Trying, trying, trying to load 'The Voice' now, but I've been stuck at the same episode for two days now because the Internet connection we've got here has deteriorated into something terrible and unspeakable and depressing.
Anyway, haven't posted in forever but that's okay. That means I've been busy doing other things (and sort of maybe having a life out there).
What's happened since the etiquette dinner? A tonne of things.
In terms of F1 races, I missed the Korean race because I was out at Sentosa with Fatinn and a bunch of her Year 6 friends because it was her birthday. Ate at the Vivo rooftop, then sat at a beach at Sentosa and watched shirtless guys play volleyball for a few hours, then ate again. Fun. I'm going to miss the Year 6s when they graduate. Jia Hong was updating me with race details, and thanks to unlimited texting, I can say I didn't really feel as if I was missing the race at all. Vettel won, Webber second and Alonso third. Massa finished fourth, which was really good for him (he's confirmed a seat at Ferrari for next year, for which I am glad).
The Indian GP at Buddh was two days ago, strangely timed in the evening. Vettel won again (and his race engineer did a Crazy Frog over the team radio, which was really cute), Alonso second in front of Webber (good driving by Alonso, really. Made it up from fifth on the grid). Went out to eat after that, with KT, Kelvin and Wee Thean. Thai Express really is our default place whenever we go to WCP. Sometimes decision-making wastes time, and when you're hungry, time-wasting isn't something you want to do.
In terms of books read, I finished reading 'A Game of Thrones' after the second script-checking day, because I was depressed and needed to like drown my sorrows in a fantasy world of gore, murder, treachery, politics, and unnecessary sex scenes (or paragraphs, which I skipped). Never done that badly for any exam ever, so let's not talk about it ever again. Book was good and epic and quite unputdownable (because I love how this is a real word, and it explains why I've been sleeping past 3 in the morning every day now). Tried to watch the television show, but the sex scenes were like too explicit for my taste, so I've given up. I think I'm quite hopeless. Can't even bear to watch making out scenes because they disgust me. Maybe I really do need professional help.
In terms of movies watched (I might miss some because there were quite a few), saw 'Sherlock Holmes' (the 2010 movie) and 'Taken' in the TV room yesterday, 'Mirrors' a few nights ago (have I mentioned I despise horror movies? Well I despise them) in the TV room, 'Looper' at Jurong Point a week or so ago, 'Wu Dang' (some Chinese film about radioactive Tai Chi, that's how we put it) and 'Wrath of the Titans' (as bad as its predecessor, 'Clash of the Titans') in the TV room two weeks ago, 'Spy Kids 2' with MJ in her room a while back (chronological order means nothing to me now), 'Exam' (some messed up mind-effing low-budget movie about a bunch of people taking an exam) and 'A Thousand Words' (quite meaningful, not bad) in the TV room God-knows-when, and '500 Days of Summer' by myself in my room because I wanted to be reminded of what Joseph Gordon-Levitt really looks like without the Looper prosthetics. I think that's about it. I think. Ten movies in two weeks. Not bad.
Year-End Dinner happened too. Yeah. Quite fun.
Also did ARP stuff with Wai Yin. Yeah ARPing is fun.
Went out to Sentosa again today (so it looks like we've come full circle) to sort of celebrate Aisyah's birthday. Have some footage, so will edit and upload sometime.
Hung out around the beach, ate, then it rained so we had to move, then it stopped raining so we walked on the sand (fake beach, not really beach, sand was horrible and water was gross) while the others played ball and did some frisbee-throwing and bullied some crabs, then it rained again so we had to retreat and stuff. Okay tiring, words are tiring now.
Here is my channel, go stalk and subscribe and like my videos if you like. Please.
Okay, see you.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Etiquette Dinner
All right, exams are over, and the past few days have been quite busy.
The Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka happened on Sunday, which Vettel won while Alonso crashed out first corner, reducing the Championship gap to a dangerous 4 points. Massa came in second; his first podium in 36 races. Welcome back, Felipe. And Kobayashi was third, first podium in his F1 career at his home race. Quite fitting. Button came fourth, so he still has the favour of his girlfriend's countrymen for not overtaking homeboy.
