my eyes are tired.

But I'm still going to do some complex numbers tutorial. I have no idea why I'm learning complex numbers for, except to nail that A for A levels. It's hardly relevant to anything I'm planning to do in the university!!

I didn't attend lessons today - felt uber great. The feeling you get when you go to school realising that there's not going to be any tutorials (especially bio!) is just...amazing. Joce and I pleaded Mrs Chan to return us our chem scripts since we weren't going to attend chemistry practical and...I scored A for chem too! Yay. A for maths and A for chem. That's half my goals down! The rest don't really matter, especially bio. Sometimes I think long and hard about why I have to study so hard for bio when the marginal utility starts the diminish as soon as you start revising. So. I didn't study as hard this time round and attempted to do what the ministry (*coughs and sputters*) has been encouraging all of us to do - understand the topic. Which is just an excuse for not memorising.

We sang to some international delegates at the Grand Copthorne in the afternoon. Oh oh oh, the hotel's fantastic! As we walked to our temporary holding area, there was a very strong aroma of coffee - the good quality kind. Not the one I drink every morning in my groggy state. I can't live without coffee nowadays. I'm not really awake until I have my coffee.

I digressed again. The delegates were very appreciative of our singing although bin-nam-ma was very out of tune at the end and the basses came in a whole 3 bars early at the start. Can you imagine? We all took the wrong cue, including me, from the conductor...so yes. We came in early, missed our subsequent entries echoing the tenors and hohoho, the rest didn't really matter anymore. We only came in just before the next section, which was about 10s later. SHEESH. Our conductor promised to personally strangle every single bass on monday. I'm awaiting my death.

Jonny is uber funny. We played mindless games today and he entertained me with all that anti-tenor mentality of his. Like "TS" stands for tenors suck. Haha. We don't really mean it, of course. We love you tenors. =D But not as much as the basses!

***

emcee:
let us welcome the hwachong choir!

*half-hearted claps from the delegates*

j:
you mean they've heard of our tenors already?

Give me a good reason not to laugh, really!

another paper round the corner.

I realised that if I don't remind myself that there's still a paper on monday, I won't even realise that blocks haven't ended. Just yesterday, I was doing my weekly CIP at yishun service centre as usual and for once, I didn't have to bring my notes there to read during my free time. For once! That just got me into the whole "post-exam" mood and when I got home, I just whiled my time away, either watching tv or surfing blogs. And then there's the paper on monday. A one hour paper at that.

And I have S chem questions that I have to hand in tomorrow, because Mr P.ang is collecting it. Yay.

Oh well. I bought Tony Parson's "Man and Boy" and Tim LaHaye's "Tribulation Force" for ten dollars yesterday at Sembawang Shopping Centre. A steal. So many of the books were going for a song...and I just had to get something - like it was almost immoral not to. Am a very happy boy now.

If I do manage to meet my goals set out for the block tests, I'll go to Sembawang Shopping Centre and buy TWO CDs. Yes yes. It's been sometime. I saw the Jason Mraz CD yesterday and was again tempted to fork out another twenty bucks to buy it, only if I had more money and wasn't being such a scrooge on stuff like that. After hearing what my brother downloaded from Bearshare the other day, I'm a new convert! =)

Sigh. All that's left in front of me is mundane chores that I have to do. Will find something exciting to do later, or something.

blocks drawing to an end.

Yes! One more paper down - chemistry! I thought the paper was quite challenging. Definitely wasn't a walkover. I had to really think hard about each an every organic reaction to determine the silly products. And ionic solubility! The black sheep, damn it. One question in the multiple choice paper stumped me - ok, a few, but I thought long and hard about the stupid magnesium chloride dissolving in some sodium salt solution. Couldn't even get any of the 4 answers. Bummer. And when it came to the structured paper, another one of those "calculate pH of the given solution" questions stumped me. SHEESH. To think that I would have known better than to do just tys questions - they hardly match up to those in the blocks.

Oh well. Rantings are more or less the same, not enough time, difficult and long essays (this time they really were long!) and challenging mcq questions. Ho hum. Might not get an A afterall.

