Tuesday, August 31, 2010
It is that time of the year again. I cannot recall if I posted about this last year, but we went to Smokey Land today yet again. I guess it is an annual thing, where we go to get blessed. Took me long enough to notice that we were actually going back there every year. I am not a very religious or superstitious person, depending on how you look at it, so to me it was not more than an opportunity to catch up with a couple of my cousins, amidst a very bad environment. Oh yea, and I have to return tomorrow for a Smokey Dinner. Way to spend the night before the first prelim paper.
One of my cousins had a few scars on her right leg, and bruises scattered around her arm. I was a little scary, but I looks like it has healed already, so I guess it was worse at one point of time. Anyway, she apparently survived some accident where a female driver (Not being sexist here, just stating the facts) drove into her because she did not see my cousin. I guess that is the disadvantage of riding a motorbike. If some idiot drives into you, she (or he) stands to lose less than you. The idiot driver offered to pay for a cosmetic surgery to fix up my cousin's leg, on top of the damages, but my cousin chose not to go for the surgery because they would have to take some flesh of her butt. I guess it is times like that you find out if you like your butt or your leg more.
The best thing about tonight was that it was also fruitful academically. Surprisingly enough, the same cousin involved in the accident asked me for some help in her architecture tutorial. Of course I could not do the questions that went "State the different characteristics of the following materials.", but she did not expect me to know the answer to that anyway. She wanted me to do the physics questions, where they have pretty scary structures and they required the students to resolve the forces acting on each component of the structure. Basically, it was a mega forces questions, where you have to find about 8 different forces, and state if they were compressions or tensions. I could not attempt either without a graphic calculator (damn those blasted things, I have become completely reliant on them), so I just remembered a couple of questions and did them at home. At the end of it all, my mastery of forces became so solid that I think I am ready to take on any form of forces questions the prelims or A-levels might feel like throwing at me.
For all those physics students out there who feel like doing some questions on forces, here it is.
Find and tabulate the following forces acting on each part (ie each line) of the structure, and state if it is a compression or a tension.
I was going to put both questions in, but this one took me so long to draw I changed my mind.
xw 8:32 AM
Sunday, August 29, 2010
I finally went and watched the liar game movie today. Yes I know that it is a little close to the prelims, but I am sure that studying can wait. Oh well, for all those without any prelims getting in your way, I recommend that you watch this show if you are slightly fond of game shows. To summarize this show (really badly), it is about a bunch of people playing in a high stake game that allows cheating. The rules of the game is just a rough outline of how to play the game, and anything else is legal. Oh yea, the protagonist is a pretty easily scammed, which can be a little annoying at times. The underlining themes in the movie, human greed versus human compassion, is also brought up in a nice way. Acting could have been a little better though.
Anyway, while I was on the way the the movie, the weirdest thing happened. So there I was on the MRT platform waiting. When the train arrived, the outer doors opened. The train doors remained closed though, while a whole stretch of people, including myself, stood on the platform with anticipation. Any moment now! We peered through the door windows and saw the commuters inside peering back at us. Then the outer doors closed and the train left, leaving everyone on the platform, looking helplessly as the train took off. I am sure it was a pretty fun experience for the people who wanted to get of a Serangoon too. Singapore has a world class public transport system.
xw 6:02 AM
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The prelims are here! Okay actually not really, but I am practicing my dramatic exclamation of panic and fear for next week.
We are going to start the battle with General Paper. Ah, a subject that I am decent at, so I think. However, whenever I think I am going to ace an essay, the marker would swoop in and prove me wrong by, well, not giving me a grade I was looking for. I think this is actually because they think that my language is too bad, so from now on, I am going to be using far more sophisticated language and pretentious words in my posts. Which is going to be a problem since I do not use any such language, nor do I know any such words.