Most dreaded exam paper of the semester happened Monday morning: Chem Hons. I don't think I'd ever been so deathly afraid of an exam paper before. But thank God by some kind of miracle it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Managed to answer the 10-mark each mechanism questions, so I have a high chance of not failing.
Hopefully I'll be able to do well for the Physics paper, but I only studied for the few hours after Chem before the paper, so chances are a bit low. We'll see.
Went out to West Coast Park with half of 05 afterwards. I love my class. We kind of went nuts and acted like immature little kids and climbed everything and played with all the children's recreational equipment and got stared at and then ate at Mac's. Om nom.
Also bought Mark of Athena on the way back. Finished reading it last night, and it's good. There's this sort of consistency that Rick Riordan has, but somehow I don't find that I love it any more. I was entertained, and I quite enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the next book, but I don't feel as immersed as I was when I read the Percy Jackson books. Either the series has lost its novelty to me, or I'm growing up. I hope the former.
Went out to meet Woan Chyi at Bugis for lunch on Tuesday, then Fatinn joined us and we walked around Bugis street dress-shopping. I think a lot of people from Year 5 went out to shop that day (and Wednesday, too), because most of us really lack formal clothing.
Watched 'Taken 2' on Wednesday (never seen Taken, but didn't matter). Adithya texted before noon, then went out for lunch with KT, Wee Thean, Kelvin because Adithya always has mysterious "business" to attend to. Ate at Fatboy's, and it was surprisingly filling even though the portions looked quite small. Even the guys said so, so it wasn't only me. Good burgers. Then we wandered around Vivo and bought tickets (and did not shop for guys' shoes or ties at all, because shopping is for girls and we totally did not do any of that sort) and hung around in Challenger until the movie had to start. Then Wai Yin joined us, then Adithya, Daryl, Pradeep, and Mitra (we left their tickets at the counter, and we told the guy he could recognise them as a group of four Indian guys).
Anyway the movie was good, but we figured it was all an elaborate plot set up by the main character to get back with his ex-wife (and it totally worked, whoa spoiler).
Reuben's first birthday party was today. Ms Kong invited us and there was food and cake. It's awesome that their family let us into this momentous part of their lives. It's really sweet to have shared it with us. And Reuben is so ridiculously cute.
Etiquette dinner happened afterwards. Everyone looked great, and here's a low resolution shot of the whole level (minus a few). I think it's quite cool how we care and respect the occasion enough to bother to dress up.
Most of what the instructor taught us was common sense, like leaving your fork and knife to the side when you're done, being polite to your waiter and not spitting food into your napkin. But then there was stuff like "When you drop your fork, do not bend to pick it up and ask the waiter to bring you a new one", which we found quite douchey. Why would you make someone pick up something you dropped? That's really mean.
And you're also apparently supposed to scoop your soup up outwards, instead of bringing the spoon towards you. What kind of crazy unnatural behaviour is that? Weird stuff.
Then by the time the food actually came we were starving, so I can't tell if the food was quite decent, or if it was because we were really hungry. Milled around and took a bunch of photos after our quite meagre (also because we were hungry, I think) bread and soup, chicken and ice cream.
Quite fun.
Hostel time ending soon.
Man.
I kind of don't want these people to leave us.
The Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka happened on Sunday, which Vettel won while Alonso crashed out first corner, reducing the Championship gap to a dangerous 4 points. Massa came in second; his first podium in 36 races. Welcome back, Felipe. And Kobayashi was third, first podium in his F1 career at his home race. Quite fitting. Button came fourth, so he still has the favour of his girlfriend's countrymen for not overtaking homeboy.
Most dreaded exam paper of the semester happened Monday morning: Chem Hons. I don't think I'd ever been so deathly afraid of an exam paper before. But thank God by some kind of miracle it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Managed to answer the 10-mark each mechanism questions, so I have a high chance of not failing.
Hopefully I'll be able to do well for the Physics paper, but I only studied for the few hours after Chem before the paper, so chances are a bit low. We'll see.
Went out to West Coast Park with half of 05 afterwards. I love my class. We kind of went nuts and acted like immature little kids and climbed everything and played with all the children's recreational equipment and got stared at and then ate at Mac's. Om nom.
