2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 2)

Alright... now for Part 2 of the blow-by-blow account...

DAY 3

Maths Paper 2 on that day... so it's the questions on the Options Topic (Probability and Statistics) which will dominate the paper.

Just when I arrived at College, I saw Yvonne and she asked me some stuff about probability distribution curves... and when I was borrowing her pencil to do some illustrations, I accidentally scratched the pencil tip against her arm... Oops!

No blood, no report. Thank God.

Glad that I managed to clear some doubts for her in the end.

I bought Nasi Lemak that morning (yes, I'm used to having it for breakfast instead of one small piece of bread) and had not much time for studying... never mind, I was ready for Prob and Stats; that's one of my better areas in Maths.

And so, from past experiences (I did that during Prelims), I did my Stats questions first (they're supposed to be in the "second" section). Didn't have a very promising start, but it was generally quite smooth.

Back to Section One.

Got blown up by that Complex Numbers question... the area in Complex Numbers which I'm bad at was the one about solving polynomials.

And the only Complex Numbers question in that paper was on that part. No Argand Diagram or whatsoever.

Shit.

Overall, it was still not as bad as Paper 1.

And I managed to realise my dream... to do the question on Iterative Methods (to find roots of equations) which I always had no time to do in my past papers.

After the paper, I went with my friends (can't remember who) to the place outside the library to collect our quesion papers for Chem paper 3... but I didn't write my name on my paper, so in the end I could only take someone else's paper.

I tried to find one which was as empty as possible, as I believed that a question paper with more writings on it would be more meaningful to the original owner. I don't know... it's like that for me...

After a Yong tau Foo lunch, I studied Computing (Computing Paper 1 was on that afternoon) and I was a bit worried about the paper. Not that I didn't study; I studied the subject for a week.

But I was afraid that I forgot everything.

The paper turned out OK for me, in the end. Phew. I couldn't understand the Database question, but neither could the other 5 guys. While doing the question on the implementation of linked lists, I was worried that my answer was too long (a diagrammatic approach... about 3 sides). But in the end, their answers were about as long as mine too, so no worries!

One thing that bothered me (big time) was that halfway through the paper, it rained. Lots of thunder-

No, it's not the thunder that bothered me. It was Joel, who was bothered by the thunder, and kept on making "tsk tsk" sounds... to be precise, one "tsk" per roar of thunder.

It was his "tsk'ing" that bothered me.

Since we'll be having GP Papers 1 and 2 on the next day, I brought some past year essay reports... and my radio. Heh. Got to relax a bit during GP revision, I thought.

I listened to YES 933 FM (like, duh!) and I found Peifen (one of the DJs) to have a very nice voice.

DAY 4

By~ the~ way~

The whole GP subject was there for the quick kill. Which started in the morning.

Paper 1 was the essay paper... which got me muttering "God save me" after the whole bloody thing.

Why did I make that silly mistake? I concluded from experiences this year that philosophical essays were no longer suitable for me... and yet the first question I attempted was...

"There is no such thing as luck. People determine their own lives. Do you agree?"

Oh yes, I started on this question only after thinking for about 30 minutes.

Then, after some time trying to write an introduction with a stand that somehow could not even convince myself, I realized I could not write beyond my first paragraph (after the intro).

And I had only half an hour left. I was in a state of emergency at that time... I was clutching at my pants... I almost had a seizure, if you ask me.

So, at that point when I had 20 minutes dangling before me, beckoning me to make the fullest use of it, I decided on that question on hosting sports events.

I managed to do a complete essay, with Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

Huh?

That means if I decided on that question from the start, I could have an essay with not only ideas, but well developed ideas.

Ah... that's just me. I was thankful enough that I actually could complete an essay in 20 minutes.

Click here to view a scan of my attempt at the "Luck" essay.