However, I can really feel my revision speed slowing down now. Perhaps I should actually devote more time into sleeping, and less time into trying to stay awake doing ineffective revision. Last night, I was trying my best to complete a whole math prelim paper set in a night, which ended up badly because I am unable to actually think after awhile. I could not even find the asymptote for simple conical graphs. Well, since I was doing my work on the bed, I eventually just fell asleep on my work. I am seriously bad at this late night mugging thing. Tonight, I am going to try sleeping at ten. Maybe I will be all pumped up and ready to take on the world tomorrow!
xw 6:39 AM
Monday, August 23, 2010
What a waste of a Monday. There are only three days a week that I get to wake up later than seven in the morning, and one of them is Monday. This Monday however, was different. The Mathematics department decided that it was a good idea to just plonk a statistics test in the middle of our Monday morning, and as a result, I had to wake up early. What ever happened to protected time huh? What happened to all that magic that used to protect this sacred time of resting? Tell me!
Oh yea, today was also a day of great mystery solving. Firstly, I found out officially that the average time taken to get to school by 156 is the same as the average time taken to get to school by taking the circle line (Of course my sample size was 1, making the results highly inaccurate). While waiting for the traffic light to change, I saw a 156 approaching the bus stop. I was tempted to just run across the road, but I was also tempted to stay alive, so all I did was watch it slowly taunt me as it strolled across to the bus stop. It was then I noticed Across the road girl emerging from the Maze of rich people houses just in time to catch the bus. Seriously, why am I on the wrong side of the road. It always pays to be rich. The traffic light turned green, and the 156 broke into a sprint, just to make sure that I could not catch up. On the bright side, I only needed to wait half a minute before 70 came and pick me up. I guess its circle line today. When I got to school, I saw Across the road girl coming from the councilor's canteen. There, I would never have to wonder again which bus to take when both 70 and 156 arrives at the same time. It does not make a difference.
I also discovered the answer to the mystery of why I could never shoot a basket ball into the basket. Who would have known that the solution is actually to aim before you shoot? Other more insignificant mysteries that I solved includes how a melted non-bake cheese cake tasted like, and the solution to the following math question.
"Let f(x) be the function defined as f : x→ x- (1/x), x>0
Define the inverse function."
Feel free to ask me on the occasion that you cannot solve this, but please refrain from coming up to me and telling me how easy it was and how it fails to qualify as a mystery.
xw 6:24 AM
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Triple post! Okay now that I got my long one day overdue post and my urgent message post out of the way, I can get on the what I actually came online to blog about.
It is 3:31 in the morning. I just finished a Math paper. Guilt is arguably the best motivator there is around. I spend the day getting owned by Hwa Chong's Math prelim paper, almost getting killed by flying cars and indulging in a bit of (Shudder) dota. Stupid game. Anyway, this ended up with me not actually having done anything today (Or yesterday. Some people are really particular about how mid night marks a new day. Of course, in my book, a new day starts only when I sleep). As a result, I went ahead and did a paper really late in the night. Finally, I managed to finish it, though my efficiency was clearly declining. The stupid numbers kept dancing in front of me, making it hard for me to actually think.
Here I am, checking my answers. The thing about Math that makes in different from other subjects is how it emphasizes on accuracy. In Physics, a lovely mechanism called Error Carried Forward prevents you from losing too much marks from punching in wrong numbers. Chemistry has this mechanism too, and they hardly require calculations in the first place. And if you lose marks from calculating the change in GDP wrongly in a case study for economics, you only lose one mark (Rest assured, you are still a complete idiot for throwing away such precious Economics marks).
Huh? Where the hell did this "1/3" come from for question 12? I am getting really depressed about how poor my calculus is. Whatever happened to being good at Math? It has been forever since I last topped the class for anything at all. I guess I am just not hardworking enough, but sacrifices has to be made to make sure my other subjects get their As too. I can only hope that I do not overshoot and allow my Math to slip to much. The expectation of my abilities in Math from myself is also too much. Perhaps it is time to just face the fact that I am no longer as good or fast in working out these things as I used to be.
"55.9" says the answer key. "56.5" says my answer sheet. What the heck, its close enough. No one will notice if the volume of this odd shape is 0.6 units cube off.
xw 12:27 PM
Okay, double post time. I had a near death experience today. Okay fine it was not that close, but it was still pretty freaky.
