Pseudo Holidays

Admittedly, I don't have much to say on a public scale at the moment.

I read this interesting question today in Kinokuniya though - would you prefer to live in a universe A where God exists, but no one (except you) believes in Him, or B, where God does not exist but everyone believes in Him?

Reflections, I'll probably write tomorrow or something.

someone said you cared about me...
i'm not sure. i guess i'll try to trust him
jk

him and me

With the results, the mugging season has indeed come to an end (NOT the blog).

Congratulations SHAUN LEE, 85.8-85.7 champion! I have to admit you deserve it; you probably work minimally 1.5x harder than I do, and mug at least 2x as much as me... so congrats! You should seriously consider taking 7 subjects next year... you're so smart, you should be able to do it.

My average for the year, as mentioned above is 85.7. I lost A MATH rawr to Jarrel Seah. Hopefully I can kope Core Maths (97), Physics (89, beat Jarrel) and the confirmed COM STUDIES (96). In terms of IB points I didn't do well though; 42 only =(

i've come to realise
that i tend to be the one left out.
just by a bit, so small a gap
not just in academics
but in other areas as well. T_T

jk

ddr rawrs

DONE.

cleared those 30 9-footers with AAs.

yayyay.

My Summer Love - Heavy

No13 - Heavy

CSFIL(SM) - Heavy

Irresistiblement - Heavy

Paranoia Kcet - Clean Mix - Heavy

Tsugaru - Heavy

ORION.78 AMEURO Mix - Heavy

Dance Dance Revolution - Oni

Sync [Extreme Ver] - Oni

Broken My Heart - Heavy

Dynamite Rave - Heavy

Electro Tuned -The SubS Mix- - Heavy

Hypnotic Crisis - Heavy

Breakdown - Heavy

Bye Bye Baby Balloon - Heavy

Kakumei - Heavy

Luv To Me ~Ucchie's Edition~ - Heavy

Saints go Marching - Heavy

Infinite Prayer - Heavy

Tsugaru Apple Mix - Oni

Xepher - Heavy

Butterfly (Upswing Mix) - Oni

In My Eyes -Midihead Remix- -Heavy

i feel… - Heavy

MGS2 Mission R - Heavy

No Limit RM Mix - Heavy

Tears - Heavy

Dynamite Rave - Oni

Captain Jack (grandale remix) - Heavy

VJ Army - Heavy

i'm tired.

if you'd give me a bit more time
i know i could explain it all

jk

Dispersal and Separation

things have changed so quickly
4 days. from giving a hug to feeling sentiments of resentment
i've done much that i wish i could have changed

but i guess not. life goes on; we can't change the actions of the past

and even if i could, i wouldn't know what i could have done.

i'm sorry for wasting your time. =(

jk

Ensemblic Nightmare

I need to thank the following people, before it's too late. Things seem to be rushing by so fast and next year I don't even know how many of you I'll continue to be friends with. I'm sorry. =(

To Isaac - the end of 10 years. I have to thank you for being extremely patient with me all these years, especially in sec 2 when I might have seemed a bit desperate with regards to my concern over the relationship. Though it's going to be the end of us being in the same class, I hope that we'll both maintain the effort to keep the relationship going - since, after all, strong relationships should transcend a simple class split. In any case, I have learnt many lessons from my dealings with you. Thanks! =)

To Russell - you've been a great help in many ways this year. The fact that you've been willing to discuss many issues and problems we've had between both of us is a good thing. Indeed, I've learned much from you, and also shared many good (and bad) memories that will stay with me. Though, sometimes, what you've said might not have been totally logical, I appreciate the intention and meaning behind your statements - the note of commitment is really nice. Thanks so much!

