http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
^
Read me first of all! Although I've opened up access to this blog, and some of that post is no longer applicable, the rest of it is still important. If you don't like my blog or disagree with my portrayal of events, take it up with me civilly and personally, don't go running to authority figures.
http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
After the disastrous failure last year, I more or less abandoned the idea of keeping my blog alive. However, I recently attended a talk by Neil Humphrey (columnist for the straits times and author of several books) in which he exhorted us to write, and it inspired me to pick up where I left off.
Anyway. Today was the final round of the SSEF, the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair, and my school forced the Year 4s, 5s, and 6s to attend. We were sent to the Science center annexe (where the exhibition halls are) to walk around the SSEF finalists' posters and learn. I had a very low opinion of the (non-NUSH) SSEF participants, as I was given to understand that they were uncreative labtech wannabes; basically doing legwork while their mentors provided all the creative input. However, I must say I was most surprised at the quality of the work and the understanding the students had of their projects. Of course there were the occasional failures - projects that had no theoretical basis, few experimental results, inadequately justified conclusion, and the like, but on the whole the physics and math projects were beyond my level of understanding. Really helped me reaffirm my faith in the project competitions of today. I guess the SSEF really is one of the best project competitions.
Anyway, I eventually got swept up into a group of students touring the math posters, and didn't manage to extricate myself before 5. By then I'd realized I'd be hopelessly late for my piano lesson (thursday 7 p.m), so I called the relevant parties to postpone it.
After that, the rest of my class decided to go on a class outing, so I just got kinda swept along to Jurong Point. As half my class are hostelites, they had to first get permission from a certain hostel mistress to miss a certain compulsory hostel activity. Once they got her consent, we happily trooped off the the golden village theater in Jurong Point and got ourselves 20 tickets to see Rango (animated flick featuring the voice talents of Johnny Depp). Then we went to Banquet for dinner. When we left Banquet, however, disaster struck. The aforementioned hostel mistress called up a representative hostelite and demanded that they return for the hostel activity, as we lacked adult supervision. Now, you'd think that something as crucial (to her) as that would have merited at least a passing mention in the first call, but noo. After much debate, we eventually decided that the hostelites would change their tickets to those of the Saturday screening. A real inconvenience for everyone, but c'est la vie.
Anyway, Rango wasn't bad, but nothing to write home about.
Oh! By the way. My A-Level math results came back! All As, and all above 90 (except statistics, which got 89). Pity, though, as I expected full marks for everything (except statistics). For those who don't know, I took C1, C2, C3, C4, M1, S1, and FP1 at edexcel in January, so now I"m the proud holder of 2 A-level Math certificates, university application, for the use of. Actually, between these and my 2190/2400 SATs, I'm pretty much ready to go for Uni, if I had the balls to apply (and I don't). Honestly, waiting 2 more years (+ NS, 4 more years) would only get me an extra HS diploma (and fingers crossed, AIME high distinction?) and would take the shine off my current certificates.
Also, short-term-consequences: gonna have to bargain harder with my parents to get a new MacBookPro. After all, if I'd gotten 100/100 in everything (and I wasn't too far off, only mechanics, C3, and S1 were below 95) my parents would have been only too happy to get me a shiny new MBP. Oh well. Que Sera Sera.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
June Holiday!!
This blog has been dormant since the horrible Mercy Relief narcissism/paranoia incident, more because of psychological trauma dealt to me than any real fear of future discovery. However, after I friendslocked this blog and after the wonderfully therapeutic June Hols, the wounds on my soul have scabbed over enough for me to resume picking at them. Besides this, a good friend of mine also expressed interest in this blog, and since I told her that I would resume in Term 3, well, here I am.
The June holidays were a splendid time for me. Firstly, I took the SMO Senior and Open sections, and found them fun. Unfortunately, my spirits were dampened by the fact that so many other people had answered more questions than me in the Senior 1st round ( I only answered 17, and probably got 16 right ). Naturally, my everpresent self-confidence caused my spirits to swiftly rebound, which was just as well, really, since just 5 days after the SMO, I was to suffer an ordeal of epic proportions.
DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN
A 27 hour plane flight! In economy class! On united airways ( which has no individual tvs )!
Well, no, not 27 hours all at once. First we flew to Hong Kong (7-8hrs), then to Chicago (12-13hrs), then finally to Boston (2~hrs). Whats that I hear you cry? 8 + 13 + 2 = 23, not 27? Well, of course I had to wait during transit. Speaking of waiting, Chicago's O'Hare airport really made us wait. We would've missed the next flight waiting in the immigrations line had there not been a crazy freak tailwind of 160km/h (like one sixth of the plane's supposed cruising speed) that shaved like 2 hours off our HK Chicago flight.