Also bought Mark of Athena on the way back. Finished reading it last night, and it's good. There's this sort of consistency that Rick Riordan has, but somehow I don't find that I love it any more. I was entertained, and I quite enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the next book, but I don't feel as immersed as I was when I read the Percy Jackson books. Either the series has lost its novelty to me, or I'm growing up. I hope the former.
Went out to meet Woan Chyi at Bugis for lunch on Tuesday, then Fatinn joined us and we walked around Bugis street dress-shopping. I think a lot of people from Year 5 went out to shop that day (and Wednesday, too), because most of us really lack formal clothing.
Watched 'Taken 2' on Wednesday (never seen Taken, but didn't matter). Adithya texted before noon, then went out for lunch with KT, Wee Thean, Kelvin because Adithya always has mysterious "business" to attend to. Ate at Fatboy's, and it was surprisingly filling even though the portions looked quite small. Even the guys said so, so it wasn't only me. Good burgers. Then we wandered around Vivo and bought tickets (and did not shop for guys' shoes or ties at all, because shopping is for girls and we totally did not do any of that sort) and hung around in Challenger until the movie had to start. Then Wai Yin joined us, then Adithya, Daryl, Pradeep, and Mitra (we left their tickets at the counter, and we told the guy he could recognise them as a group of four Indian guys).
Anyway the movie was good, but we figured it was all an elaborate plot set up by the main character to get back with his ex-wife (and it totally worked, whoa spoiler).
Reuben's first birthday party was today. Ms Kong invited us and there was food and cake. It's awesome that their family let us into this momentous part of their lives. It's really sweet to have shared it with us. And Reuben is so ridiculously cute.
Etiquette dinner happened afterwards. Everyone looked great, and here's a low resolution shot of the whole level (minus a few). I think it's quite cool how we care and respect the occasion enough to bother to dress up.
Most of what the instructor taught us was common sense, like leaving your fork and knife to the side when you're done, being polite to your waiter and not spitting food into your napkin. But then there was stuff like "When you drop your fork, do not bend to pick it up and ask the waiter to bring you a new one", which we found quite douchey. Why would you make someone pick up something you dropped? That's really mean.
And you're also apparently supposed to scoop your soup up outwards, instead of bringing the spoon towards you. What kind of crazy unnatural behaviour is that? Weird stuff.
Then by the time the food actually came we were starving, so I can't tell if the food was quite decent, or if it was because we were really hungry. Milled around and took a bunch of photos after our quite meagre (also because we were hungry, I think) bread and soup, chicken and ice cream.
Quite fun.
Hostel time ending soon.
Man.
I kind of don't want these people to leave us.
Friday, October 05, 2012
Transience.
Hello, these are words. Have these words, they are my gift to you.
(You may thank me later, you're welcome.)
So we're a week into our exams (well not really a week, but we've reached the first weekend of this long week of studying and writing and wanting to die), and this is like a lull before the real danger comes. You know, the eye of the storm.
Five papers down, two more to go.
The essay component of the English paper was quite fun, actually. But then again I like writing essays when I stop caring about what the teachers might think and actually get around to arguing about things the way I want to. 'There has never been a better time to be a woman," or something, was the question I did. Yeah, I think it's a great time to be a woman. In fact, it's a great time to be alive; we're more hygienic now. How much I bullsh*tted: 6.5 (because I put some effort into making sense).
The comprehension part was hell, and half the time I was writing like I was drunk/high/not in the right state of mind. So basically I don't think I made sense at all. Argue in context of Singapore? I hardly know anything. Hm maybe it is quite shameful to have been living here for almost four years and yet not give a crap about its politics or events or anything, but I really don't. How much I bullsh*tted: 10.2
Ecology wasn't too bad. It's like Stats and English in disguise. They give you graphs and articles and ask you to interpret things. Could do better, but the questions were just really dumb (for lack of a better word). How much I bullsh*tted: 8.
Stats was okay, too. The first three questions were really demoralising, but after the initial fifteen minutes' worth of panicking and staring at your question paper you flip to the next page and realise the questions get progressively easier. Hopefully the front doesn't compromise the back too much. How much I bullsh*tted: 3.