To Henry - I have to thank you for listening to me and being there for me when I needed you, despite your own very busy schedule. It's nice to know that someone cares. Thanks for being so open to a wide variety of discussion topics as well, even if sometimes they might not have interested you. =)

To Shaun Lee - haha, fellow academaniac. Well, I would say that I have learnt more not from our academic collaboration but our going to the same Sunday School class and discussing various issues there, as well as being both in the Boys' Brigade. Still, you have served as an inspiration in many ways for me to look up to, notably in the spiritual realm. Thanks.

To Hsieh Wen - You have been a good listener - thanks so much for listening to and considering my rants, even into odd hours of the morning. I also have to thank you for the games of Scrabble, as well as the extent to which you seem willing to sacrifice many things for me. Thanks!

To Shaun Ong - hmm. You've been good company, a good listener to my often random rants. Thanks for the random philosophy discussions and often showing the initiative when I appeared lonely or angsty.

To Louis - hey. We haven't really talked very much this year, but I've read your blog, and I find that there are many little thoughts there that I seem to be able to identify with to some extent minimally on the surface. Thanks for updating, as well as looking out for me occasionally when you chance upon me in school. I'll remember the consolation you gave me when we got back the O Lvl Results for Chinese. Thanks!

To Sam Chan - You have reminded me not to lose focus on God despite the exam period, and also prayed for me, so I'll definitely need to thank you for that, even though now I might feel a little bit of animosity between us.

To Daniel Yee - Thanks for being understanding with regard to the World Scholar's Cup issues. Though at times I feel a bit distant from you, you have been there for me when I really needed it. Thanks.

To Juzzie - You have also consistently reminded me to keep my focus on God throughout this period where it's very easily to be distracted. Thanks so much for offering me "invites", you could say, to the prayer group; I find that I have benefitted much from this. In this respect, I also need to thank Xi Min, for largely similar reasons, as well as providing encouragement with regard to the recent messy chain of events.

And last but in no way least, I need to thank God for all of this.

Dear Lord,
Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with these relationships.
Lord, I know that in the past, Lord, I have often taken these for granted.
I pray, Lord, that you will remind me not to do so.
Also, Lord, I need to thank you for my recent performance in the exams.
I pray, Lord, that you will keep me straight-headed, and remember that without You, none of this would have been possible; it would not have materialised without Your will.
Thank you, Lord.
Amen.

jk

Mugging Season, Part 4 -release-

First things first...
CONGRATULATIONS to Shaun; I believe you are the top student! 86 average might not be such a good thing this time round, but there's no denying that you've performed so consistently, making you incredibly difficult to beat. It's indeed been an intellectually stimulating challenge working with (and against -.-) you...

Anyway, I must thank God for my results this time. Things really just seemed to fall into place... It was very unusual to see quite a few numbers hit just the right number...

LANGUAGE ARTS: unseen 15, poems d&d 22, final 74
This was much better than I thought it would be. I guess I'm in the top 14...

Unseen Poem was quite bad, because I made a very stupid mistake, and got one of the weirdest mark distributions I ever got. The mistake: In the poem 'Follower' by Seamus Heaney, ... ... I guess I've been reading too many random poems. I got 2/2/3/4/4, which in a way is a good thing, because it seems to have shown that my writing skills have improved quite a bit over the year; on the other hand, my interpretation went totally off tangent.

Poems went well - although expectedly, the marker said I didn't do justice to Graves' Two Fusiliers, I just had a lack of time. I shouldn't have bothered to write 6 sides on Dulce et Decorum Est and only wrote 2 on Two Fusiliers.

CHINESE LANGUAGE B: 80
o.o me? 7 pointer for chinese? ... ... anyway, this is supposed to be primary four chinese, so I can go and angst because I would probably get a B (<75) again.

IHS: 90
Spam, spam, spam. I wrote 6 to 7-ish sides for the HBQ and missed the final band, but got top of the second best band for seventeen out of 20. Questions A and B predictably produced their full scores, leaving me with 27/30. WP and IOP made little difference.