Well, when we landed in Boston, my family and I had a great surprise. The weather there was just like Singapore, albeit with slightly colder air. The familiar sun, the familiar humidity, the familiar friendliness of the locals... No, wait, sorry. Bostonians are far friendlier than Singaporeans.
Wait, I better back up a bit. My family was in the US of A in order to:
1. Visit several top US Universities (In chronological order, Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Caltech.)
2. Visit relatives we haven't seen in 8 years.
Well, in and around Boston and Cambridge we saw Harvard, MIT, and BU.
To be continued on thursday~~~~~~~~~
The June holidays were a splendid time for me. Firstly, I took the SMO Senior and Open sections, and found them fun. Unfortunately, my spirits were dampened by the fact that so many other people had answered more questions than me in the Senior 1st round ( I only answered 17, and probably got 16 right ). Naturally, my everpresent self-confidence caused my spirits to swiftly rebound, which was just as well, really, since just 5 days after the SMO, I was to suffer an ordeal of epic proportions.
DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN
A 27 hour plane flight! In economy class! On united airways ( which has no individual tvs )!
Well, no, not 27 hours all at once. First we flew to Hong Kong (7-8hrs), then to Chicago (12-13hrs), then finally to Boston (2~hrs). Whats that I hear you cry? 8 + 13 + 2 = 23, not 27? Well, of course I had to wait during transit. Speaking of waiting, Chicago's O'Hare airport really made us wait. We would've missed the next flight waiting in the immigrations line had there not been a crazy freak tailwind of 160km/h (like one sixth of the plane's supposed cruising speed) that shaved like 2 hours off our HK Chicago flight.
Well, when we landed in Boston, my family and I had a great surprise. The weather there was just like Singapore, albeit with slightly colder air. The familiar sun, the familiar humidity, the familiar friendliness of the locals... No, wait, sorry. Bostonians are far friendlier than Singaporeans.
Wait, I better back up a bit. My family was in the US of A in order to:
1. Visit several top US Universities (In chronological order, Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Caltech.)
2. Visit relatives we haven't seen in 8 years.
Well, in and around Boston and Cambridge we saw Harvard, MIT, and BU.
To be continued on thursday~~~~~~~~~
Thursday, May 20, 2010
19/5/2010 Post Exam Activities Day 3
Please read this post before perusal of this blog.
http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
Today's post exam activity was awesome. We had a debating workshop organised by Lorna Whiston Study center ( an English language tuition center that I used to frequent when I was younger ), and it was the best Post exam activity yet. Our teacher was "Mr Nick", a UK national and a Singaporean PR who had been in Singapore for 10 years.
He spoke about how powerful debating was as a tool in daily life, and told us how to leave a lasting impression on people. Unfortunately, as I'm penning these words on thursday night as I was in no mood to think from Wednesday after school till now ( an event that happened that day triggered my Disclaimer post which you should have read by now ), my memory has grown somewhat hazy. I do recall that in the last activity, I was complimented as being the best speaker out of a group of 6. Unfortunately, my group lost in the full scale debating exercise ( the last event ) because of sheer bad luck; my team members were Qiu Jing and Zi Jian, and though they had fully valid points and splendid reasoning, they were not so used to public speaking in English. The opposing team was MINGwei, Arif, and Yong Jen; English was their 1st language. Oh well.
As I was finishing the above paragraph, my mother interrupted me and asked me why I was blogging. More or less word for word:
"You know, lots of people have gotten into trouble for writing down things in anger and gotten distant from their parents."
Me: " What makes you think I'm angry? "
From there I dunno how it escalated, but I remember I wasn't very angry.
Me: " You know, I was just writing down a few thing perfectly neutrally, but now that you're scolding me about this, I'm actually getting angry. " (I felt quite wronged)
From here on I don't quite recall what she was saying, but I know I didn't say a word more than that.
She: " Okay, I try to tell you constructive advice and you get angry! I'm not talking to you for the rest of the month! I won't give you anything!"
I was still blogging and ignoring her, since I had to finish the "debate" paragraph.
Then my father asked ( from his room ) what was going on, and my mother said ( intending me to hear, I guess )
She: " You know Sean got into trouble for ( mercy relief stuff which is quite long ). So I tell him not to blog and he FLARES up at me and says he's angry! I can be angry too! NOTHING to him for the rest of the month unless he APOLOGIZES, and maybe I won't accept it!"
I'm still here blogging, so you know I'm still alive. She retreated to her room right after that, and turned off all the lights, including the ones that allow me to sit here and type to you. Of course, I turned them back on after she left.