For Comprehension, I decided to allocate 40 minutes to the questions, 30 minutes to the Summary part and 20 minutes to the Application Question. I could barely keep to the time slots (in fact I was surprised that I took more than 40 minutes for the questions part!) and could complete an answer for my Appilcation Question with a conclusion (that is, if they'll take my answer for the last section of the question as my conclusion).

The passage used in this comprehension (yes, there's only one passage this time instead of the usual 2) had some parts which I couldn't accept. Well, this passage was on Aggression and it sort of glorifies the whole thing about human conflicts and wars. For example...

It quotes an actor, Orson Welles, who said...

---

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed- they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The Cuckoo clock."

---

I mean... so? My belief was that the drive for invention can be motivated by other factors besides war. Like, why did Edison invent the light bulb?

Also, there's this...

---

...without conflict, how would the heroic virtues be exercised? Is there no merit in the bravery which meets death without flinching for a good cause or on behalf of others? Or in the compassion for a fellow human being which finds expression on the battlefield and in bombed cities?

---

So??

Yes, war is a time for showing bravery, but on the other hand, what about the ugly side of human nature, like thirst for power, that gave rise to war in the first place? Some brave dude looking death in the face will be coupled by the evil dude who is administering death on the other side. And how good is "showing compassion" for, say, a child on the battlefield, right after bombing his house and killing his family?

I included that last part about the child in my answer for the Application Question.

After that bloody vocabulary battle, I had lunch with Joel and Ming Hwee before going off to buy Volume 16 of the Pokemon Adventures manga and returning to College to accompany Ming Hwee who was mugging at the library.

After sleeping, reading manga and mugging a bit of Physics, we went down and met Wenyuan (one of our IT Club alumni) who gave us some survival tips for NS.

Spook-e-mon

Oh... I took some photos during my mugging times at home... photos of... erm... my Pokemon figurines.

Remember the picture of the cute Spheal I posted? I bought a figurine of it recently!

My translucent Gengar figure... heh heh.

Got scolded by Mom for surfing the Net at College yesterday (instead of doing Chem MCQ practices) so I won't spend time here for long...

I'll just go to CS lab to use the computer to listen to songs... heh.

2 years in 2 (plus) weeks: An A level special (Part 1)

The A levels.

Yeah.

We toiled and strived for, like, 2 years (3 years for some) just for this magical moment... the A levels!

Everything we studied for 2 years... they're going to be used for just this one thing that matters...

Yeah.

Felt like crying when I typed my last sentence... my Physics!!! Oh my Physics!!! I still lost to time!!!

*Pours dust on head*

Now for the whole of my A levels period...

DAY 1

Maths. Paper 1.

OK... that paper wasn't in the morning... so I had time to study a bit of Maths stuff (like past year papers) while my friends were having their Biology paper (heh).

I ended up sleeping for an hour. Never mind... sleeping then was better than feeling sleepy during the paper.

After the Bio paper, Edwin came to mug with me... lunch followed, and we went to the food centre (I was eating Yong Tau Foo for the umpteenth time). I decided to bring my Maths notes along to do some study.

So we ordered our meals and ate... I was enjoying my Yong Tau Foo soup as usual when I turned to look at my notes... I saw some bits of strange stuff that looked like bird droppings.

Ugh.

But then again, it didn't look like bird droppings after all... and there're no birds up there...

Hmm?

Anyway, I decided that it's some dirty stuff and I have to do something to... erm, protect myself from it.

First thing I went back to College? I sealed that mark made by that dirty stuff with my cellophane tape.

I'll never bring my notes out to lunch again!

But I digress.

Maths Paper 1 was OK for me... I did study! So, I did everything and, well, I sort of ran out of time (again?) and didn't finish my Vector (my favourite topic) question. I also didn't have time to touch the 3-D trigonometry question.

Oh and I got stupid and couldn't come up with the way to solve a relatively easy question.

30 marks slipped out between my fingers.

"You call that OK?!"

NEXT!