I started the day by deciding to do a little Math. You see, I have this Math test coming up in a few days and I thought that it would be best if I actually got myself into the mood by doing some Math papers. That way, I would be all ready to punch away at my graphic calculator as the ask me to reject hypothesis and arrange families at the dining table. I decided that I wanted a challenge, so I picked the Hwa Chong paper to do. To all you Hwa Chong readers out there (Who am I kidding, I only have 3 readers*), your prelim papers are really sick. The questions have so many death traps, pit fall traps, and time sinks in there that it is not even funny. I gave up at question 9. This is the first time I ever did so poorly for a Math paper. I got so demoralized I almost died.
Of course that was not the near death experience, though I did see my mathematical spirit leave my body to take a retreat to the Himalayas. Anyway, Kenneth and I took a break from the studying and we went out for waffles. Of course the waffle shop was closed, as it has been for like a week. But my brain was still bleeding from the paper that I did not realize it. While crossing the road to the Serangoon Village (Yup, I officially live in a village now), a car stopped right in front of us, possibly to recall which way to turn, or maybe to see what the workers were doing to the man hole at the side of the road. But unfortunately, the taxi driver behind her was not in the mood to wait, to recall which way to turn, or to look at workers doing their man hole thing. So he went ahead and gave her a good bump on the left rear (That sounded a little kinky). The car spun (No such word as spinned? Cool never knew that) a little and I swear I saw some parts flying out of the car. I think she went on panic mode and forgot where the brake pedal or hand breaks were, so she went ahead and pressed down on the accelerator, and drove on to the pavement which we were walking along a few seconds ago, whacked the street lights, and went up the hill a bit. Thank goodness we were not in the way, but I think it is even more fortunate that the workers did not get ran over. I seriously think that she swerved the car sharply to avoid hitting them, but Kenneth says otherwise.
So that is my account of how I almost died. This experience has taught me the importance of not driving in front of kan choing spiders (Kan choing means impatient, for all you non Singaporean readers).
*Based on estimates done by my secret blog agent**
** He is disappoint
xw 12:05 PM
Yesterday, I woke up to a really dark and stormy morning. I did not really notice how dark it actually was till I stepped out of the house and realized that I could not see more than 2 meters in front of me. Apparently, the lighting system for my block works on a time thing, not a light sensor thing. As a result, it just switched of right on time and left me groping my way down the block.
The weirdest thing about that morning was that it was a really dreamy morning. The sky was such a nice shade of grey that it would be the perfect setting for a really emo scene in some drama. I hid under my little foldable umbrella as I made my way to the bus stop. Speaking of bus stops, Across the road girl seemed to have disappeared for a week. Maybe she caught the flu bug that was making its round around school. Or maybe I have been waking up later and later. Okay I think its the latter, considering that I am starting to take the Last Train again. First time in a few weeks where I actually took the Last Train actually.
Oh yea, Leonard was not in school, as he was down with the aforementioned flu. I never realized how difficult it was to go down to the canteen without someone to drag with you. The consequence of being late alone is too great. If you have someone else with you to be late, at least you will not get focus fired if the teacher decides to actually care. Oh well, lucky for me, Friday is the day we have two double breaks. If one day our Chemistry teacher is absent, we would have a five hour break. I would probably hate that.
On a completely separate note, I left my umbrella in school. Nothing I leave in school over the weekend has made it out alive (Save for my H3 notes, which are still in class). Time to see if this umbrella can break the evil curse.
Wow I just read my post. It is really disorganized.
xw 1:56 AM
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
This marks the beginning of a new era. As I disconnected my games hard disk drive and plugged in the new replacement prelim papers hard disk drive, I knew that it was a symbolic moment. It is a commitment I am making to do more prelim papers than I already am, and spend less time playing anything at all. Help, the future is bleak. I want more time, just a little more time.
Okay, since I have not been doing much of anything today, except for physics, I shall just have to talk about what I have done, which is lots of physics. I noticed something uncanny about the first questions of all the Physics Paper 1 questions. They are all about measurement! (Yea, took me long enough) And even better, they really have nothing much to ask about measurements, so what you get is always the same few questions. Of course, these questions are of varying difficulties and I have arranged them in their level of annoyance.