Never mind all that! Only a paper left! Well, two. But SPA skill A can hardly be considered a paper since everyone knows what is going to come out for the exam. There's scant reason to assess us, really! It's a typical paper - cough out as much as you can remember from all the SPA notes and voila! Level 8 answer. After that, your practical is done. Woohoo!

I didn't manage to get to play my Xbox today on the tv. Sigh. Was fiddling with the tv like a tech idiot since I couldn't even change channels. You see, we changed to the digital tv cable set and it's loads better than the last one. You can even see what are the upcoming programmes! Watched a few comedies and laughed my a** off then proceeded to practise some much needed Mozart sonatas and yes, First Love. Woohoo! Finally got that tricky part where both hands are jumping around, switching positions and taking turns playing the melody. It's quite difficult trying to get your hands to do what you tell them to do sometimes. They can be rather stubborn. Often, I feel as if my hands aren't really following what my brain says. I was playing "Reflection" on the piano today. I guess I must have been really bushed but I don't really remember looking at my fingers throughout the whole piece! They just...well, played. I looked at the notes, then moved my fingers to the appropriate keys. It was kinda surreal, I suppose. Weird. You should really try playing the piano when you're tired. Play exam pieces for the full effect! =)

The Pride and Prejudice DVD is lying quite placidly on my table - awfully tempting. I. Shall. Resist. Temptation. *determined look*

Received my coloured contacts today from Joce! Yes yes. Very cool indeed. I haven't tried them on yet as I'm waiting for my contacts to expire for the month. They don't come cheap, that's for sure! Will have to maximise my use of them. Most unfortunately, they only come in 3-monthlies, so I'll have to make sure they're really clean after each time I wear them. You know what they say about your eyes turning all green - from bacteria!

Bacteria. Denitrifying bacteria. Ok. Random.

Off to finish up cellular respiration! Yay.

so that explains it all.

And you wondered why I was so distracted for my block test revision.

Chemistry block test tomorrow! I have to nail that A, by hook or by crook. It's my strongest subject! I'll kick myself in the balls if I score anything less than a B for Chemistry.

Will try out my Xbox on the new tv tomorrow after chem. Yay! Can't wait. *chants reactions*

frustration at its best.

Today marks the start of the block tests for the content based subjects. Well well. Maths was ok, I found it rather easy in fact...in comparison to some of the other block test papers! Hoping to score a high A on that one. Em got the wrong substitution for the question on integration - and that costs 8 marks. Sigh. That was the worst question of them all. How can they expect us to memorise all the substitutions? I managed to guess that it involved square root two, but wasn't sure whether it was root two sine or root two cosine. Stuck with sine since it's easier to differentiate! My lucky day.

Econs sucked pretty bad - not the paper per se, but the venue. Oh yes the *insert suitable expletive* venue! I'm mighty angry about us having to sit right at the end of the hall, like we're being banished into the no-wind zone. You see, my class was slated to sit at row 15, which happens to be the row facing the field. Now. That wouldn't be so much of a problem if our paper started at 8.15am, but here's where the problem came in - the paper started at 1pm. And it lasted for 2 hours 15 minutes. And we had to do three different sections on end. And there was hardly any wind going around, unless you consider the scorching convection currents slowly caressing you from the field - which was highly uncomfortable, if not irritating. Just imagine! I was more frustrated at the fact that the heat was absolutely sweltering and I could feel myself just melting away...and at the same time having to keep my mind straight about the difference between GDP and GNP. One of the worst exams I've ever taken - ever. Even beats the time I fell asleep halfway during my chinese exam in secondary three.

As part of my duty as one of the two sectional leaders for the basses, it was my turn to sit in during sectionals today and watch the interim sectional leaders conduct sectionals. I must admit they're good at it, although ZX probably needs to speak out more and not just be a human metronome, if you get what I mean. Jonny is pretty good at the whole notion of taking them through a song, but I think he can afford to be more picky about their pitching. It's scary to think that once, we were also battling with The Pitch. Seriously, singing is a lot more difficult that it looks. Trying to get people to even sing A NOTE together is like trying to get a bunch of 10 year old kids, charged with adrenaline, to clap at the same time. It's that difficult. To make it harder, not everyone has the best of ears...so we end up fixing pitches quite often. More often that I'd like, though.