GEOGRAPHY: 82
... It's not bad, but I can tell that I've backslid quite a bit. I didn't do well for POPULATION (I got better marks in the tourism and industry qn); and I actually got the comment "Too much for question!" on the paper. I guess it's ok.

PHYSICS: mcq 38, open ended 74, final 93
yay, something to gloat about. Seriously, I was quite satisfied with my Physics papers even after doing the papers; because to me it seems like the concepts fall into place beautifully. This has reinforced my confidence in Physics and probably serves as a primer for me to pick Physics Higher Level next year.

CHEMISTRY: mcq 36, open ended 64, moderation 5 so final 88
Very standard performance, I guess. Not much to say. I lost quite a lot of marks on the Environment Question, but I guess it paid off because this was on the same day as Larts II and I figured I had to study harder for Larts II.

ADD MATHS: p1 97, p2 94, moderation 8 so final 104 = 100
<3. not much to say; it went quite smoothly despite one mistake in paper two that cost me like 4-5 marks I think. And the paper 2 marker wrote "long!" and "VERY long!" on my paper.

C MATHS: p1 98, p2 100, final 99
Well. I can't really say much; the numbers speak for themselves I guess.

COMPUTER STUDIES: 95
I lost marks on programming!! "not enough comments" and quite a few arrows prompting insertion into the comments section. =(

Anyway, it went well, I guess. I will have another post later, giving thanks to the people who have helped me through this tricky period... also mention some stuff about world scholars cup later.

stagnation of flow; history repeats itself
objective distancing perpends boundaries of reality
jk

4262426

I've started playing DDR again but much more seriously; hope to finish 50k steps by end of term, and 300k steps by end of year, and also AA 30 9-footers by the end of term (9 more days). Essentially, for Stepmania an AA is awarded with 93% of the dance points; that is essentially, getting a full combo and less than 14% Greats, or various other combinations...

AA'd 9s - My Summer Love (H), No. 13 (H), CSFIL(SM) (H), Irresistiblement (H), Paranoia KCET (H) and Tsugaru (H). Stuff like Sakura (O), Xepher (H) {91.98% yesterday} and Breakdown (H) {92.14% today} should come soon. I can probably go and learn Chaos on light or something if I need more songs to do.

Past few days have been quite boring. Go to school, talk, stone, play scrabble, play risk, play cards, listen to talks, etc.

I must write a thanks post soon; but I just can't seem to find what I want to write.

i wish i'd known that you wouldn't be angry

jk

Boundary between Light and Darkness

Exams over, yet results on Friday. STRESS! rawr.

ok not really. i already know 1 of my results and im happy! =)

School is ending soon, and as most of us know it's going to be the last time we, 4.9, have existed as a class. We've only done so for 2 years, actually, but... still, we're probably the last 'pure' GEP batch. I'm a bit nostalgic, you could say, but I'm not really disappointed; after all, one's true friendships should stand the test of such boundaries (in a way, it serves as a litmus test), and furthermore the shift in classes will give me new perspective, and also possibly land me in the same classes as some of my friends in other classes who might be doing the PcME combo.

Only 8 more days. Time sure seems to fly fast. Recently, I've also had some difficulties with regards to faith and belief, as well as philosophy. I'd like to thank these people for the help they've provided, both over the exam period and now.

Juzzie - thanks for being a listener, one whom I can complain to, and one whom I feel cares about my welfare.
Russell - i was a bit surprised you'd be willing to listen to me angst over the phone for quite long... so thanks. it's a good thing (for me at least) that i got to sit next to you; i've learned much.
Isaac - thanks for the reassuring words, and just being there for me in general, willing to even mess around with your busy schedule just to find some time to talk.
Hsiehwen - thanks for spending quite a bit of time with me playing scrabble and other stuff to fill this sort of BORING period when i don't feel like programming or calculusing(?).
Henry - the way i see things, you've been a really dependable friend... so thanks! =)
Shaunong - hmm. thanks for the philosophy discussions and actually listening to me sometimes when my thinking follows non mainstream thought processes.