DAY 2

I thought I was going to miss Nasi Lemak.

But I knew I was going to miss some marks if I didn't do some last minute refreshments for Food Chem.

Yes... Chem Paper 3, the essay paper and (if that's not enough) the one with Options Topic in it.

Food Chem for me, then.

Food Chem was a whole lot of dry stuff that I had to memorise... except for the chemical structures fo sugars and the structures of proteins-

"Hey... you actually think that's "not dry"?"

Well, I like to try understanding the chemistry behind things, not just "things".

Anyway, so that day I just had some bread for breakfast... hotdog, as I remember.

The sacrifice of Nasi Lemak time wasn't enough for me to finish my Food Chem "refreshment"... but then again, that's life.

Never mind... I memorised them beforehand, of course... like Bortrytis Cinerea and Streptococcus Cremoris and other long names. They're some microbes.

We had a seating plan crisis on that day. People didn't remember their seat numbers correctly and the table they gave for the seating plan did not have numbers on it... we had to , like, manually count our seat number... and they said it's all our fault!

"Cool down... cool down."

Then they started writing numbers on the table only after the crisis went for, like, 10 minutes!

Phew.

The paper cheered me up. And that's saying much.

All in all, I was glad that I studied Inorganic Chem... the question was pure regurgitation.

Got OWNED by the deduction question, though. Deductive question with 2 NMR spectra inside. Out to kill me, wasn't it? But I think I could do it... it's just that I left it first to do my Food Chem questions... because time was running out.

In the end I only managed to stick my toe into that question by touching a bit on one of the NMR spectra.

One of the Food Chem questions was on Carbohydrates. I heaved a big sigh of relief because it was the topic which I spent a whole day trying to understand (remember what I said about sugar structures?).

Even the question on irradiation as a food processing method was essentially a data analysis question... and in the end they're just trying to ask you about rancidity of fatty acids and food poisoning. I didn't answer much about food poisoning though... I just said Clostridium Botulinum produces fatal toxins but Salmonella just causes non-fatal gastroentitris (the pro's term for stomach upset).

I got back my Maths paper (they put them out after the exams outside the library) because Joel found mine and gave it to me. Thanks Joel.

I was so relieved about the Chem paper that I actually didn't feel like doing anything on that day. I had the feeling that "everything" was over, you see...

Fat hope. I've got 2 major papers on the next day, including Maths Paper 2 and Computing Paper 1.

Studied Computing and I couldn't understand Quick Sort, but thank God, after coming out of the library (it's closed at 6 pm) with Ming Hwee, I saw Mr Chua (my Computing tutor) and clarified some doubts.

Broken Arrow

Oh.

So this is the Arrow game Wenrong wants me to continue.

I'm supposed to put down 5 special (read: wierd) attributes of myself and pass on the cue to 5 other people.

Here goes!

• I'm so used to sleeping without a pillow that I can't sleep with one.
• I'm still playing Pokemon.
• I wash my socks in the shower. Oh, do continue to read my blog after this stunning disclosure!
• I study in the coffee shop at the street opposite my College during my A levels period.
• I can't think of 5 people to pass this game on to. Hence the title of this post.

Maybe... Kaicheng?

Erm... Esmond? Jianyuan?

Dirty Friday

Hi.

Last Friday was Dirty Friday.

Kelvin asked me twice, during lunch, whether I've eaten shit before.

After lunch, we saw an old man peeing in the grass.

While buying dinner, I dropped my slice of papaya on the floor and to make things worse, it rolled under the tabletop (it's wrapped in plastic bag, fortunately). Thank God it didn't reach the black, shadowy and dusty region.

While eating my papaya later, I had to make sure not to touch the outer surface of my plastic bag.

Then, when I put aside my watch to have my meal, I accidentally put it on some highly viscous creamy liquid on the table which looked like spilled milk coffee which had been there for hours.

Dirty day, indeed.

