University Applications...

I hate writing essays, and i have to write sooooo many for uni apps T.T but it is 人生必经之事. more like i 自讨苦吃, apply to so many us unis...

my frens who are not applying to the us or uk, planning to stay in sg and save loads of $$$ are having fun now playing all day long, while i'm stuck tearing my head out in exasperation. and before i know it the deadline's alrd so close! i better hurry and complete my essays which are horrible in quality anyway. argh im not going to get into any us uni at this rate.

oh i came across this, and i find it's so true for me!

so yes i am organized, but mainly because i am too lazy to search for things when i need them! ^^"

ok jiayou everyone who are doing their uni apps too! i shall have more fun after uni apps are over haha.

can't wait

"So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans." - Haymitch in "Catching Fire"

finished reading the first two books of the hunger games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire! can't wait for the third book to be out. seriously i can't stand cliffhangers like that, and i want to know more about district 13! i hope for a good ending, and for peeta and katniss to be together and have children and be happy after all. (:

seems like there's going to be a film adaptation of the first book, though wouldn't it be like nc-16 and above with all the violence and killing? xD

back from geminids, and i counted like 20? or maybe more, but not sure if they are when u just see faint flashes of light that -could- be from the torchlights/laser pointers/whatnot. i don't quite like faint flashs of light for meteors, i want nice biiiig silver/red streaks that last for at least half a second, esp those fireballs that i saw! am happy though, i've seen quite a bit of meteors in my life compared to the rest of singapore ^^" next time i shall go someplace like pulau ubin/semakau island to see, or someplace sooo dark that i'll see 20 meteors in half an hour!!!

fun!

pretty much going out everyday...my uni apps are not done and nothing is done really T.T

monday - 四人帮outing to sakura buffet, then watched new moon together. it was a farewell outing for yubai -sobs-

tuesday - went to changi airport to send yubai off, was like the only one from our class there, plus another prc scholar sending her off. coincidentally, mingrun was on the same flight to nanjing! so i kinda sent him off too?

i managed to finish the S.H.E book on the train to and back from changi! hee im becoming quite pro at guessing 繁体字, and i was reading almost as fast as when im reading english towards the back!

i finally got my hands on the hunger games and catching fire! i went to bukit batok library but got cheated by the library catalogue which claimed the books were not on loan. then i decided to give jurong library a try, since the date that claimed it was not on loan was the same day itself, so i chionged there. it was about 1+pm, so i was hoping no one would have borrowed the books yet, though i was pretty much giving up alrd. the catalogue isn't in real-time and always cheats my feelings >.> but just so happens the books were there!! am happy. ^^ but no time to read the books bcos im going out like everyday T.T

wednesday - went kboxing with blaws and friends! oh and her little sister too! she's so cuteeeee but so shy around strangers. im not even a stranger really, i rmb she was quite outspoken when i went her house, but she was so shy at kbox. like keep talking to blaws only and dun wan talk to me :/ and she doesn't dare to sing in front of ppl really, but she sang super loudly for some song xD

then i went on some round-singapore trip with blaws and her sis on some bus from ang mo kio interchange to clementi interchange. we went by raffles city and chijmes, chinatown, sentosa and vivocity, buona vista/dover, and finally got to clementi after like one hour and a half at least!! good thing we still have student concession, or dunno how ex that trip must have been xD

sigh student concession is ending soon, maybe we should make the best of it somehow ): then i went to kallang and watched an ice-skating performance (Reverie: Cirque on Ice)! it's quite funny and not bad, but the rink was smaller than i expected, but it's good la, we get to see the performance quite close up even though ours were the cheapest seats. shihui's going to wuhan today, so yeah, she had to get home quickly to pack (i think she no need sleep liao hahaha) so we shared a taxi. not bad, not as ex as expected, maybe comfort taxis are cheaper?

thursday ie. today - it's ben's birthday in two days, so i went to get a cake, got the cheaper one from polar cake (it had 15% off!) and completed the poster thingy. i cropped and enlarged a photo of ben from prom and wrote well-wishes on the poster! i rmb laughing like mad when i realised there was bugs bunny on the tie ben wore at prom after i enlarged the photo! so the obnoxious-looking tie was worse than it looked! xD

i managed to get the helium balloon at some rip-off price at kallang the previous day too! im so lucky these days, just chancing upon stuff randomly, and i wasn't even looking for a balloon! then poof it will appear when u least expect it!