You know, women are so irrational and emotional sometimes. She got so worked up. I just feel somewhat frightened.
Maybe I shouldn't have talked back to her ( I normally don't; Ian does ) but I'd already come to terms with the Mercy Relief stuff , and when she started talking as if I'm some sort of idiot who can't learn from mistakes, I felt quite affronted and wronged. Well, now I know what it's like to be wronged.
Ok, through the reflection I did in this post, I decided to go and apologize. My father began to scold me based on the impression my mother gave him, and when I explained, he understood, and said " Oh. " and dropped it. My father rocks, as the people in my physics projectile project team know. Then when I tried talking to my mother, she told me to get out. *Sigh*
And so I'm back here, typing this. Once again, I beseech anyone not given permission by me to read this, who is reading this, to read my Disclaimer post
http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
Oh crap. I've left the title so far behind. Sorry, and don't mark me down on content!
EDIT: Oh, it was PMS! Turns out today is the day of the waxing cresent, and I'm not sure what that means, but it has to be that. Mood swings, and all.
http://kalender-365.de/lunar-calendar.php
http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
Today's post exam activity was awesome. We had a debating workshop organised by Lorna Whiston Study center ( an English language tuition center that I used to frequent when I was younger ), and it was the best Post exam activity yet. Our teacher was "Mr Nick", a UK national and a Singaporean PR who had been in Singapore for 10 years.
He spoke about how powerful debating was as a tool in daily life, and told us how to leave a lasting impression on people. Unfortunately, as I'm penning these words on thursday night as I was in no mood to think from Wednesday after school till now ( an event that happened that day triggered my Disclaimer post which you should have read by now ), my memory has grown somewhat hazy. I do recall that in the last activity, I was complimented as being the best speaker out of a group of 6. Unfortunately, my group lost in the full scale debating exercise ( the last event ) because of sheer bad luck; my team members were Qiu Jing and Zi Jian, and though they had fully valid points and splendid reasoning, they were not so used to public speaking in English. The opposing team was MINGwei, Arif, and Yong Jen; English was their 1st language. Oh well.
As I was finishing the above paragraph, my mother interrupted me and asked me why I was blogging. More or less word for word:
"You know, lots of people have gotten into trouble for writing down things in anger and gotten distant from their parents."
Me: " What makes you think I'm angry? "
From there I dunno how it escalated, but I remember I wasn't very angry.
Me: " You know, I was just writing down a few thing perfectly neutrally, but now that you're scolding me about this, I'm actually getting angry. " (I felt quite wronged)
From here on I don't quite recall what she was saying, but I know I didn't say a word more than that.
She: " Okay, I try to tell you constructive advice and you get angry! I'm not talking to you for the rest of the month! I won't give you anything!"
I was still blogging and ignoring her, since I had to finish the "debate" paragraph.
Then my father asked ( from his room ) what was going on, and my mother said ( intending me to hear, I guess )
She: " You know Sean got into trouble for ( mercy relief stuff which is quite long ). So I tell him not to blog and he FLARES up at me and says he's angry! I can be angry too! NOTHING to him for the rest of the month unless he APOLOGIZES, and maybe I won't accept it!"
I'm still here blogging, so you know I'm still alive. She retreated to her room right after that, and turned off all the lights, including the ones that allow me to sit here and type to you. Of course, I turned them back on after she left.
You know, women are so irrational and emotional sometimes. She got so worked up. I just feel somewhat frightened.
Maybe I shouldn't have talked back to her ( I normally don't; Ian does ) but I'd already come to terms with the Mercy Relief stuff , and when she started talking as if I'm some sort of idiot who can't learn from mistakes, I felt quite affronted and wronged. Well, now I know what it's like to be wronged.
Ok, through the reflection I did in this post, I decided to go and apologize. My father began to scold me based on the impression my mother gave him, and when I explained, he understood, and said " Oh. " and dropped it. My father rocks, as the people in my physics projectile project team know. Then when I tried talking to my mother, she told me to get out. *Sigh*
And so I'm back here, typing this. Once again, I beseech anyone not given permission by me to read this, who is reading this, to read my Disclaimer post
http://mo810122naes.blogspot.com/2010/05/disclaimer-post.html
Oh crap. I've left the title so far behind. Sorry, and don't mark me down on content!
EDIT: Oh, it was PMS! Turns out today is the day of the waxing cresent, and I'm not sure what that means, but it has to be that. Mood swings, and all.
http://kalender-365.de/lunar-calendar.php
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Disclaimer Post
To anyone who can see this, I formally retract my invitation to come see this blog, as that was not my intention. My intention was to give you permission to come see this blog, as I consider the people I invited friends, and I believe they would feel slighted at being denied entry. Permission unequals encouragement.