Possible measurement questions:
Level 1) Uncertainty calculations. Good for building up confidence to face the rest of the paper. The only way you can get this wrong is to misread the question and give them percentage uncertainty instead of absolute uncertainty or something.
Level 2) Estimate this shit questions. Hope like hell your visual sense is good enough to tell you what the radius of a basket ball is.
Level 3) Units balancing. This question can be annoying if they give you many derived units that are derived from other derived units. You can cheat by mugging lots of derived units in SI forms before the test, but this is just for 1 mark that might not even come out, so maybe you should consider spending that time reading some Economics instead.
Level 8) Estimate this four shit questions. This is four times more annoying than a level 2 question. Unless of course option A is the right answer. You will probably still check the rest anyway actually, so I guess this still remains at level 8.
xw 8:21 AM
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sometimes, dreams do come true.
In my case, it sure did. I had a dream about waking up (think inception without the dream in the dream. Just the waking up), and when I looked up at the clock in my room, it was freaking one o'clock. To put things into perspective, that would mean I would have missed half of my Chemistry lecture, which also happens to be the last lecture for that day. Panic! Okay not really panic, because even in my dreams, I am fully aware that I am allowed to be late twice a calender month. Seriously, school life was never so slack. No white slips for long hair, no white slips for being late, I guess we really do have it good. Anyway, I was pretty flustered because of all the lessons I missed, and so close to the prelims too. How knows how many secret hints I would have missed.
Then I was rudely interrupted from my horrible dream, which is a bad thing. I have this theory that I would like to call the '"Holy shit, it is just a dream" theory'. The tone of the "Holy shit" varies. If it is a good dream, it is the disappointed holy shit, and if it is a nightmare, it is more like a "Yes, thank god I still have my limbs" kind of holy shit. Anyhow, the theory is that the longer you are in a particularly good or bad dream, the more emotionally attached to it you become. Hence, when you wake up from a long bad dream, you will feel a unique love for life, while waking from a long pleasant dream will leave you wondering why you are back on this wrenched planet. So basically I was woken up from the dream so quickly I did not really got the chance to feel that unique love for life I was talking about. I looked at the clock (This time for real) and see that it is still seven. Great I have about two and a half hour before school starts. I go back to sleep. It only makes sense.
When I finally woke up again, it was a quarter to ten (9:45AM for all those digital people out there). To put things into perspective again, I had about five minutes to get to school before I was considered late. It is times like this where you do not even bother rush anymore, because you are resigned to being late already. I made it to the lecture theater just in time for the last five minutes of the lecture. Anyway no one was really taking attendance (I think) so I guess I still have my two lives for this month. Brilliant.
xw 7:50 AM
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Yay, I got my wallet back. And this time it only took me 1 day before it found its way back to me. I still remember last year's missing wallet fiasco lasted a whole week. Whatever the case, life is good again. Oh yea, and all my money is still intact. Thanks Amanda and Ryan!
I have a toothache. It sucks. All the things I enjoy eating have suddenly became much less enjoyable, with the exception of ice cream. Ice cream is still good because it is soft and creamy. The toothache has not made my gums more sensitive to heat (or lack there of) so I can still enjoy a nice cup of ice cream. But for everything else, I find myself chewing extra carefully, using my tongue to skillfully shepherd all the food to the left side of my mouth. If I accidentally chip my tooth on the left side of my mouth now by biting a stone for whatever reason, I swear I am going to quit eating altogether. Of course I would still be able to stay alive by drinking stuff, and nibbling on sunflower seed with whatever good teeth I have left. Oh yea, lets not forget the ice cream. Ice cream is good too.