we made ben carry the balloon around holland village (blue-coloured mickey mouse balloon with a huge happy birthday on it), then we passed by a burger king so we went in to ask for a burger king crown for him to wear! we then randomly found a lebanese middle-eastern restaurant (more cultural exchange eh) bcos it had 30% off for anyone who has a birthday within the month and of course we had a ready-made birthday boy hoho!

the food was quite nice, and then jojo, zw and sam took turns writing on the poster in the toilet (to hide from ben but i think he knew we were up to something la) xD we then got the waiter to light the candles and bring out the cake afterwards! originally we planned to have the whole restaurant singing happy bday song, but by the time the cake came, there was like no one else in the restaurant, which is better i guess. so the waiter wasn't busy and was super free to do wuliao stuff like that for us, and ben wouldn't be so embarrassed with the singing and balloon and crown and stupid poster xD

the waiter was super nice (though he only lighted like one big and four small candles ie. he thought ben was 14??? HAHA) and brought us plates and forks and everything to serve us even though the cake wasn't from their restaurant! so we ended up tipping them quite a lot, like the original price of our food rather than the discounted price. makes me feel happy.

we took loads of photos, i can't wait to see (on facebook)! thanks ben for being so sporting and willing to put on all the stupid stuff and take pictures rather than refusing or hiding his face! it's more fun when the bday person is willing to go along! perhaps he's just used to all these embarrassing stuff from ri, plus we didn't make him do anything horrible! we didn't even think of creaming him (what a waste of precious yummy cake!) unlike ben who wanted to cream me on my bday huh huhuhuh! if he had creamed me i would absolutely have gotten him that pink hello kitty balloon and a whole bowl of cream just to cream him!

we then went to de coder's cafe, something like mindcafe where we play boardgames and card games (and brainless stupid games). i highly recommend it to everyone! the service there is really good, like the guy kept coming over to check if we're ok, and helping us return and recommending us games to play and getting us games. he taught us how to play very willingly; in fact he got so excited about the games i think he really wanted to join in xD it's quite different from mindcafe, which usually has loads of ppl and so they couldn't serve us so wholeheartedly like that. the guy is really good, he's passionate and enthusiastic about his job, and even when ben spilled the tea and ice onto the floor, he kept saying it's ok, i'll clean it up, that kindof thing. yep we had loads of fun there even though we stayed for only 2 hours. it's not very ex too, there're a lot of promotions and stuff and i think it's even cheaper than mindcafe!

the best thing was, i won zombie flux (finally!) and won two other games ie. 3 games out of the 4 games we played in total! jojo won one, and uh ended two games of zombie flux where no one won and only zombies won?!?! we all felt like killing her for ruining the game BOTH times!!! horrible jojo. hmph ):

haha i haven't had so much fun in ages, and i guess i can only go so crazy when im with my beloved jap club exco!!! <3 you guys, can't wait for chalet on monday to catch up with you guys some more and camwhore some more!

Graduation Night 2009

Tonight (technically ytd night since it's 1+am alrd...) was the big night - Graduation Night 2009, also fondly known as prom night. i tried sleeping early the night before to reduce eye circles, but i couldn't sleep for like 2 hours so yeah, ended up sleeping late after all. i then woke up at the same time 8am in the morning argh, just can't sleep in!

i read more of S.H.E's book, fiddled with the com and read newspaper, then started preparing for prom at T-minus 5hours? i showered and was nice and clean and just about to head to liwen's house, and here comes the downpour. it started raining cats and dogs the moment i was about to leave, so i randomly grabbed an umbrella and went out. it was only after i opened the umbrella that i realised it was faulty and couldn't be engaged, so it ended up flapping rainwater onto my back T.T the only part that was not wet when i got to liwen's house was my head (not the hair, my hair got wet bcos of the faulty umbrella T.T)

yeah then i watched liwen get her nails done by her sister; apparently she chipped two of her nails when she was showering, so had to have them redone haha. liwen's sister is really pro at nails and makeup and stuff. we then got our hair done. generally mine was half-up-half-down hairdo, with hair curled and the top bits twisted into weird stuff on the back of my head. couldn't see bcos i don't have eyes on the back of my head. i then had lots of glitter spray and hairspray and i thought that my hair was too curly >.> not used to curly hair. the curls then loosened out within like two hours and started straightening! so be careful what you wish for, it may actually come true and you end up with straight hair again T.T