Also, I believe that this blog may be perceived as somewhat inflammatory or rude to some organisations. If any representative of any organisation that has been involved with the student body of NUSHS somehow accesses a computer belonging to one of my friends, and you are reading this post, do not continue doing so, as you may feel insulted at the material of my blog posts. My blog posts cannot possibly have any negative effect on your organisation other than the emotional distress you encounter by reading them. Therefore, I encourage you not to read them.
Next, to anyone who can read this with my permission. Please do not get me into trouble. Really. If you find a post funny and want to share it with your friends, do so, by all means, but first copy it into a word document and change any and all names I mention. I consider all of you friends, and wouldn't get any of you into unnecessary trouble, so please extend the same consideration towards me.
Thirdly, I will continue to write blog posts whatever way I wish to write them. This is because this blog has become equivalent to a journal that I bring to school and show to friends now and then. It has no effect as a tool of propaganda, or some sort of dirty linen shaming the school.
Lastly, if somehow an authority figure has discovered this blog and read this far, before you call the discipline master or my mentor : What exactly am I doing wrong? Rather, it is you who refused to let the matter rest and invested at least 10 minutes somehow breaking blogger.com's security, hacking one of my friend's email accounts, or investigating someone's unattended computer. I'd consider any of the ways you could have access to this blog remarkably underhand and despicable. As I hold many teachers in NUSHS in high regard, please don't make me begin to think of you as a despicable, underhand secret policeman.
Also, I believe that this blog may be perceived as somewhat inflammatory or rude to some organisations. If any representative of any organisation that has been involved with the student body of NUSHS somehow accesses a computer belonging to one of my friends, and you are reading this post, do not continue doing so, as you may feel insulted at the material of my blog posts. My blog posts cannot possibly have any negative effect on your organisation other than the emotional distress you encounter by reading them. Therefore, I encourage you not to read them.
Next, to anyone who can read this with my permission. Please do not get me into trouble. Really. If you find a post funny and want to share it with your friends, do so, by all means, but first copy it into a word document and change any and all names I mention. I consider all of you friends, and wouldn't get any of you into unnecessary trouble, so please extend the same consideration towards me.
Thirdly, I will continue to write blog posts whatever way I wish to write them. This is because this blog has become equivalent to a journal that I bring to school and show to friends now and then. It has no effect as a tool of propaganda, or some sort of dirty linen shaming the school.
Lastly, if somehow an authority figure has discovered this blog and read this far, before you call the discipline master or my mentor : What exactly am I doing wrong? Rather, it is you who refused to let the matter rest and invested at least 10 minutes somehow breaking blogger.com's security, hacking one of my friend's email accounts, or investigating someone's unattended computer. I'd consider any of the ways you could have access to this blog remarkably underhand and despicable. As I hold many teachers in NUSHS in high regard, please don't make me begin to think of you as a despicable, underhand secret policeman.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
18/5/2010 Post Exam Activities Day 2
Today was the day of the field trip. Since I'd lost my copy of the post exam activity form, I actually had no idea that there was a field trip scheduled for today until I asked a classmate. Well, no harm done.
We left the school around 8.30 a.m., after loitering around in the concourse for about 45 minutes. 303, 304, 306 ( my class ) and 308 were going to the Bedok NEWater treatment facility, while 301, 302, 305 and 307 were going to the Asian Civilizations Museum. I'd have preferred the ACM to the NEWater any day.....
On the bus, 306 was packed together with 308. I sat with MINGwei and played chess for about half an hour, then dosed for 15 minutes. When we finally arrived at the NEWater treatment facility, I was quite unimpressed. It's a squat, blocky white building with 2 wings and 2 large (water?) storage tanks to one side. At the front entrance, there is a colossal pool about 3/4 of a meter deep. It had fountains and stuff, but it wasn't very impressive, nonetheless.
When we were inside the facility, it was as boring as school. Ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, UV light - the way NEWater was treated was familiar to almost all of us. One strange thing is that our tour group was somehow absorbed into a small class of similarly touring nursery school students. The tour guide elicited more than a few murmurings of " pedo " over the course of the trip, as he was constantly asking the little children to " come nearer! ". I remember we treated him quite disrespectfully; at the reverse osmosis booth, when he asked if a truck was larger or smaller than a tennis ball ( viruses to the holes in the reverse osmosis membranes ), every secondary school student declared that trucks were smaller. Oh, one very interesting thing happened at the ultrafiltration booth. The tour guide showed us a video of water molecules being taken up into these " vessel elements ", and bacteria the size of 2 or 3 water molecules being deflected away. Imagine that! At a scale where hydrogen looks like a ping pong ball, these bacteria seemed like basketballs with flagella. Also, water was consistently represented as water molecules suspended in a blue liquid. Hmmm, I wonder what that liquid was........