OK. Thank you. Bye bye.

See, man!

See... this is Anglican High from the eyes of Google Earth...

Hao dang... sheng zhong... qi xiang xiong

Click to see TJC... the picture's too big to be put here.

Damn the clouds... they're covering my house... so I can't take a snapshot of my nice neighbourhood...

OK... finally...

OK Melvin, here's the method Joe taught me about Beta pleated sheets.

Parallel Beta Sheet

Anti-parallel Beta Sheet

Yesterday Joe called my house and told me to call him... I knew what it was about, of course. He is to meet me today to return my Food Chem summaries to me.

I just told Mum that I've got to "collect some Food Chem stuff" from Joe. Which was half-right.

I then told her the "stuff" was actually my "notes" (I was referring to my summaries)... she freaked out and lectured me for a long time (5 minutes of that was long enough!) about the dangers of lending notes to friends during this important season (yeah, right, when I was actually studying Computing these days and didn't need my Food Chem notes or summaries anyway...).

Then when I told her that I was referring to my summaries... she heaved a sigh of relief and said something like "as long as your notes are with you, it's fine. Summaries are not so important".

I felt so insulted. She never trusted my summaries and blamed my reliance on summarising my notes for my downfall (Prelims results, I mean) when I didn't have the time to study even my summaries before Prelims anyway...

I'll prove her wrong and go to mug now.

Why don't we go somewhere...?

Hmm... there's a certain exhibition which will be held in the Science Center... I think it will be like the Lord of the Rings Exhibition...

And this time it's about...

Heh... I'm thinking of inviting Wenrong (a fellow Star Wars fan), the Forums 04/05 moderators clique and some other friends to go with me...

After the A levels, of course... and Wenrong's O levels would have ended by then.

Yeah, provided I have extra money after saving for my Gameboy Advance...

... oh yes, and my Star Wars novels which will be in stores from November 22.

Still... a nice get-together will be nice, right?

Car owners

Hi there.

Been doing food chem (again?) this morning, and I'm not saying that I'm finished with it.

Been figuring out how to draw the Beta-pleated sheet (a protein structure) even after Joe gave me a very good method of doing it.

Still, thanks, Joe. Without your secret method, I would take an even longer time to figure out a way to remember how to draw the shitty sheet.

I know I've said this on my tagboard, but... you know, to make some official records...

I've seen the front view of a car that's been parked at the Bodynits building near Upper Changi Road that resembles the EK-9... One evening I saw the profile of the car more closely on the road and from then on, I was damn sure that it is an EK-9. A yellow one.

OK wait... have I blogged about this before, or did I just mention it on my tagboard?

See what I mean about wanting to keep official records now?

And I got wind from Melvin (that is if the tagger is not an impostor) that Ms Rita Wong drives a Honda Integra...

Yes... it's the Integra... the snow-white Integra parked near the General office, getting me mesmerized everytime I walk with my classmates from the parade square after morning assembly...

It's the Integra!

I'm here for a more noble purpose, though... I'm here to search for a better definition of "Tertiary Structure of Protein"... I find the definition given in my notes to be kind of short.

What the "Fruc"?!

OK... the Chem Mock MCQ papers are over... and I was especially overwhelmed by the 2nd paper...

I was generally relieved, though, that I improved because of the past one-week-plus period studying Inorganic Chem.

Now... I finally finished the Inorganic section and I'm venturing into Food Chem.

And the first chapter got me asking "WTF?!".

"F" for fructose.

I know that I can memorise all the dry stuff from the Carbohydrates chapter... but I don't want to memorise something without understanding the chemistry behind it... so here I am, looking for information on how the straight chains of the monosaccharides actually close up to form the rings.

And I think I found the right website for my stuff.

Got to go.

Class feast

Yesterday was the class dinner at Pastamania.

We met at Somerset MRT at 7 pm and set off for Cineleisure.