liwen's sister then helped us do makeup, and liwen got cat eyes, i got red eyeshadow matching my red dress, and silver shimmery dunno what stuff. in the end my lips had the most layers! i had lip balm, lipstick, some other pink lipstick to enhance the colour, and lipgloss. the lip balm was strawberry flavoured and tasted nice ^^ (yes it's all edible, and there was so much of it that everytime i talked i was eating lipstick/lipgloss/lip balm etc)

eh well. it's quite a fun experience if we weren't running late. we should have planned everything an hour earlier instead, but we thought makeup would take like 30 min only >.> ended up we took more than an hour! we took lots of photos of our hair and stuff, and afterwards, i found out that there's actually 20 hairpins in my hair in total! liwen had 19, seriously they spam hairpins la! at least i get to keep them xD

shihui was supposed to arrive at 6pm+, then we're all leaving in liwen's father's car at 6.30pm and reach swissôtel at 7pm. As things always don't turn out the way you want, (Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.") in the end it was 6.30pm and my makeup wasn't done yet, and shihui was still at home! she cabbed over afterwards though she could have just cabbed to swissôtel herself haha. we then had a hard time trying to get our eyelashes to curl since we forgot to get eyelash curler, and the mascara wasn't curling, just extending. we ended up doing stupid things like holding our eyelashes up just to get it to curl >.>

shihui's really pro! she did her own makeup and had fake eyelashes and did some eva longoria look (someone from desperate housewives) which was really good! shihui then wanted to help me put on fake eyelashes to solve the non-curly eyelash problem, but i refused vehemently, bcos it's itchy and icky and uncomfortable! furthermore, the fake eyelashes aren't curled really, so they may just end up looking flat and well, fake. thus im very happy with my nice and natural eyelashes thankyouverymuch.

yeah so we ended up leaving house at 7plus when we're supposed to be there alrd. we thought by the time we reached there, everyone would be seated and eating, and we'll be "fashionably late" T.T when we reached at around 7.40pm, surprisingly there were still loads of people lounging around outside the ballroom taking pictures and camwhoring and talking and whatnot. we saw zijun and i almost couldn't recognise her, she's so beautiful tonight! she got contacts and the really nice daniel yam dress we wanted to get but was out of our budget haha. liwen and i were just saying that zijun prolly won't bother doing her hair and much makeup; probably will just wash hair towel dry go there, but we were so shocked when we saw that she did her hair and makeup and everything beautifully!

the whole night passed by in a whirlwind. we just kept taking pictures with people we knew whenever we saw them, and i barely touched the food haha. i ate some food then decided it's not nice and tossed it aside, then ran out for more pictures, taking pics with every single classmate etc. then came back to find like 3 new dishes on the table, shovelled everything in 5 min and tossed aside what i didn't like, then ran off for more pictures/get phonecalls to go take more pics haha. out of $88 worth of food, i ate maybe around $15?

the food wasn't very nice, esp after leaving them there to rot and turn cold before coming back. the soup was too salty, the dessert too sweet, the veggie too much sauce and starch, you get the idea. im the kind who prefers bland food. furthermore, i was no longer hungry after the first dish because it's way past usual dinnertime, plus i was on the taking picture high mood, so who cares about the food! liwen and zijun both said the prawns were nice, and liked them very much. well i don't eat prawns so too bad.

the 3 inch plus heels didn't even bother me as i bounced around from place to place xD i was even running around in them ^^ but the balls of my feet started to get tired because of all the strain on them, so yeah. i don't think i'm going to attempt wearing any heels higher than 8.5cm ever, it's like the highest i can go without falling on my face stumbling around or tripping all over the place. carpet also cushions your feet so not that bad too (:

eh yeah, no one was paying attention to the ongoing events on stage. our tables were right at the back, at the entrance, so we couldn't see the stage well at all, and we were so near to the outside that it was super convenient to run out and back in for pictures ^^" i only paid attention during some bits of the lucky draw (i think no one in our class won), and during the farewell video. couldn't find any familiar faces though, it was too far away to see clearly anw. then i only know sherrie won dance queen, seng henk won dance king, yan han won prom queen (of course la, everyone knows her), but i missed the prom king. can someone tell me who won prom king?

unbelievably, mrs koh really came, and she wore a nice black dress and even did up her hair! i didn't see any other teachers, but i think there's a teacher's table though. the ballroom was too dark to even see the black dresses, not to mention find people haha. just like i predicted, some 65% of the girls wore black dresses, and over 99% of the guys wore something black, either trousers or jacket. shirt and tie were the only stuff with varying colours, but oso can't see clearly under all the black jackets/trousers haha. im so glad i got a nice shade of red so i could be seen much more clearly, and differentiated myself from the sea of black yay!