I have much to thank God for, including the following things as well:

• The grace to tide me over the exam period
• Teaching me that it's often not worth it to shoot for 95-esque marks in everything
• Blessing me with reliable and dependable friends
• Allowing me to sit next to Russell thrice; in doing so, giving me a "second chance"
  
• Just existing; and being willing to sacrifice Himself for us.

I still lack conviction, though. I'll ruminate over it for the next few days, and hopefully, God will grant me the wisdom to reach an answer.

seeming innocence surrounds, encapsulates dark motives much like grounded nuts attempting to enmask arsenic
jk

Cry

I remember reading this verse in Sunday School that struck me...

Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
- Mark 9:24

That's what I need now the most, I think. I believe God exists yet I lack conviction; and I've come to realise how much of a drought my spiritual life has been. I believe it's time for me to make amends for the mistakes of the past.

Thank you, Hsieh Wen, for providing a listening ear and much helpful input, even at this weird hour of the night. Thank you so much.

jk

Specific Gravity

I've got many thoughts, so I'll fire a couple of them off.

Exams/Assessment... Sometime back, I remember writing an essay on the topic of "Why do we mug?". This time, I'm only writing a short piece, and it's on the exams. As you already know from reading this blog, I don't think exams or assessment in general are necessarily bad things, though in excess I think they are bad.

Imagine scrapping assessment from your country's education system. Sure, you might allow younger-aged people to enjoy their youth to a larger extent. I see some element of decision here:

A - no/minimal assessment, allow young people to enjoy their youth and develop --> may lead to creative stars, entrepreneurship
B - assessment, forcing young people to absorb as the primary concern

Well, granted (A) does have its benefits, but (B) seems the more pragmatic option, as taking option (A), you are likely to end up with a greater pool of unskilled labour and fewer professionals in the future; in view of the transition to a present-day knowledge based economy, not good. Of course, (A) may result in entrepreneurial (sp?) businesses and all which can perform well by tapping off foreign talent, but notice the key word - may. Though (B) has its risk of failure, it seems comparatively much less than (A), as people end up following internationally recognised courses in education - "O" and "A" Levels, the IB, etc.

In a way, I admit that I am to an extent a bit sadomasochistic, but I usually only exhibit such qualities if I believe that, by my standards, I can become a better person going through such pain. Personally, I find that though assessment can be stressful, it can improve our skills when it comes to working under pressure, as well as various constraints. I find that the usage of other mediums of assessment like the IOC or geog field reports does have its benefits, even though I tend to perform relatively mediocrely on them - the primary benefit being exposure to using skills in another arena.

Meaning of Life. rawr too long to talk about now... I'll post this singly another time.

Worship. A while back, one of my Sunday School teachers told me that if he didn't believe in the words of a worship song, he would remain silent during the relevant section; and I find that this is something I have, to an extent, observed.

I'll bring you more than a song;
For a song in itself
Is not what you have required
You search much deeper within -
Through the way things appear,
You're looking into my heart.
-- "The Heart of Worship"

Granted, this does not come from the Bible, or any of the Christian Creeds that I do know of. Yet, it sort of encapsulates what I think with regard to this issue. The Ten Commandments state that we are not to give false testimony - I presume this means lying. Though I have failed many times, I know I should consciously try to minimise such infractions; wouldn't singing something you don't believe in be a lie?

You'll never let me go
through it all
jk

Distanced Night

For completeness:

Computer Studies - careless mistake, lost 2 marks. otherwise should be OK. I don't think I can get 96, but scoring in the 90s is possible...
good/bad/ok/fail: 2/7/6/0

Now exams are over, but I've already sort of commented a bit on that in the last post, and I don't really feel like philosophically rambling now.

