

as for why i have an early day on saturday of all days, it's because there's the practical exam for my lab module tomorrow. right now, i have a pretty decent guess of what the exam will be like, but given the professor's nature, who knows how it'll turn out?

-random thought of the day: So annoyed (and a little scared) that someone hasn't been online.-

Decision-making while under pressure is not easy for me. more often than not, i find that the other outcome of my snap decisions would have been a better choice. having said that, i sometimes wonder how i can be a decent referee. i suppose the main reason i'm bringing that up is because the main referee of one of the refereeing teams i was in today made quite a controversial call. being a bit far away from the action, i didn't react. but in the end, i still fell victim to the coach's rage. thank goodness i was just a corner judge at that time, but you know the drill...everyone up there shares the blame. well...i don't know. it kind of sucks that referees are put in a tight spot when not-clear-cut things happen. and as much as i want it to, i know that the referees' decisions in such grey-area situations can't please everyone. i know the model response that the referee director would give...just go by the book, and don't be affected by the noise. even then, it's hard, especially when the coaches have such a strong presence.

my senior once said that refereeing is probably the most thankless official duty in judo. not only do we have to face the heat from spectators and coaches, we're under scrutiny all the time. makes me wonder why i actually missed class just to do something like that. not as if it pays that well, either. i make as much from a day (about 8 hours at the longest) of refereeing as i do from an hour of tuition. honestly, it's all about promotion of the sport...though i sometimes wonder if it's worth it. on the bright side, i only have one more day (tomorrow) to go. should be tolerable.

for some odd reason, i found myself getting kind of depressed after i reached home. it's probably a combination of the fatigue, and the fact that the person i want to talk to isn't online right now, and hasn't been online for a while. oddly, i found myself thinking along the lines of, 'what have i been doing with my life?' that's most likely because i saw how good the secondary school and JC kids are, and honestly, i don't think that i can out-spar some of them. makes me wish that i had discovered judo earlier in life. but that's just the envy speaking. well...no point worrying about things that can't be changed. just hope this odd, empty feeling goes away after a good night's sleep.

while walking home, i was (briefly) entertaining the thought of going back to serious training for judo. or maybe i shouldn't use the word "back", since that kind of implies that i was seriously training before. anyway, the fact is, i do want to train more seriously than i currently do. that's actually easy, since i barely train at all nowadays. only problem is that while my mind can get fired up, my body simply refuses to obey. sucks. i think i need stronger motivating factors. and i figure that despite what i've been saying, deep down, i'm not fully convinced that i want to train THAT hard. i say this because if i was required/invited to train for say...the olympic games (as if, but bear with me), the first thing i would do is cut my hair. since i haven't done that yet, i guess it shows that i'm not really going all out. think i need more discipline in my life.

i've been up since 6:15am, and i'll have to be up at a similar time tomorrow. damned 8:00am classes. before i go to sleep, though, let's just think about my schedule for the week. class and refereeing tomorrow, as previously mentioned. the issue is, i have another class at 6:00pm, which leaves me 2 choices: (1) leave at about 4:30pm and take public transport, or (2) leave at 5:00 and catch a taxi. although it's going to waste my concession, option 2 is seriously tempting, because i know that i'll be dead tired after refereeing for the whole afternoon. and the referee allowance should cover the taxi fare, anyway. well, i'll try to call for a taxi around 4:30pm. that way, if i can't get one, i can still make it on time by bus/MRT. or for all i know, tomorrow's matches may end early (unlikely, but i can hope, right?).

aside from that, i have a organic mechanisms report due in...about 3 days. based on what my group has down on paper so far, i'm anticipating staying up late (or not even sleeping) on wednesday night. not a fun thought. other than that, my UROPS report has been sent to my professor, and i'm only expecting minor touch-ups before final submission. while i'm still feeling stressed, it's considerably less as compared to 2 weeks ago. that's a good sign.

-random thought of the day: How much do looks matter, and should I keep Facebook on next semester?-

Catching a bit of a break now, after spending most of the weekend so far on reports. though it took about 11 hours (most of it spent on actual work, for once) yesterday, my UROPS report is mostly done. just have to organize the references, and i think that's about it...at least i don't think that i have anything else outstanding as far as that report is concerned. if things go as intended, i'll be able to send the final draft to my professor on monday, for one last review before final submission on thursday.

as for other reports, they haven't really materialized yet. there's a lab report which is due the week after, so that can wait for a bit. at least i've set up that report's basic structure already, so i'm not too worried. the one i'm slightly more stressed about is the organic mechanisms project. the deadline is this coming thursday as well, but unlike my UROPS report, which is 95% done, we've barely begun on the mechanisms report. something tells me that i won't be getting much sleep in the next 3 days.

right now, my major worry is surviving next week. with refereeing on monday, and tuesday, those afternoons are pretty much gone. that leaves wednesday to work on the mechanisms report, since thursday is occupied by the last lab session of the semester. luckily, we have friday off because it's good friday. at least it's a short week.

i've been beating my alarm for the past week or so. it's considering filing abuse charges. but seriously, i'm waking up earlier than usual. don't know why. only disadvantage is that i feel more tired during the day. think i'll go lie down for a bit before finishing up my UROPS report editing and studying for tomorrow's (last!) vocabulary quiz.

oh...one more thing. happy international troll day!

-random thought of the day: No tuition makes me a poor kid.-