we managed to take a jap club exco photo minus one (jojo! why u nv come!! :/) i almost couldn't recognise sam, i hesitated for like 5 seconds while staring at her before being certain that it's sam haha! she's usually dressed in rock or punker style, but this time her face had soft colours and she wore a ladylike dress with super high heels (4+ inches)! she's alrd so tall still wear so high >.>

all in all, it's a pretty memorable night, though it could have been better if we were seated near the front so we could make sense of what's going on onstage, and not waste the efforts of the j1 council. i didn't manage to find zek gian though ): they said she's so unrecognisably pretty that i won't be able to find her haha. wanted to take astro club photo with her :/

i think elaine should win a best dressed girl prize tonight! she bared her back and showed her middle, and wore this long flowy turquoise-bluish gown that made her look like a mermaid! it's super pretty and i admire her for daring to bare so much! apparently it cost $200, and that's already 30% of the original price! (which means original price like $670??! so ex) i liked yewei's purple dress too, and the xiangyan's smokey eyes. makes her look so seductive and mysterious haha!

i know all of you can't wait to see the photos, i'll upload them soon onto facebook, so check there! people who took pics with me, add me (joy sim) on facebook if you haven't alrd, and tag me thanks! (:

爱的三温暖

just started reading the book, and even though it's all in 繁体字, i could read maybe 80% of the words? it's quite mafan though, i had to check dictionary for quite a few words, then realise it's not a new word after all, it's just in 繁体 >.> too long nv read chinese though, so 慢半拍 and need more time to think and recall xD

among the three of them, i feel hebe has the best grasp of chinese language. she's so pro la. must be her father's influence, since they both have conversations/letters in pro chinese. i like hebe's father! he has a nice character from what hebe wrote in the book.

他曾说过：“其实世界上根本没有上帝，最厉害的其实是写圣经的人。”

i know blaws will love him too ^^

happy days

we went shopping for our prom dress and shoes on wed, with a budget of 100 and below for dress, and 50 and below for shoes. we spent half the day at far east shopping for shoes bcos there were JUST so many shoe shops, and we ended up buying a bag, earrings, flats, everything but our prom stuff T.T it's called retail therapy haha

my fren eventually decided to stick to her sec 4 prom shoes, and i got a pair of white and silver heels. i thought it wasn't very high bcos it looked 2 inches or so compared to all the other super high heels that we saw, but i measured the heel just now and it's 8.5cm = 3.34645669 inches!!! who knew 3 inches looked so short!!! T.T im going to die in those heels within 10 minutes. and i'm going to be 178cm tall! that's taller than like 99% of the guys in my class >.>

the nice dresses that we saw were too ex, like 200++ and many dresses were not very prommish. then most of those suitable for prom were tubes, and we refused to wear tubes bcos it's accentuates our lack of figure xD it would be worse if it ended up slipping off! i think tubes must be in vogue or something, everywhere you'll find tubes T.T also, most of the dresses were too short for me, and they're not even cheap - at least 100++ which is out of budget!

we went to far east, og, centrepoint robinsons' and takashimaya. in the end liwen got her toga one-shouldered dress from taka at a record 47.70! there are amazing discounts all over orchard, like at least 10% off most of the stuff. i got my prom dress from og's daniel yam (branded kayyy, don't play play). original price was $89, but it was a sale item, so i got it for an even more stunning record of $39! that's 43.8% of the original price!!

the dresses on sale were the cheapest dresses i saw in the entire day, and since i couldn't find any dress i particularly like, might as spend less and choose the cheapest one. esp since we usually wear our prom dresses like once or twice in our lifetime, don't waste the money! my prom dress is not too formal, so still wearable in the future though... ^^

it's a nice red colour, and while i find it rather short, it's not bad. we had a hard time choosing between champagne, silver and red colour, and between different designs, but yeah. that's how it is when you shop >.> if you want to see it, come for prom/wait for photos to be up haha. prom is tomorrow! hope it would be fun...and hope no one cries (unless they wear waterproof mascara hahaha). even though we may not meet again ever (esp the guys), we have had fun times right! and prom should be a happy event!

we had to rush our shopping bcos we don't plan to go out again for prom, so we ended up getting everything in a day. liwen said it's impossible to get everything in a day, but i just proved you wrong so THERE. ^^ though it's super stressful shopping with a mission AND a time limit, more stressful than a levels la! it's physically strenous rather than mentally draining, but it's also an emotional burden you have to carry the whole day!