There was actually this College sweater designed by Aqil, one of the 04/05 batch Councillors, and it costs $25. It had a TEMASEK word printed on it.

Yong Chuan said he would buy the shirt if there's a "Holdings" below the word.

Anyway, Mrs Ang gave us a treat of about $15 for each person, so I could order stuff that were more expensive than usual (I could only eat the $4.90 Pomodoro pasta everytime I went there, you see...).

But I wouldn't feel so nice if I really ordered this $12.90 crayfish pasta... so I ordered Mussels and Clams Spaghetti in the end.

The clams were a bit bland (I think that's the way it's supposed to be) but the mussels were really delicious!

I was given a bowl along with the pasta (to put aside my empty shells, I suppose), and after finishing my meal, Joel even took a picture of the empty shells!

Talk about taking pictures...

We were there, creating a din (didn't matter much since we're at the end of the dining area) while taking photos in our last gathering (in our academic life, that is). There were really funny moments, like when I was supposed to take a picture for Maoxin and Alex, Maoxin was chewing on a piece of garlic bread and wearing a very funny expression... I laughed so hard that I almost dropped Alex's camera!

I just hope that some kind soul in the class will actually bother to send me the photos taken... I'm counting on Joel to send me his after the A levels.

Otherwise I have to go on Friendster to search for photos taken during gatherings again...

Mrs Ang told us in yet another pep talk, that we've got to study hard so that we will be laughing around when we come back to College next year for our results, instead of sulking while the rest are celebrating.

Well... worse case scenario: We can still laugh at each other.

Farewell

Today is the last official day for us Year Twos... so this morning we attended our very last morning assembly.

Since it's a Tuesday today (quite a strange day for a "last day", to be honest), we did not sing our College Anthem, and I was wondering whether they would make it an exception and let us sing it for the last time today...

No. It was kelua baris straight after the announcements.

Then it was a talk on exam ettiquettes... after which our "once-a-displine-master-always-a-discipline-master" Mr Tong gave his "last announcement to us", and many of the Year Twos (who brought cameras anyway) took photos of him, prompting him to wonder if they're going to use those photos for playing darts at home.

Sigh... today is the last time our class will have Civics with Mrs Ang.

"...hey don't take my photo... must pay money OK?..."

"How much?"

She gave us our result slips (mine was a bit unsightly... DEED, you know...) and her usual you-can-do-it pep talk...

And yes, she will be treating us to a meal at Pastamania tonight... and I think 10/04 can visit her new house for house warming after the A levels.

We even took photos after Civics...

Erm... you're asking... who is Mrs Ang?

Mrs Ang... our Chem tutor! Mrs Ang May Ee, whom I blog about quite often... don't you remember?

Yes, I guess you can recall by now...

Oh, why not just refer to her as Ms Fong?

She'll be Mrs Ang soon anyway... pity that her wedding is on the 2nd day (or is it 1st day?) of our A levels...

Farewell concert at 9:30 am... was quite a blast.

We had performances from Concert Band (the song was much more meaningful to us who took the Maths Mock Test)... the Modern Dance Club... recitation of Ms Kwan and our Drama Mama Mr Rajesh (both of whom are GP tutors)... a rendition of Tong Hua by Mr Chung (another GP tutor)...

... and a skit about what our GP tutors would venture into should they quit their jobs... it was the only time I saw Mr Tong dressing untidily, and Mr Hunter (who is already very entertaining) dressing as Big Bird of Sesame Street!

A sharing session (which dragged longer then any other item)... and they kept forgetting to thank the GP tutors...

A medley of songs by the Science Department (essentially the Chemistry Department plus Bio-tutor Ms Ng) and the Maths Department... with modified lyrics for our encouragement.

And a "Life is Statistics" poem by an F-maths tutor. There were some really funny lines like "Your Proportion of Success is never constant" and something like "Venture into the Critical Region".