On a side note, chemistry mugging madness is over. I am still not the best at the subject, but I do need to assign more time to other subjects (Economics for instance) which I either need to seriously get better at quick (eg. Economics), start practicing how to approach questions (like Economics) or refresh my memory on before I forget everything about it (not Economics). Oh yea, and screw all the faulty and unexplained answers for multiple choice questions for the practice prelim papers. I paid good money for you, the least you could do is to tell me the right answers.
xw 8:06 AM
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Yesterday, I took Raleigh out for a spin. You know what they say about never being able to lose skills like riding a bike? Well they are right. But I could tell that Raleigh was a little unfit for these nonsense anymore, not something a bicycle pump could not fix though. I also discovered a new path home from Kovan, cutting through the Maze of Rich People Houses. The thing about the Maze of Rich People Houses is that the walking pavements are so small that I have to actually cycle on the road. This is all well and good, since there is so little traffic, but I did a pretty good job in pissing of every driver that had the misfortune of having to slow down to a crawl behind me while I wobble over to the sidewalk. Seriously, the side walk is actually big enough for me to ride on, but the rich residents of the maze seem to be pretty fond of growing plants all over the place. And rubbish bins too. Everyhouse has their own bin. Ok fine, every house actually has two bins each.
Okay that aside, I can now go on to rant about my horrible week. This week is one of the worst week ever, considering I lost a lot of things. Most notabily, I lost my wallet (again) and all the money that was inside (surprise!). This is incredibily annoying because I like money. It allows me to purchase stuff like food. I am now in great debt, owing tall dude $2.70 and Leonard $2.50. On a separate note, one of my many (Last estimate of this figure stood at 2) readers (Yay, so close to not being able to put the "s" behind that reader) still owes me $1.30. I cannot really remember what for though...
Because of this wallet thing, I am also going to have some problems travelling. My Ez-link was in my wallet, so now I am actually considering taking Raleigh to school. Which does not seem like such a bad idea until I reliaze that would have to mean waking up at some sickeningly early time. It also costs too much to take the circle line now, which throws me back all the way into the dark ages where I can only take 156 to school. I used to hate the frequency of that bus, but I am pretty sure it has changed for the better. An optimist is me.
I also lost my brown jacket. I knew I should not have carried it in my wallet. Or left it in my classroom over the weekends. It mysteriously vanished into nothingness, I really thought that it would still appear under the desk like it always does, but looks like it is really gone for good. Farewell Newbie jacket, you have served me well. The least I could do is to write you a little ode.
Sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne:
Should old brown jacket be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old brown jacket be forgot,
even during the coldest times.
For all the times you saved me dear
when I was about to die.
For all the times of sixteen degrees,
with draft also on high.
xw 5:50 AM
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Happy Birthday Singapore. You are officially 45 years old!
Anyway, guess who has a knack for getting free gifts when shopping at NTUC? When I went down to NTUC to buy some snacks yesterday, I realized that The Natural Confectionery gummies prices have gone up. Okay, it has not exactly gone up, but the discount thingum was only for the month of July. Why did no one tell me that before? I would have so went over on the last day of July to stock up. So there I was, looking at gummies I could no longer afford. And they probably will not even give me a disfigured stuff toy now that there isn't even a discount promotion. While I was walking around looking for something cheaper, I found the prefect thing.
It was Oreo. Not just ordinary Oreo. The researchers working for Oreo has decided to make a new flavour of cream to go with the chocolaty cookie, purple flavour! Okay fine its not really called purple flavour, but it should be. If purple had a taste, it would not taste like grapes, or any other purple food you can think of (I honestly cannot think of anything else that is purple and edible. Is yam purple?), it would taste like THIS. Yup. My secret blog agent made me download a new interactive function to my blog. Go ahead, lick the bolded word. Precisely my point, tastes purple no?
For those of you who have not downloaded the new interactive blog reader operating system and just tasted your computer screen, I am just going to have to describe what this new flavour tastes like. When you first put it in your mouth, you start to taste this weird thing, its a little like toothpaste, but in a nice way. Toothpaste that is organic and perfectly edible, not at all over powering with bacteria killing goodness. After you are done with the cookie, it leaves a minty flavour in your mouth, it actually feels like you just ate a menthol. Okay I just read what I typed and I did a really bad job. So I am going to leave you with two options. So buy it and try it yourself, or come find me on Wednesday and I will let you try one of mine. For those going for the first option, its called Ice Cream Flavour. But if you tell the sales help that you are looking for purple flavour, I am sure that he or she will understand you.