there was also a class dinner right afterwards, but we were still shopping for the dress, so we ended up late by one hour+ >.< very coincidentally, there was a fireworks display at vivocity that night! it's super nice (better than ndp ones), with lots of star shapes, and lots of blue fireworks. zijun said that apparently blue fireworks are very hard to make, probably because it's harder to see. blue light deviates more from the normal! it was like some 10 minute show, and there were red green pink golden silver orange blue etc, my favourites are the green and pink, and the flower firework where the petals grow out and the middle part explode then the petals explode! i also liked the circles that opened up, looks like a planetary orbit zoom in, though some of the circles ended up elliptical/out of shape, it's still quite good! this is such a pleasant surprise after a day of tiring shopping. we're so lucky ^^

apparently it's in celebration of vivocity's 1st year anniversary! happy birthday vivo! in fact, there were so many photographers there so you can watch it here and find pictures here! (open the links in new tab/new window! don't navigate away from my blog :/)

oh i bought S.H.E's new book!
proof that i got the book xD

ok it's not so new anymore, but i had a hard time getting my hands on it haha, and it's cheaper than i thought! thought would be 30+, but it was 25. and i'm super lucky, i got the last copy of the book at that branch! yay. btw i'm working at google now, so i got the google shirt (:

look at the back!


cute right!

anw i applied for basic theory test for driving ytd. the place is so big, and there were so many people and everyone knows what to do and where to go! i was totally intimidated and lost. i expected a sign saying theory test --> but don't have! then the info counter was so small that i had to walk one whole round before finding it >.> im amazed that there were so many people when it was raining so heavily. i pity the people having their driving test in the heavy rain. i hope mine would be in sunny and good weather!

im learning as a private candidate and taking P3A licence ie. auto car. there were no more test slots for dec, so i booked the earliest date of 2nd jan. i shall mug hard! basic test should be easy, most of the stuff alrd know liao/common sense.

very very coincidentally, i met my pri sch classmate there too! apparently he saw me queuing early on, but he couldn't rmb my name, then so paiseh to go up and forget my name right, so he only came over when i was at the booking station. i couldn't recognise him at first, and there's this awkward silence of 5 seconds as my brain tries to fit his face to a name xD he said something like "hi you're joy right? remember me?"

-awkward pause-

-his face frozen in the smile, my face frozen in a half-smile of non-recognition, thinking why this guy knows my name-

then finally, i remembered him HAHA. aiya so long nv see him, i oso not very close to him in pri sch, plus a levels took up all my memory space, so need recognition lag haha (not the econs recognition lag! xD)

ok i shall end my rambling here and go take a nap. i've been sleeping late and waking at 7+am everyday. seems like my internal clock isn't adjusted to waking late; i just keep waking early. at least it's good for work in the future haha xD

p.s. if you actually believed i'm working for google, happy april fool's day! my bro got the shirt for free when google went to his school for a career fair and gave out free shirts, but it was woman's size so ya. ^^ gotcha!

good byes and hellos

it's time to dedicate a post to my high school life. time to say goodbyes, and prepare to say hellos!

a few days ago, when i couldn't sleep, tossing and turning on my bed generally due to the stress from a levels and thinking about stuff, i suddenly remembered this incident. It must have been one of the most memorable experiences i have had in rj, and maybe even the most memorable. i did my first and only dare ever one fine day this year in february (i remember this because it was so obviously not my birthday, you'll find out why next). i was at the canteen during lunch break with a few of my classmates, and we were playing dare or double dare or something crappy like that which was designed to make you do stupid things.

haha obviously bird was the one who made the bunch of us play it. we were spinning a bottle and whoever it points towards have to do a dare. bird got dared the first time and she went up to the first guy that walked past and said that his chest looks nice xD another guy who got dared went to a girl three tables away and asked her for her number, and believe it or not, she actually gave him! we checked and it was the correct number haha! i bet she knew it was a dare because we were all staring and giggling and whispering. xD

then when it was almost end of break, guess what? i got dared! (so unlucky) i had to go round the canteen twice singing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEE!" and the guys at this table were laughing at me. one of them even came over and shook my hand, congratulating me! it's so unbelievably embarrassing! it wasn't even close to my birthday and everyone was watching >.> i wonder if anyone i knew actually saw? eh yeah and fortunately (or not so fortunately), the bell rang at this moment so i could end my agony quickly, but it should have come sooner so i didn't have to get dared at all in the first place! i had many fun times like that in rj haha.