Oh... amd the singing of the College Anthem was actually the last part of the Farewell Concert!

Had fun... and will have more fun tonight.

My only fear...

... is that when we rendezvous at Somerset MRT at 7 pm, they all will talk and walk slowly to Pastamania Cineleisure, and the dinner will only start at about 8 pm.

And I have to leave that place by 9 pm. Ask my Mum why.

Why do I keep leaving things out these days?

Why?

Why did I leave out the highly interesting Chemistry lecture when Ms Wong was telling us about transition metal complexes... she mentioned the "free" ions with such zest...

"...that ions are free, FREE!!"

...that she reminded us of some democratic firebrand giving an inspiring speech about freedom...

Why?

And why did I not mention the cool pen that Joel had... an Osim product... it had a battery-operated vibrating end which can be used for massages...

...and when you press it against the back of your head... you get the feeling of euphoria... Ooh...

Why?

Never mind. You heard it now.

Anyway, today I studied... Chem.

Only.

The topic of Periodic table studies... Period 3. Oxides and chlorides.

After which I passed by the Robotics Club booth (it's Open House, remember?) and helped him out with moving some stuff... and got seen by Mrs Leong, who thought we'd been helping out throughout the entire Open House...

Never mind... it was a great exercise.

And yes, Mrs Leong did realize that I only handed in Paper 2 of the Mock Exam...

Just finished my shower... feeling good all over again.

More Chem, please.

And here's a cute Pokemon for you.

Spheal, the "spherical seal".

Earphones and Ice cubes

Today was Melvin's birthday and I actually accompanied Ming Hwee and Jigang to Popular Bookstore to shop for a book as a gift for Melvin earlier in the week (I didn't blog about it since it was to be kept secret).

SInce Melvin is quite an avid reader and he's reading "Angels and Demons" right now, we bought him "Secrets of Anghels and Demons". I supposed Ankur was in charge of wrapping it up.

To my surprise, Joel had something for Melvin too... Taufik's "Blessings" album!

And I too have my fair share of gifts this year. Yang Chenglin's album aside, I got a pair of earphones from Joel as a belated birthday gift.

Just the thing for my Gameboy Advance which I'll pick up after the A levels.

Which reminds me... I don't think I'll be going for Grad Night after all... Jigang and Ming Hwee are already in the 08/04 table and only Joel and I are the only ITC members left who can form an ITC table...

Heh... a table of 2, huh?

Nah... guess I'll just keep my savings and buy my Pokemon Emerald game pak soon!

With my new earphones, I can now listen to stuff even in the computer lab... so I got the famous Russel Peters' video from Mr Chua (he had it in his laptop).

It was basically what Maoxin had been telling me for months... about !xobile (don't try pronouncing it if you don't know how to), about "somebody's gonna get hurt real bad" and about "Anthony".

But what he didn't tell me was the mixed races part, about how you mix French and Greek to get Freaks, how you mix 2 people from Iceland and Cuba to get Ice-cubes, and many more crazy mixed-race names.

And as I blog, I can hear what the band was playing yesterday during our Maths Mock Exam.

It's the TJC Open House! It's when all the Year Ones who have just gone through one of the worst ordeals in the JC life (the Promos) go around painting a vibrant and lively and vivacious and whatever-you-might-call-it TJC community!

Minus the Year Twos who are stressed about the impending A levels.

Yeah, we don't see Year Twos sulking around during Open Houses.

It's called reality, my friend. At least it's not so bad in TJC.

Still, College life is not all play and no work.

Will get to work now.

HB2M

Heh.

Yes... today is my birthday... alright?

I was surprised that many people wished me happy birthday, because I didn't make it a big thing... and I am not very good at remembering other peoples' birthdays, so... I don't really deserve so much for my own birthday.

Still, I got a gift from Kelvin and guys. Yang Chenglin's album.

Hmm... I hadn't listened to mandopop these days... but well, since they got me this CD, I'll give it a try.