Inorganic was terrible. Didn't really know what I was saying half the time, and spent most of my time being miserably confused and wishing I could drop Chem. Probably will pass, but not very well. How much I bullsh*tted: 5
Today's Biochem paper was quite bad too, but much, much better than that hell of a Molecular Genetics paper we took last sem (the average score for that paper was below passing). Quite okay, but wrote a tonne of rubbish just so it wouldn't seem like I just gave up and left blanks. How much I bullsh*tted: 9.9
Have Chem Hons and Physics left.
I do not fight a losing battle.
Last night had a last dinner session with Woan Chyi last night because she's moving out to stay with Jehon for a while.. Was in a rush because she had to go out, and I had to squeeze out every minute to study Biochem.
Now that I've let it sink it, I feel kind of sad. Four years of having hostel dinner together and suddenly it's the last night. Like whoa. And when you come to think of it, it'll be so much worse when we leave this country for good. You spend so much time wishing it was over and that you could go home, and then you realise at some point into it you've stopped wishing for it to be over. So bittersweet.
Everything's so transient. Why are we here, being so worked up about school for a chance (just a chance) of living a comfortable future? We're young, and we're going to waste it all on worrying about how we're going to do when we're too old to enjoy this freedom. So we should all go out and do crazy stuff once in a while, as long as it's not murder or drugs or unwanted-baby making.
Okay, off now.
P.S. Here is a playlist of Tioman videos, because memories are awesome and we're awesome and generally the trip was awesome.
(You may thank me later, you're welcome.)
So we're a week into our exams (well not really a week, but we've reached the first weekend of this long week of studying and writing and wanting to die), and this is like a lull before the real danger comes. You know, the eye of the storm.
Five papers down, two more to go.
The essay component of the English paper was quite fun, actually. But then again I like writing essays when I stop caring about what the teachers might think and actually get around to arguing about things the way I want to. 'There has never been a better time to be a woman," or something, was the question I did. Yeah, I think it's a great time to be a woman. In fact, it's a great time to be alive; we're more hygienic now. How much I bullsh*tted: 6.5 (because I put some effort into making sense).
The comprehension part was hell, and half the time I was writing like I was drunk/high/not in the right state of mind. So basically I don't think I made sense at all. Argue in context of Singapore? I hardly know anything. Hm maybe it is quite shameful to have been living here for almost four years and yet not give a crap about its politics or events or anything, but I really don't. How much I bullsh*tted: 10.2
Ecology wasn't too bad. It's like Stats and English in disguise. They give you graphs and articles and ask you to interpret things. Could do better, but the questions were just really dumb (for lack of a better word). How much I bullsh*tted: 8.
Stats was okay, too. The first three questions were really demoralising, but after the initial fifteen minutes' worth of panicking and staring at your question paper you flip to the next page and realise the questions get progressively easier. Hopefully the front doesn't compromise the back too much. How much I bullsh*tted: 3.
Inorganic was terrible. Didn't really know what I was saying half the time, and spent most of my time being miserably confused and wishing I could drop Chem. Probably will pass, but not very well. How much I bullsh*tted: 5
Today's Biochem paper was quite bad too, but much, much better than that hell of a Molecular Genetics paper we took last sem (the average score for that paper was below passing). Quite okay, but wrote a tonne of rubbish just so it wouldn't seem like I just gave up and left blanks. How much I bullsh*tted: 9.9
Have Chem Hons and Physics left.
I do not fight a losing battle.
Last night had a last dinner session with Woan Chyi last night because she's moving out to stay with Jehon for a while.. Was in a rush because she had to go out, and I had to squeeze out every minute to study Biochem.
Now that I've let it sink it, I feel kind of sad. Four years of having hostel dinner together and suddenly it's the last night. Like whoa. And when you come to think of it, it'll be so much worse when we leave this country for good. You spend so much time wishing it was over and that you could go home, and then you realise at some point into it you've stopped wishing for it to be over. So bittersweet.
Everything's so transient. Why are we here, being so worked up about school for a chance (just a chance) of living a comfortable future? We're young, and we're going to waste it all on worrying about how we're going to do when we're too old to enjoy this freedom. So we should all go out and do crazy stuff once in a while, as long as it's not murder or drugs or unwanted-baby making.
Okay, off now.
P.S. Here is a playlist of Tioman videos, because memories are awesome and we're awesome and generally the trip was awesome.
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