After the tour, I bought a very passable curry puff for a dollar from a little stall located strategically outside the tour exit.
After that, it was time to return to school. Since it was only 10.30, and I'd been informed that the tour would end at 1, I was more than a little surprised. Oh well. We boarded the bus and reached NUSH at 11.15, where we were informed by Mr Ho that we would have to report to our mentor classrooms for some mentoring at 12. I played chess with MINGwei until 12, and then Ms Kong walked in.
She talked about the trip for some time, then she advised the persons who had had trouble with our Module Evaluation Surveys to report to the Computer Lab Techs to file a problem report to them, else we probably wouldn't get our progress reports back come Friday.
Being the obliging person I am, I followed Victor to the computer labs at 1. We knocked on all the doors to all the labs, but they weren't in. Must have been on their extravagant lunch breaks that they need to recover from the stress of doing nothing all day. I don't like the computer lab techs. I remember back in year 1 Teck Chye was playing Pac Man ( a more innocuous game you'd never find ), and they hauled Glenn, Gabriel, Teck Chye and I all in and harangued us for about 40 minutes. When I said that I had only been watching, they scolded me even more fiercely and compared my actions to being a silent witness at a murder. I was itching to shout that playing Pac Man was a victimless crime, but I restrained myself for fear of demerits and in the certain knowledge that I would have been wasting my time and energy. After all that crap, they said they'd send our names to the discipline master ( Mr Jeremy Ang at the time, and who'd caught Yu Fong, Teck Chye, and I playing computer games before and made nothing of it. ). Mr Ang was a better person than any of them.
Finally, I walked home and chionged what remained of my math tuition homework. Seems more like physics these days; I'm learning about impulse and connected particles. Mr Chan says he'll start me on Statistics in June, and I can't wait ( Ansel horror stories aside ).
I started walking to Mr Chan's place at about 3, arrived at 3.15, and read part of Different Seasons, by Stephen King. Then I went up till 5.30, then I went home.
We left the school around 8.30 a.m., after loitering around in the concourse for about 45 minutes. 303, 304, 306 ( my class ) and 308 were going to the Bedok NEWater treatment facility, while 301, 302, 305 and 307 were going to the Asian Civilizations Museum. I'd have preferred the ACM to the NEWater any day.....
On the bus, 306 was packed together with 308. I sat with MINGwei and played chess for about half an hour, then dosed for 15 minutes. When we finally arrived at the NEWater treatment facility, I was quite unimpressed. It's a squat, blocky white building with 2 wings and 2 large (water?) storage tanks to one side. At the front entrance, there is a colossal pool about 3/4 of a meter deep. It had fountains and stuff, but it wasn't very impressive, nonetheless.
When we were inside the facility, it was as boring as school. Ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, UV light - the way NEWater was treated was familiar to almost all of us. One strange thing is that our tour group was somehow absorbed into a small class of similarly touring nursery school students. The tour guide elicited more than a few murmurings of " pedo " over the course of the trip, as he was constantly asking the little children to " come nearer! ". I remember we treated him quite disrespectfully; at the reverse osmosis booth, when he asked if a truck was larger or smaller than a tennis ball ( viruses to the holes in the reverse osmosis membranes ), every secondary school student declared that trucks were smaller. Oh, one very interesting thing happened at the ultrafiltration booth. The tour guide showed us a video of water molecules being taken up into these " vessel elements ", and bacteria the size of 2 or 3 water molecules being deflected away. Imagine that! At a scale where hydrogen looks like a ping pong ball, these bacteria seemed like basketballs with flagella. Also, water was consistently represented as water molecules suspended in a blue liquid. Hmmm, I wonder what that liquid was........
After the tour, I bought a very passable curry puff for a dollar from a little stall located strategically outside the tour exit.
After that, it was time to return to school. Since it was only 10.30, and I'd been informed that the tour would end at 1, I was more than a little surprised. Oh well. We boarded the bus and reached NUSH at 11.15, where we were informed by Mr Ho that we would have to report to our mentor classrooms for some mentoring at 12. I played chess with MINGwei until 12, and then Ms Kong walked in.
She talked about the trip for some time, then she advised the persons who had had trouble with our Module Evaluation Surveys to report to the Computer Lab Techs to file a problem report to them, else we probably wouldn't get our progress reports back come Friday.