The year Ones didn't seem to want to hide the fact that their Promos were over.

Halfway through the Maths Mock Exam Paper 2 today, the Band was suddenly playing songs ranging from "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" to "Star Wars" outside the Lecture theater. How did I know? We all could hear it claerly even in the theater, trying to concentrate on our Maths Paper!

I know I shouldn't blame the band for my undesirable performance for that paper (yes, AGAIN!) but still, I lost some of my concentration because of the music.

And I didn't particularly like their rendition of Dancing Queen.

2 fat months

I just recieved my NS enlistment letter last night.

I was to report on 20 Jan next year... so that means 2 months for me to erm... unwind.

Yeah.

Today Mrs Lim shared with us some of the stuff that the Grad Night organisers plan to do. One of them is to do away with the "rule" for formal dress code.

I don't know whether they got me convinced... IT Club people are thinking of forming a table...

OWNAGE 9233

Got OWNED by the Maths Mock Exam paper 1.

Who to blame? I was doing my Inorganic Chem revision yesterday(which cheered me up a bit) but totally forgot about this Mock Exam.

As I was a "volunteer" candidate (not compulsory but just there to be extra), I didn't hand in my script in the end.

Didn't want to give Mrs Leong the shock of her life.

Mock Paper 2 comes 2 days later. Mrs Leong wants to see our Specimen Paper 2 tomorrow.

Right timing... can do homework and practise at the same time.

Like knocking out 2 Pidgeots with one Rock Slide attack.

On DG, Deduct-a-thon, plastic bags and the largest Pokemon yet

Last Friday morning Joel Long stopped by and we talked about some stuff... and he sort of thanked me for being one of the first seniors who made friends with him... heh, it warmed my heart quite a lot.

Discipleship Group session for that day was supposed to be just a discussion... because Freida (our co-ordinator) couldn't turn up... Xiaoyun was to be the facillitator and she did quite a good job (you'll know why if you know her).

Anyway, they decided to go to Plaza Singapura for that session (much to the discomfort of Jiansheng and I, who wanted a nearer place... heh heh) but it turned out fine. They had lunch at PS... I had my lunch before joining them and I suppose Jiansheng had his lunch too, so we stayed at a spot and helped the others look after their bags. We talked about lots of stuff, including Pokemon.

That spot was a comfortable spot, but Jiansheng said that it wasn't suitable for DG session because...

The "temptation of money" on the left, and the temptation of lust (FHM covers...) on the right. Heh.

At one instance Jonathan saw me looking intently on the right poster and said "I hope you're looking at the right thing".

Don't worry, Jon, I was looking at the cover of the Pokemon issue of Kids' Company.

Oh we had DG in the foodcourt in the end.

This weekend I was supposed to do an Organic Chem deductive questions marathon... questions from 5 JCs, and only ONE question from each JC.

And each JC chem Prelim paper costs about 1 dollar! Burned my pocket big time, I tell you!

I had fun doing them, though. Surprisingly, RJC's deductive question was the easiest! I couldn't even start doing its VJC counterpart.

Those who know me well will know my habit of using plastic bags (those rectangular ones, of course) as folders... and while looking for such plastic bags in my collection (erm... yes, I have a whole lot of plastic bags), I found a surprisingly large number of bags suitable for folder use.

My Collection!

The amount of plastic bags I've got, relative to the size of my pencil case

My rectangular plastic bags which can double as folders. Save money!

Another Pokemon in the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald version which got me interested is the Wailmer-Wailord family.

Wailmer... oh-so-cute!

Wailord (evolves from Walimer at level 40)
Length: 14.5 metres
Mass: 398 kg

Will be having a whale of a time with my Inorganic Chem notes soon!

A Skuruu Appu, in-DEED!

I got to know my grades for Prelims already.

DEED. For Maths, Computing, Chem and Physics respectively.