Many things to angst about - I think the title encapsulates most of what I have to say...

if you could just give me one more day
perhaps i could have made something different

jk

Seeming End

Today...
A Maths 2 - rumoured to be hard, but it seemed quite easy. having GDCs was very useful - i could very easily check differentiation and integration problems. hopefully i can get 98-ish for his paper. anyway, i'm a bit pissed cause yesterday night, in preparation for the exam i did a full mem clear. then i found out you only need to clear the ram. now i have to go and reinstall all the things that i actually use =(
good/bad/ok/fail: 2/6/6/0

Comp Studies tomorrow. It seems so fast; and while I can't say I'm happy that the exams started, I can't really say that I'm happy they're ending now. It's sort of a bittersweet conclusion.

Perhaps I agree with Graves in a way; looking at his poem Two Fusiliers, it seems to bring up the idea that out of adversity can come good things. I'm sure you'd agree that an exam is far less consequential than a war, and there is no real 'death' in an exam, I think the theme is still there. Through the exam period, I have realised many things that I might perhaps have taken for granted in the past - most of it transcending academics. I have participated in two different prayer groups, and in doing so have (hopefully) developed my relationships with the people in the groups, as well as, more importantly, (again, hopefully) developed my spiritual walk. It's indeed a nice feeling, when someone SMSes you the night before the exam and reminds me to remember to do my QT despite mugging or says that he's praying for me. It's really nice =)

Also, I haven't been overly stressed this exam. A possible reason is that the target of getting a prize tray on Founder's Day (yes, i know, how superficial) was achieved last year; I have noticed that indeed, I have slackened academically, but have applied my time to other pursuits, some of which I think bring me greater happiness, such as relearning piano, picking up guitar, training Java, writing essays, etc... the list goes on.

Anyway, now to mug the final paper. I just hope I can get... 96% or so tomorrow.

jk

Partial Break

I haven't been able to write much recently; I've had mugging to do, unsettled, wandering thoughts and many random and non-random doubts.

I think this year, mugging withdrawal will be less harsh on me, partially because I haven't really got very much into the exam spirit this time round. I spent the afternoon playing Mountain of Faith, the 10th in the Touhou series. It's a danmaku or bullet hell game (as you may or may not know) where your character has a very small hit-box and has to weave through utter messes of bullets. One reason I like the Touhou series, other than the almost sadistic patterns, especially on the Lunatic difficulty and Extra Stage(s), is the BGM. From Mountain of Faith, the stage 4 theme - Fall of Fall ~ Autumnal Waterfall, stands out to me as having quality.

Recap of the papers. It was 0/0/2/0 after day 1.

Day 2
Core Maths 1 - There isn't really much I can say about this paper. It was fairly easy, especially the Number Patterns question (Gauss' theorem is seriously overused). I don't remember any overly difficult questions other than one nasty Coordinate Geometry one. In any case I remember getting the same answer as Isaac, Russell, Jarrel, Yifan and a few others, so it should be ok.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/1/2/0

Physics 1 (MCQ) - Easy, though it was actually quite tricky. I checked through everything and only realised the sneaky direct current transformer question near the end. Hopefully I can do well; it seemed much easier than its Chem counterpart.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/2/2/0

Physics 2 (OEQ) - Moderate-hard, I'd say. I lost about 5 or 6 marks already, because of the Moments question and the Electrostatics one. It still isn't too bad though.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/3/2/0

Day 3
Language Arts 2 (Set Text) - I picked question 1 pretty much the moment I saw it, and wrote quite crazily - and still couldn't finish. I'm a bit concerned that my essay might seem imbalanced, because I wrote a total of 9 sides leaving lines; less than 1 side of introduction, Dulce et Decorum Est till the end of side 6, Two Fusiliers from side 7 to side 9-ish and a conclusion to top it off.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/3/3/0