Okay back to my original story, I bought two tubes of purple flavoured Oreo and I was given a free lunch box. Not much of a lunch box, actually, since it is pretty small and in an odd shape where you cannot really put a lot inside. A very inefficient space saving shape actually, more like a space wasting shape. It is in the shape of an Oreo cookie. Normally I would say that it is the shape of a circle, but they gave me an Oreo cookie lunch box. Yay.
On a completely separate note, to all those that needs to check if your Chemistry basics are there, you can try the St. Andrew's Junior College 2009 prelim paper. The questions a nice and simple, you should be able to do at least 90% of the questions.
xw 9:30 PM
Friday, August 6, 2010
Studying too hard can make you sick.
I have been on a pretty tight mugging schedule for quite some time now. It has been so long that I cannot really remember when I started all this nonsense. As a result, I looked forward to a much deserved break, the final school event (besides teacher's day, which I am not even sure if we are allowed to go for) before we get consumed by the horrors of a national examination. A major national examination. As such, I went for the national day celebration at Zouk.
I have no idea which room of Zouk we went to, but I think it was their largest one. It was much larger than the one I went to for poetry slam. However, it still was not nearly as large enough to host an event for 60% of our school population. (I am pretty sure that 80% of the year sixes did not bother turning up) This resulted in great immobility and no place to sit at all. Only those who went early found themselves a place to sit. Me and Joewie ditched our bags in one corner, which actually enabled us to move around. We made it to the heart of the first floor, and the atmosphere there was great. However, there was two row of girls directly in front of us, so any moshing never got to us. Girls make really good mosh blockers.
About 10 minutes into the performances, I decided that I was getting hungry and we made our way out to grab some food and punch. I am thankful that we were able to get free punch, much better than the time when the bouncers took our water bottles at the entrance and they would only sell us some overpriced mocktails. Doughnuts were delicious, pizza squares were tasty and meatballs were... erm... spherical. Anyway, the mass singing which I had been anticipating for a long time did not disappoint. The whole 60% of the school population was singing together and jumping at the chorus. There is really nothing that can come close to mass singing. It never fails to make me fall in love with the country again.
Okay back to my story, this Zouk thing ended with me being tired from the jumping and standing around, and being under the impression that I was full. Eating delicious doughnuts, tasty pizza squares and spherical meat balls do not make you full. It only makes you think you are full. Of course I had no appetite for dinner, so at about 11 o'clock I found myself feeling really hungry. And sitting in front of me was popcorn from the Cornery. (Best popcorn ever, by the way) I was perfectly aware that Cornery popcorn was on my "Things I am allergic to list", but when you are that hungry, you will eat anything edible. Especially if it was the best popcorn in the world. It was totally worth it...
So I thought. About three hours later, I woke up itching all over. Surprisingly enough, I had an allergic reaction from eating all that popcorn which I was allergic to. To think I wrote an essay about self-restraint a couple of days ago. In my second fit of genius, I decided that I could freeze myself. That would surely stop the itch! I then lined myself with ice packs I took from the freezer. Brrrr...
Now, I have a mild cold. And the worst part is that it is affecting my tight mugging schedule. The moral of this story is, do not mug too hard, or you will fall sick.
xw 4:40 AM
Sunday, August 1, 2010
I really do not know if it is just me, but I have this strange tendency to assign songs to some people that I know. It is not really like a theme song, but when I hear that song, I would suddenly start thinking about him/her. Am I the only one who does that?
Anyway, the long weekend is coming! I am really looking forward to doing lots of work then. Actually it would be quite a good idea to just relax for a bit, as difficult as that might be at a time like this. Well I cannot say that I know next to nothing about macroeconomics now, but what I know is still hardly enough to get me anywhere above an E, which is pretty disgusting. Someone should really write a book about how to actually answer the questions. It is clear that knowing the content is not nearly sufficient to get you your A. Mayhaps the way to do economics is not to know all the definitions and stuff, but to know what each question is asking for, and accurately hitting those points they are looking for. Seriously, unlike the other subjects, there is only so many type of questions they can ask you. The thing is that if you do enough essays, surely you will start finding questions really familiar. I vaguely remember that happening during my secondary four life, when I still took history...
Screw economics.
xw 7:15 AM