My AO Japanese Oral exam yesterday turned out quite erm... you can see from the title that it was quite a screw-up... I could memorise my script (I was to do a presentation of a topic of my choice) which was entitled "The Computer and I". The presentation was about how the computer changed my life and I talked about being a College Forums Moderator and studying Computing as an A level subject.

One of the teachers asked me more about my job as a moderator, but I sort of made a mistake in one of my answers (I used a wrong word) and because of that, the next question she asked was totally out of context of what I thought I gave for the answer to my previous question!

The other teacher asked me about Computing... and when she asked me about the mistakes I tend to make when I just started doing this course, I meant to say that I missed out certain important characters in my source code, but I sort of forgot what to say in Japanese for "characters", so in the end I just said "Kyarakutaa" (yes, Japanese is that convenient!)... it was only after the oral when I realized that I should have just said "ji" for "character".

After the Oral Exam I went to the McDonalds outlet at Bishan Interchange to do my Physics and realised that it's quite a nice place to mug.

Oh, and in the Food Junction outlet at Junction 8, there are some spots that are very secluded, I almost wanted to call it a potential mugging paradise... but then again, I thought I would get claustrophobia if I sat there for more than 4 hours.

Nightmare of the Lizard-lover

Yesterday I was too busy to blog. Trying out "something new".

Heh.

Anyway, I heard from Junqun that he's going to be enlisted one week after his A levels... and he's not the only one.

Sigh... maybe it's my turn next... to be given only a week of enjoyment...

Take it easy, man!

When I was buying a cake from the snack stall using my $10 note, the stallholder said that she had no choice but to give me $9.50 in nine $1 coins plus one 50-cent coin because people usually give a lot of big notes on Mondays, causing them to use up the $2 and $5 notes pretty quickly.

Haha... nine $1 coins in my oh-so-heavy wallet... I felt so rich, man!

"Something new" in my 1st paragraph (if you can call it a paragraph...) refers to the Pokemon Emerald (sorry Kelvin) Rom I downloaded to try out before I actually buy the game...

OK I know what you're about to say, so to clarify things, I've deleted the Rom today already, and I'll only be getting the real thing after the A levels. Duh!

But I'm still rambling about yesterday, so...

OK after a few tries and some search over the net, I think I would be using the Grass-type starter, the Treecko (something like Gecko from the Tree). I've never used Grass-type starters before, mind you.

Treecko

However, in Red/Blue or Gold/Silver, there is always one lizard-like Pokemon among the 3 starters, and my favourites were always the lizards (Charmander from Red/Blue and Totodile from Gold/Silver). Guess it's no exception now.

Also, if you remember my Chinese New Year post (bet you don't), I talked about Kecleon (a chameleon-like Pokemon) catching my eye.

Kecleon. The chameleon.

But please don't give me a house lizard for my birthday, for goodness' sake!

Even though I would be a bit sad that there're only few of those "old" Pokemon in Emerald, the new ones turned out to be pretty cool as well, like Wingull, which can be caught in the first few stages of the game and learns Wing Attack at (get this) level 13! It evolves into Pelipper, some kind of a pelican-like Pokemon.

Pelipper. Cute.

Last night I had this nightmare, though. About having to fight some villain in a tall lighthouse. The main thing that scared me so much happened when I was looking out the "window" at the "beach"...

It was a dark night. I saw large, fat, black birds (about 10 of them) flying low around the shore, churning up waves. Their slihouette was scarily lit by a distant lighthouse (which turned out to be the kind of super bright lamp-post you see at stadiums).

OK you might think that's not scary. That's because I wasn't very good at describing it. It just freaked me out; I didn't know why.

Today was a lecture day... erm... yeah.

I had some kind of diarrhea this morning (not again?!) but I think it got better now.

Japanese Oral tomorrow.

Saikin, mettani nihongou de kaiwa shinai node, chotto shinpai shite imasu ne...