I'm not so much afraid of the block tests. I'm much more afraid of what's to come after the blocks - NAPFA(!!), more S paper work, especially from chem, more incomprehensible maths topics and just the entire reality of having to sit for the A levels in less than 8 months!

To end off, Zhiyang sang really well today. I'm so proud of him - and myself for being in the same school and same CCA, even! Yes! Go Zhiyang!

make it known, if only.

My thoughts are presently in a maelstrom, swirling like a big mass. It's hard trying to think about everything at one time, 'cause sometimes, it's really just too much. At one go, at least. That's what we all try to do, right? Ever tried taming a hurricane? Try harder.

This week has been delightfully eventful. For the first time in a long *long* while, I actually felt like I had a purpose - a life outside the textbooks. That I'm not confined to the A levels, to my waves of tutorials and to well...everything that school is about. I managed to spend an overnight chalet interacting with people who've dropped out of school. Most of the people were from hwachong though! So it didn't really make sense since we bunched up together almost instantly. ("senior-junior interaction". hurhur.) Almost all the hwachong people were again from the choir...and we spent a good part of the camp singing when we were walking from the beach back to the chalet and from the chalet back to the beach - times 154729 times. Do the maths and you'll realised we sang about 154729 times as well! Ok, maybe 154730, including the performance on the first night. Ha. I shared the room with Nicole and Shaoning - good fun. For the good half of the camp, we were devising ingenious ways to slack off.

Yesterday, I attended the workshop for Youth for Causes! Yay. I'm proud to say that I'm really excited about the whole CIP project since we get to organise it ourselves. We have a pretty good shot at getting selected (read : 1 in 2.5)...so I'm hoping my group will be able to pull things off.

In an effort to become a more well-rounded individual (*coughs*), I've decided to take up tennis lessons. Yes yes.

Playing Utada Hikaru's "First Love" on the piano. It's a lovely rendition. Admire the arranger loads.

Bought a new calculator today. That deserves a headline, for sure! I was pretty sentimental about my old calculator since I've used it for a good 6 years now. It's the calculator that helped me achieve A1s in both E maths and A maths! How can I forget it? *sobs* Most unfortunately, my calculator had to choose an inconvenient time to die (on me). I was ploughing through vectors in the maths block test papers and I was trying to calculate what's 25 minus 16 (yes, I'm incorrigibly lazy.) and the screen just blanked out. Often, when I press the reset button at the back, it hops back into life, but this time, it stayed just that - blank. Not even a flicker of the "ERROR" sign on the screen. Pronounced dead. So I hurriedly rushed to good ol' Northpoint to grab myself a new calculator. Somehow, I felt guilty about "betraying" my old calculator as I was choosing the new one, much like how one betrays his spouse...I'm odd, ain't I? Never mind that. Bottomline is, I'm totally infatuated with my new calculator. Spurred me on to do more maths sums (ok, that sounds wrong as well. vaguely psychotic statement.) WOOHOO. All hail the new calculator.

Right.

After all that rabid fan-like raving about my new found love, I'm off to study National Income Accounting! (see note)

NB: That "!" was a faint attempt at trying to sound enthused by the whole notion of calculating GDP, NI and all the thingamajits.

come saturday.

listening to: breathe.

You know how some songs just seem to touch you the first time you hear them? This is one of them and it's...just difficult for me to accept who I am or what I'm doing after hearing it. I wish I knew what I was doing, or doing for, for that matter. Never mind if I don't make sense amidst all that mumbo-jumbo. I don't even make sense to myself most of the time.

GP exam was eventful. Spent the whole time trying to fit all that I read the day before the exam into "categories" and "examples". Hm. I think I didn't do very well for the essay, considering the fact that I didn't challenge the assumption in the question. I tried very hard to give a good range of examples to substantiate my points though! Am hoping against all odds that my effort will pay off!