hmm...i'm not comfortable with the name ri(jc), im more used to saying rj, 比较亲切,也很顺口嘛! we're the first and last batch that have been to rgs, rjc and ri, and we're the H1N1-for-A-levels and SARS-for-PSLE batch. luckily h1n1 didn't affect our a levels though sars may have affected our psle, considering the top psle scorer for our year was only 282? (compared to the pro 290 or 286++ they have each year)

eh sorry i digress. i'll miss the games and fun times we had, i'll miss the food even, for it was cheap and they give a lot haha, probably bcos it's a mixed school so they give as much for us as they would for guys whee. the food was a whole lot better than rgs food too! part of the reason why i miss rj more than rgs. but mainly it's because i have great memories of fun, joy and laughter in rj - in jap club and astro, even bridge.

i had fun in ccal camp, in befrienders' dance, open house, jap fest, chingay, every single event and activity i took part in or organised in rj. rj really gave me many many opportunities to excel and improve myself, and i feel sorry that i couldn't have contributed more to rj. the thing i loved about rj was the atmosphere. so full of energy, laughter, fun and friends, and opportunities abound. if you want to do something, there's a 95% chance for you to succeed as long as you're willing to do it. it's this kindof spirit that is encouraged, and it made me do a lot of things i nv would have dreamt possible.

what i regret the most is that JC2 life wasn't as fulfilling as JC1 life. i guess it's mainly because we're so obsessed with mugging mugging and more mugging, which is good? i mean it's a student's job to mug haha. but definitely school life shouldn't be just about mugging.

it's true that what you'll remember years down the road are not your a level results or the tests and exams, but rather the friends you made and the wonderful experiences you had. i don't rmb my results and tests and pts from rgs anymore. in fact, i don't even rmb PW or my JC1 CT results or lecture tests and little stuff that mattered so much to us at those times! sigh, that's why i felt that this year was a pity. i guess things are always like that in a premier school or even any jc in singapore, but i'm already very grateful for all the fun i had out of the classroom!

and because of H1N1, a lot of activities and events got cancelled, and so we missed out on a lot of fun activities this year ): i feel sad for the j1s, for they got robbed of the great experiences that i enjoyed in my j1 year from all the activities i organised and participated in.

im glad that i have learnt a lot out of the classroom from rj, and now i shall bid rj farewell! with this, i shall move on... and start preparing for prom! tomorrow we're going shopping for dress and shoes, and then we have a class dinner to send the scholars off! sigh bidding farewell to the school means bidding farewell to all my friends, classmates, ccamates. i even spent 6 whole years with some of you! we'll be going our separate ways, to different countries and taking different paths. i only hope that all of you will live well and healthily, and may our paths cross again in the future (how about a reunion each year!)

i've got this whole list of things i have to do and want to do, including uni apps, scholarships, applying for internships and work. (home tutoring anyone?) but i also want to read a lot of books, watch a lot of drama, mug french/jap/astro/anything i want, and generally have fun! oh yeah i'll have to go learn driving too!

this is not the end. well maybe it is the end of our high school life and childhood and everything innocent and nice haha, but it is also the beginning of our adulthood and entry into the big wide world out there! while the future remains uncertain, murky or scary, the bright new future with unlimited opportunities also lies ahead! rmb, only we have the power to mould our future!

the light at the end of the tunnel

Whenever I experience a significant event, I will blog about it. This time, it's no exception. With my last paper over (H3 physics), this marks the end of my 2 years at rj, and of course the end of the much dreaded a levels, and i finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! my future lies ahead, as i shall embrace the limitless possibilities of all that i can do now...

this a level exams must be the longest exams i'll ever take, and one in which i spent the longest preparing for (6 years in IP), and the longest i spent mugging for (at least two full months, and random mugging in between in the last 6 months). 3 whole weeks of exams, out of which only 12 days had papers (13 papers in total). so there's like more than half the time for mugging which is very good haha, but just prolongs the agony and all. i'm still glad for the extra time to mug though, may have helped slightly?

looking back, mugging last minute really doesn't help for a levels. what helps is everything you've been doing the past two years. a lot of the knowledge i had to use ended up coming from long-term memory and crapping skills, as many qns involved explanations and application of what we have learnt to new situations, which i didn't quite expect.

seriously, i expected a levels to be as easy as the stuff in the tys, but looks like a levels standards changed towards less memorising and rote-learning, and more application of skills. well it's good for ppl who are pro, but im not very pro, so it's not very good for me haha. i just hope i lie within the band of proness (ie. A A A A A!) but now that it's over, there's only the wait.