Being the obliging person I am, I followed Victor to the computer labs at 1. We knocked on all the doors to all the labs, but they weren't in. Must have been on their extravagant lunch breaks that they need to recover from the stress of doing nothing all day. I don't like the computer lab techs. I remember back in year 1 Teck Chye was playing Pac Man ( a more innocuous game you'd never find ), and they hauled Glenn, Gabriel, Teck Chye and I all in and harangued us for about 40 minutes. When I said that I had only been watching, they scolded me even more fiercely and compared my actions to being a silent witness at a murder. I was itching to shout that playing Pac Man was a victimless crime, but I restrained myself for fear of demerits and in the certain knowledge that I would have been wasting my time and energy. After all that crap, they said they'd send our names to the discipline master ( Mr Jeremy Ang at the time, and who'd caught Yu Fong, Teck Chye, and I playing computer games before and made nothing of it. ). Mr Ang was a better person than any of them.
Finally, I walked home and chionged what remained of my math tuition homework. Seems more like physics these days; I'm learning about impulse and connected particles. Mr Chan says he'll start me on Statistics in June, and I can't wait ( Ansel horror stories aside ).
I started walking to Mr Chan's place at about 3, arrived at 3.15, and read part of Different Seasons, by Stephen King. Then I went up till 5.30, then I went home.
Monday, May 17, 2010
17/5/2010 Post Exam activities day 1
Today was the first day of the "post-exam activities" organised by our school in lieu of an extended June Holiday. We were forced to participate in 2 activities; a presentation by Mercy Relief foundation/charity, and a 3 hours of CCA.
The Mercy Relief talk was quite a waste of time, in my opinion. The lady's name was Juliet, and she went on and on about the things that Mercy Relief was doing and what we could do to help. One particular figure that she mentioned caught my eye, so I questioned her about it. The pertinent statistic was that a child dies of starvation every 5 seconds. This amounts to a staggering 4 million children dead a year. If we take the population of children in South East Asia to be 20 million, then it seems that only 20% of all SEAsian children live to see their 12th birthday. Remembering the clearly erroneous figures from a similar presentation by UNIFEM( 1 in 3 women worldwide have been raped ), I questioned Juliet about her statistics. Naturally, that figure was a worldwide figure; 4/600 children die a year; 1/150 die a year. This means that the worldwide chance of living to 12 is (149/150)^12 = 92%. Not quite as bad as 20%.
After this, we were treated to a presentation by polytechnic students who intended to sway us into joining Mercy Relief via their testimonials. Alas, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. The students arrived late and in a disorderly fashion, had no powerpoint presentation, and only one out of the four actually presented. If these people are Mercy Relief's best choice for a testimonial, then I weep for their future.
After the two presentations, we had a half hour break which I spent playing chess and drinking Blackberry Tea. I kept losing to Ming Wei... gotta practise Ruy Lopez and Sicilian. We slacked around so long that we only realised it was time for CCA when the canteen began to empty.
Fortunately, we weren't late, as Le Minh Tue himself was late for the Chess CCA. Epic. As we only had 6 boards, Terry simuled pairs of us. Luckily, I was paired with Yan Hao, and we put up a valiant defense, although defeat was naturally inevitable. Terry demanded 3 servings of Salmon from Phyllis in Restaurant City, and gloated about his 90% Knight in mh, as I was only at 30%(ouch.ouchouchouch. Gotta sound more). After all this nonsense, we were forced to recite 3 resolutions that Terry stipulated before we were allowed to leave.
1. Understand the 1st 10 moves of all the Sicilian Variations
2. Be able to win Rook endgames and 2 Bishop endgames within a minute
(I screwed up my rook endgame when Terry told me to demonstrate, but I still think Minh Tu was a bit rude "He don't know lah!". At least I understood the concept; get the enemy king to the last rank. I still did it within 2 minutes.)
3. No blunders, here defined as
a) No dropping pieces for no reason
b) No losing on time
c) No back rank mate
I remember the other Chess exco guy was videoing a few people's performances. Voyeurism at its worst (not that I don't personally approve of videotaping other people's humiliation~).
It was almost 1 p.m. by the time all this was over, and I was going to find myself a spot of lunch. I headed down to the canteen (alone, everyone else had gone elsewhere to eat) and tried to find someone friendly I could sit next to. Luckily, Han Jie was in the canteen, so I bought my food and settled next to him to chat.
Then I finished my food ($2.80 for breaded dory fillet with baked beans, baked fried, and vegetables with a small bowl of mushroom soup). Not too filling, but quite tasty.
Finally, I took 196 to Buona Vista, took the EWL to Outram park, and took the NEL past Serangoon to Hougang so I could go to Cheng San community library. Then I went home.