"I knew you guys would do that question!"

oh-kay.

Writing here sometimes is very hard. I try to self censor. Even after all that censoring that goes on around me. Is it even true that as we become more educated, we are sort of free-er in that sense? My first instinctive response was "hell, no!" but let's be more rational than that, shall we? heh.

I love reading blogs that make me feel as if there's this really interesting person on the other side that I'm dying to meet. One of them is on my opendiary networks. He doesn't write in a pretentious manner and everything seems so...sincere. So heartfelt. It's as if he's really jotting down what he thinks about stuff around him, be it his performances at school or his everyday life in Boston, no less. He's an undergraduate studying at Berklee College of Music. Wow. I admire his bravery. Much as I love music to bits, I don't think I can ever muster the courage to do a major in music. Perhaps that explains why as I listened to his podcast about his preparation for his proficiency exam in guitar for the semester, I felt so sad inside because...it's something I desperate want to experience for myself - that anxiety before the exam, that devotion to what you believe in, that commitment to the development of your inner self, that musical side to everyone. And you know what the weirdest thing about the whole thing was? I had that sudden impulse to want to talk to him, about everything he's doing. Granted I can do that over the internet...but there's something that a face to face conversation can do that one over the plain computer screen cannot do, you get what I mean?

I'm quite happy where I am now. I'm just afraid of whether I'll ever lose this side of me to think hard about things about me when I grow up, lost in the never-ending rat race to earn the Big Million. I see adults about me who are contented to take things at face value and I choose not to believe that they choose to do so, but they do it because they don't have time to ponder about it?

Stop thinking so much. I should do more maths. Yes, more structured maths.

of work and life.

You realise there's something seriously wrong with your life when all you do on Sunday is to finish up that wave of tutorials that threatens to flood you all day. And yet, I console myself by saying that the block tests are in two weeks time and that I should be pulling up my rotten socks by now if I want to salvage myself before then. Is every week "pre-block test" week, then?

***

Chem S today went...blazingly fast. Mr Loy apparently made no attempt to even call upon any hapless victim to answer the questions, so we managed to finish all 5 questions in the tutorial in 1 h 45 min! Yay. I managed to catch most of what he was saying. For the good part, I spent time thinking about where I went wrong in my working because some of my answers were so close to his that I felt like crying because I burnt my whole Sunday afternoon solving those questions that overwork my synapses. Sheesh!

Guess what. I have ten chem S questions to do! And by 10th April to boot! Four of which I have to hand in on the last day of the block test. There's absolutely no way of snaking out of this one, since Mr PPC (*gulps*) is taking the next chem S tutorial. Hohoho.

***

Keep focussed and stop losing sight of your goals, dammit!

s'il suffisait qu'on s'aime.

Friday again. HURRAH. It's been a great week, what with halfdayonthursday, nospapers, amazingpelesson, greatchoirpractices and even BETTER news.

Scored A1 for French AO! Christl and I were fretting like crazy over the results and I could hardly keep the compulsion to dash out of the classroom at 2 o'clock sharp to receive my results! Yes yes yes! One distinction down.

Am up for the MP attachment programme too! Yayyers. But compared to the rest of the brilliant people in the programme with even more impressive CVs (almost a third of them are councillors I think. And it's like the prerogative of a councillor to get a really good CV and the end of two years. blah.), I am nothing. Seriously. Just gotta start beefing up my CV with SAT and DELF B2.

DELF is a pain in the neck. It's so difficult I think I'll just turn my brain inside out trying to decipher the passages. They are about 800 to 1000 words long. In french. And I've to digest it in 10 minutes and be prepared to argue my stand on the issue. Yay. Good ol' fun.

***

e: somehow, I like that chord a lot. so basses, you guys have to anchor that chord well.
me: yeah. it gives him pleasure.
k: ha. oral orgasm I think.
me: ...
k: I meant a-u-r-a-l. Not o-r-a-l.
me: would not have told the difference unless you said so.

Sheesh. Horny people are all over the choir.