i shall give a -brief- account of how each paper went for me. maybe after i get back my results next year, i can look at this blog post and check if how i felt about the paper = how i did for each paper xD

By chronological order (or thereabouts, since each paper is spread out over 3 weeks):

Mathematics
the paper was odd. when i saw the first question and couldn't do it, i was shocked. it was our first paper, and it was already like that!? but afterwards i read the question again and kindof understood what they were asking and yeah, it was ok. i didn't know how to do the graphs qn, and i left it to the end and just did what i thought should be right. seems like it's correct (according to solutions posted online by math tutors haha, ask me if you want the solutions).

a whole lot more explaining than expected. qns were phrased weirdly too, probably to make it look more difficult, and trick weaker students into freaking out and giving up on the paper (which i almost wanted to but of course i didn't). turns out math is going to be the best paper among all my a level exams, so see how much worse things are going to turn out...

should be an A. according to solutions, i got almost everything correct (i lost 2 marks for sure, a few more uncertain marks for explanations), provided i didn't make careless mistakes. even if the solutions weren't accurate, it should still be an A...

General Paper
Paper 1 was good in that there was a question on poverty! yay! but my intro was crap and i don't even think i wrote a proper thesis statement. i had too many points and i was squeezing everything in, so i think that wasn't good. but my points were good, so should have quite a bit of content marks. it should be at least a B essay, hopefully A because paper 2 was crap. i died for the compre. ):

i didn't know what they were asking for in half the qns, bcos it was mostly inference/why u think the author used quotation marks (WHYY??!?!?)/explain weird stuff that involves weird crapping skills. thus, i am absolutely unsure about the validity of my answers and if i'm lucky, all my answers would = answer sheet. if im unlucky, i'm going to get a horrid grade T.T oh and i didn't know how to do the vocab, and my aq was crap, my summary was useless and only had 7 big points (and there were 8 marks!)

worst cast scenario: B4 (better not be anything below a B :/). best case scenario: A2 (impossible to get A1 with such a crappy compre right, unless everyone else had crappier compres)

Economics
argh essay was horrifying. just thinking about it makes me shudder. i didn't know how to do some part of every single one of the six questions, and you know how horrifying that is in the biggest exam (as of now) of your life??? i randomly chose the 25 mark micro qn bcos i had two points (kindof), but it's a 25 mark essay!! i probably failed it :/

i then chose the first two macro qns because i didn't study globalisation well so i couldn't do the apparently quite easy qn on globalisation, but the part a was difficult so there! i would have screwed up that part. i hope i passed both essays, though i think i did badly for some parts of both questions ):

if i had more time, and if i were thinking more clearly, i should have chosen the qn on price discrimination. i thought up quite a few good points for it after the paper, and i think i can get a L2 score and probably pass the essay at least, which is already better than the 25 mark qn T.T i was panicking throughout the paper and not thinking very clearly, plus it was just too cold in the hall!!

case study was much much better, at least i knew how to do most of it, and guess what? i wrote more than i did for essay, AND i drew more diagrams! while they tested on random weird stuff like the multiplier, it was doable and it was like giveaway points! (they probably repented after the killer essay paper haha). pretty much everyone predicted the high oil/food/energy prices! apparently some jc's prelim paper predicted 90% of the a level paper or something, so those ppl who did the paper, lucky you.

but the last parts (e,f) for both micro and macro case studies weren't very good because i had too many points and i lacked time. oh yeah why in the world did they give us so many parts ah, and make me write so much for like what 2 marks, 3 marks! gah wasted my time, could have done better for last parts hmph.

worst case: S? raw score is probably a S for essay ahaha, so ironic, considering i have never gotten below D for econs before (which should warrant an A for a levels according to everyone but yeah life is not a bed of roses). best case is a B. with essay score 60% and case study only 40%, it's impossible to get A raw score, and unlikely to get A moderated score. :/

Chemistry
i feel cheated after i finished all three papers. like half of what i learnt in the past two years were actually NOT tested? i touched the calculator like twice for paper 2/paper 3??? and there were a whole lot of explanations and qualitative answers, which tested on stuff that we haven't learnt before really, but must apply what we know to the paper. bcos of the time limit, i didn't have time to slowly think, and so some of my explanations must have been crap. sigh.