The Mercy Relief talk was quite a waste of time, in my opinion. The lady's name was Juliet, and she went on and on about the things that Mercy Relief was doing and what we could do to help. One particular figure that she mentioned caught my eye, so I questioned her about it. The pertinent statistic was that a child dies of starvation every 5 seconds. This amounts to a staggering 4 million children dead a year. If we take the population of children in South East Asia to be 20 million, then it seems that only 20% of all SEAsian children live to see their 12th birthday. Remembering the clearly erroneous figures from a similar presentation by UNIFEM( 1 in 3 women worldwide have been raped ), I questioned Juliet about her statistics. Naturally, that figure was a worldwide figure; 4/600 children die a year; 1/150 die a year. This means that the worldwide chance of living to 12 is (149/150)^12 = 92%. Not quite as bad as 20%.
After this, we were treated to a presentation by polytechnic students who intended to sway us into joining Mercy Relief via their testimonials. Alas, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. The students arrived late and in a disorderly fashion, had no powerpoint presentation, and only one out of the four actually presented. If these people are Mercy Relief's best choice for a testimonial, then I weep for their future.
After the two presentations, we had a half hour break which I spent playing chess and drinking Blackberry Tea. I kept losing to Ming Wei... gotta practise Ruy Lopez and Sicilian. We slacked around so long that we only realised it was time for CCA when the canteen began to empty.
Fortunately, we weren't late, as Le Minh Tue himself was late for the Chess CCA. Epic. As we only had 6 boards, Terry simuled pairs of us. Luckily, I was paired with Yan Hao, and we put up a valiant defense, although defeat was naturally inevitable. Terry demanded 3 servings of Salmon from Phyllis in Restaurant City, and gloated about his 90% Knight in mh, as I was only at 30%(ouch.ouchouchouch. Gotta sound more). After all this nonsense, we were forced to recite 3 resolutions that Terry stipulated before we were allowed to leave.
1. Understand the 1st 10 moves of all the Sicilian Variations
2. Be able to win Rook endgames and 2 Bishop endgames within a minute
(I screwed up my rook endgame when Terry told me to demonstrate, but I still think Minh Tu was a bit rude "He don't know lah!". At least I understood the concept; get the enemy king to the last rank. I still did it within 2 minutes.)
3. No blunders, here defined as
a) No dropping pieces for no reason
b) No losing on time
c) No back rank mate
I remember the other Chess exco guy was videoing a few people's performances. Voyeurism at its worst (not that I don't personally approve of videotaping other people's humiliation~).
It was almost 1 p.m. by the time all this was over, and I was going to find myself a spot of lunch. I headed down to the canteen (alone, everyone else had gone elsewhere to eat) and tried to find someone friendly I could sit next to. Luckily, Han Jie was in the canteen, so I bought my food and settled next to him to chat.
Then I finished my food ($2.80 for breaded dory fillet with baked beans, baked fried, and vegetables with a small bowl of mushroom soup). Not too filling, but quite tasty.
Finally, I took 196 to Buona Vista, took the EWL to Outram park, and took the NEL past Serangoon to Hougang so I could go to Cheng San community library. Then I went home.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
NUSHS Script checking!
Sorry for the long hiatus, but I’ve always had commitment issues. I returned to write once more after I witnessed firsthand the entertainment potential of upkeeping a blog. As NUSHS students may know, this after exam period is stultifying. All I do these days is watch videos, play maplestory, and go to facebook. It may sound fun, and it often is, but you soon get very bored.
Now, on the meat of my message. I need to write. I really need to write. My grasp of the rules of grammar is now tenuous at best, courtesy of my long hours spent online browsing through the retarded ravings of illiterate trolls. The best method to counter this dreadful disease is writing, and I have done no real essay writing for the past 2.5 years. This dreadful atrophy of my writing muscles must stop.
This past week was NUSHS’ script checking week. That is, Thursday and Friday ( 13/5 and 14/5) were NUSHS’ script checking week, as Monday through Wednesday were school holidays ( not complaining!). On Thursday, I received the results for Math, English, Bio, and Physics, in that order.
My Math results were disappointing, to say the least. I got 59/65, which is the second lowest score I have ever received for a Mathematics test paper. Worse, the crown of 1st in class for Math (which I expect as a matter of course, as Lim Jeck and JA are not in my class) was taken from me by a girl. A jockish girl, no less. Oh well, live and let die…...
English was 36.5/50. I cannot understand why I always do badly for English. I read widely, I have a fairly large vocabulary, and I have (or had, before I began my self destructive net-surfing) an intuitive understanding of grammar. I found Eragon to be a trainwreck of a book, and understood that Twilight was a deranged compilation of Stephanie Meyer’s vampiric wet dreams. Surely I can score more than 80% on a simple exam?