Chemistry 1 (MCQ) - crazy. I wasn't sure of like 10 out of the 40 questions... studying LA may have caused me to neglect Chem to some extent. Shaun Ong and I went to the library and we met Luke there, and started studying... but we didn't realise we had to go until it was late. We went back to the BDSH and saw Ms Evelyn Tan opening the door just when we reached. o.o
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/3/4/0

Chemistry 2 (OEQ) - less crazy, just pressed for time. I had some trouble with the catalytic converter question (and B2 in general), but fortunately, with 12 minutes for both B2 and B3, I worked out B3 in less than 5 minutes, leaving me enough time to write answers for those I was sure, and cursory answers for those I wasn't so sure.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/4/4/0

Day 4
Advanced Maths 1 - A little careless mistake caused me to drop three points; and I thought I would lose five more because I got shown someone's list of seven answers after the exam that were different; but I checked with the com when I went home and it was right. No Binomial Theorem or Matrices or RFT yet, so watch out for those in P2 tomorrow.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/4/5/0

Geography - I remember Hsieh Wen described the mid year as a handwriting competition. This time, it seemed a bit less so, but still mostly a spamming paper. I did questions 1 and 3, though I considered doing 2 despite not studying Agriculture, because the questions were on Green Revolution and GMOs, which I sort-of knew; and furthermore, Q3 had a rather unusual case study to analyse.
good/ok/bad/fail: 0/5/5/0

Day 5
Core Maths 2 - Went quite smoothly; probably lost 1 mark on the cumulative frequency thingy (0 less than equal to x less than 10, I took it as 4.5 instead of 5 when calculating the average mean). Still, it went well...
good/ok/bad/fail: 1/5/5/0

Chinese B 1 (Set Text + Written Response) - Fun and easy. It sure gives an ego boost when you almost completely understand passages and answer MCQs on them. There were 1 or 2 I wasn't sure of, though; but hopefully I can pull a 36 / 40 for this paper...
good/ok/bad/fail: 1/6/5/0

Chinese B 2 (Compo) - BAD. It took me 20 min to choose a question, and I only wrote 2 sides (600-700ish words) and I'm not even sure if my plot is valid or not. -.-
good/ok/bad/fail: 1/6/6/0

On the whole, it's been a pretty standard performance I guess. not good, not overly bad.

i wonder if i've been living a lie
there's some hidden meaning in what you said
or maybe not. perhaps im just taking it too seriously.

jk

Day 1 -

I just think I did badly.

IHS: rawr. 20 mark question on conflict and governance which I didn't expect. i agreed with the statement to a small extent, and put forth well, not many points (that it is counterproductive - votes for services scheme, presentation as being distant and instilling a fear syndrome; productive - NMP/NCMP, GROs, and the economic, crisis and ethnic management policies put into place.)

the problem is there is some ambiguity in the question - 'wooing opposition voters' can mean 1 of 2 things - causing more people to vote for the PAP, or alternately inclining more people to vote for the PAP. Similarly, counter-productive can be either way - more votes, or more inclination.

i think i should have chosen to write on votes. because if you write on votes, you can bring in the fact that complaints do not transmit to votes ('whinging and winning'), and the depoliticisation of the electorate. since i wrote about inclination, there wasn't much to do really in the ways of challenging the question - i could only push in some bits on possible future speculation in the conclusion, supported by some evidence from the passage and my own knowledge.

i had no time anyway. bad time management.

good/ok/bad/die: 0/0/1/0

Lang Arts - unseen: I did the poem - Seamus Heaney's "Digging". then i went to read some online analyses on it, and i feel that though my analysis is ok, it's very superficial. i wrote something on the importance of discipline and toil for one to develop expertise - then when i read analyses online i found that most of them seem to be some kind of commentary about the relationship between the father and son. so, i'm quite screwed.

good/ok/bad/die: 0/0/2/0

and now i slept rather than mugged physics in the afternoon, which was what i was supposed to do. i'm gonna do quite badly this time round =(

thank you.
you might not know it, but your words really touched me somehow.

jk