papers 2 and 3 were ok ba, but it wasn't very good because i know i made quite a few mistakes, and since the papers were pretty easy, everyone will do better than me and i can't get my A :/ paper 1 was more difficult, and very very tricky. i was rushing because i always don't have enough time to do chem mcq papers (ask our chem department. they like to kill us for chem), and because of that, i fell into the cambridge examiners' traps again and again and i made a whole lot of mistakes that i seriously SHOULND'T HAVE MADE. while i had time to go back and check and salvage some of them, i missed out on the rest et voila! i had a lot of mistakes, and while im sure many people make the same mistakes, does this put me ahead of others?

predicted score: possibly a B, of course hope for A

Physics
This paper ah, why start so late ah. when we did the first paper (paper 2), it was alrd near the end of the second week of exams? bio ppl alrd took like their paper one week ago? then when we took the second paper (paper 3), some of the arts students already completed their a level exams?!?! gah. the wait for the third paper (paper 1) was the longest la. i totally didn't study for it, except the afternoon before just to recap and make me feel less nervous about not mugging for it >.> spent most of the time mugging for h3 physics (more below haha)

paper 2 and 3 were pretty easy i guess, but so much more explaining than expected. and all those definitions (of tesla?! of the volt!!) luckily they've appeared somewhere in our notes before, but i forgot the definitions and i was making them up/deriving them on the spot XP

paper 1 was DIFFICULT. everyone was probably expecting a easy paper, but from my experience previously with chem mcq, i knew paper 1 was bound to be difficult. but who knew it was going to be so difficult! i mean it's doable, but i probably had quite a lot of wrong answers ): it was like more difficult than our prelims paper, and comparable to any prelim papers actually. i always thought a levels was supposed to be easier than prelims T.T

some of the qns were simple enough, they didn't bother tricking you, but those qns were the minority. the rest were plenty of tedious calculations/weird stuff i nv heard of before which makes me wonder what i've actually been learning the past two years. how could there be stuff like CENTRIFUGAL FORCE when we never even seen it in our notes before. bah.

hopefully it's an A. at least everyone else dies with me, and hopefully i did better than most ppl ^^"

H3 Physics
i mugged quite a bit for it, but only in the few days before. i felt awfully under-prepared when i went into the exam hall, because the syllabus is made up of new unfamiliar and unknown stuff that i've only had the chance to memorise, and not internalise. i could rmb the eqns, but if they ask me to do all the explaining and deriving, i freak out and forget. that's kinda what happened today.

i expected the paper to be difficult, from past year papers and stuff, and it turned out pretty much the same. i couldn't show this eqn, and im still really upset about it. i should have worked backwards but i was so focused on getting it from first principles that i gave up on it when i couldn't get it. bah. 4 marks gone. a lot of explanations too; i didn't know some of them and pretty much made up based on whatever concept i believed it to be based on. so a lot of uncertain marks that could have been lost/gained.

then for section b, i had to choose 2 qns out of 4. i chose one qn that was obviously easier than the rest, as i couldn't do like 4-10 marks in each of the other 3 qns (and each qn was 20 marks!), so i had to randomly choose. after i did the second qn, i realised i couldn't do quite a lot of it T.T

when i got home today and worked out the other 2 qns i didn't do, i realised i could do like 6 marks of showing for one of the qns after all! though it required quite a bit of thinking and stuff which i may not be able to produce in exam conditions, but still. sigh.

oh well, nothing i can do to change it. not like i'll change my decision in those conditions, i was kindof freaking out bcos i didn't have much time to choose anymore, and i was alrd demoralised by the first part of the paper ):

possibly a merit grade, but let's hope it's a distinction.

All in all, GCE 'A' Level examinations proved to be more challenging than expected, and don't underestimate the meanness of the cambridge examiners! I think because of all the complaints and feedback that a levels were too easy, that students just needed to mug and memorise to score well, the examiners have decided to set questions that test more than just calculations/rote-learning, and differentiate between the good students and the average.

the awful thing is that i know i made some mistake in every single paper i did (except gp essay?), which made it worse because i couldn't even live in ignorant bliss that i did well for the papers. i mean just having some mistakes doesn't mean i did badly, but because of the few mistakes, u will think that you could have done better and avoided a worse grade! maybe if i get b -choy choy touch wood- i will regret it in the future, because i could have answered the qn correctly and maybe get a A instead!

i guess it's possible that all my complaints were overly pessimistic and i'll turn out with perfect scores, but i guess i'd rather pin my hopes on how i feel about the papers than on overly optimistic scores and end up badly disappointed.