As you may imagine, I was pretty disillusioned when the Biology script checking started. My two favorite subjects came back with crappy results – what could I possibly expect from Biology, the one science that I actively detested?
Quite a lot, apparently. 64/80, or an A. My sole explanation for this remarkable score was that I was overconfident for my other subjects, so I neglected them in favor of revising Biology. Awesomely enough, mugging apparently does pay off.
Finally, the Physics script checking began. I was quite hyped up for this one, as I thought I stood a reasonably good chance of scoring above full marks for the exam ( as there was a bonus question ). Tragically enough, my overconfidence was my downfall. 86/100 – A+, but nowhere near 1st in class. *Sighs*
On Friday, I received my Music test results (test, not exam), and my Chem and Chinese scores. For music, I expected to do well – I’d spent 3 hours the previous day memorizing every song likely to come up for listening, but I was still surprised by my score – 151/150. Epic win.
The next test paper to be returned was chem. The day before, my mother had spoken to Ms Kong, and when the conversation drifted over to my chem scores, Ms Kong said that I should have done better. Oops. Anyway,61/80. Worse than Bio.
Finally, the killer. The dread demon that held me under the sword of Damocles for untold days, its hour come round at last, was slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. CHINESE!!!!!
As it happened, my score wasn’t so tragic after all. 38/70 +15/20 +78/110 = 126.5/200. I scraped through with a B-! Actually, my paper 2 score (78/110) wasn’t bad at all. This seems to be a trend for me – doing badly for paper 1 and doing well for paper 2. Last year, my paper 2 result was actually 76.5/90, which was an A+. I need to do something about my Chinese compositional writing skills.
Oh well. Using Ansel’s CAP calculator, and assuming that all the CA stuff will equalize itself, I got a GPA of 4.5/5. Not too shabby.
Now, on the meat of my message. I need to write. I really need to write. My grasp of the rules of grammar is now tenuous at best, courtesy of my long hours spent online browsing through the retarded ravings of illiterate trolls. The best method to counter this dreadful disease is writing, and I have done no real essay writing for the past 2.5 years. This dreadful atrophy of my writing muscles must stop.
This past week was NUSHS’ script checking week. That is, Thursday and Friday ( 13/5 and 14/5) were NUSHS’ script checking week, as Monday through Wednesday were school holidays ( not complaining!). On Thursday, I received the results for Math, English, Bio, and Physics, in that order.
My Math results were disappointing, to say the least. I got 59/65, which is the second lowest score I have ever received for a Mathematics test paper. Worse, the crown of 1st in class for Math (which I expect as a matter of course, as Lim Jeck and JA are not in my class) was taken from me by a girl. A jockish girl, no less. Oh well, live and let die…...
English was 36.5/50. I cannot understand why I always do badly for English. I read widely, I have a fairly large vocabulary, and I have (or had, before I began my self destructive net-surfing) an intuitive understanding of grammar. I found Eragon to be a trainwreck of a book, and understood that Twilight was a deranged compilation of Stephanie Meyer’s vampiric wet dreams. Surely I can score more than 80% on a simple exam?
As you may imagine, I was pretty disillusioned when the Biology script checking started. My two favorite subjects came back with crappy results – what could I possibly expect from Biology, the one science that I actively detested?
Quite a lot, apparently. 64/80, or an A. My sole explanation for this remarkable score was that I was overconfident for my other subjects, so I neglected them in favor of revising Biology. Awesomely enough, mugging apparently does pay off.
Finally, the Physics script checking began. I was quite hyped up for this one, as I thought I stood a reasonably good chance of scoring above full marks for the exam ( as there was a bonus question ). Tragically enough, my overconfidence was my downfall. 86/100 – A+, but nowhere near 1st in class. *Sighs*
On Friday, I received my Music test results (test, not exam), and my Chem and Chinese scores. For music, I expected to do well – I’d spent 3 hours the previous day memorizing every song likely to come up for listening, but I was still surprised by my score – 151/150. Epic win.
The next test paper to be returned was chem. The day before, my mother had spoken to Ms Kong, and when the conversation drifted over to my chem scores, Ms Kong said that I should have done better. Oops. Anyway,61/80. Worse than Bio.
Finally, the killer. The dread demon that held me under the sword of Damocles for untold days, its hour come round at last, was slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. CHINESE!!!!!
As it happened, my score wasn’t so tragic after all. 38/70 +15/20 +78/110 = 126.5/200. I scraped through with a B-! Actually, my paper 2 score (78/110) wasn’t bad at all. This seems to be a trend for me – doing badly for paper 1 and doing well for paper 2. Last year, my paper 2 result was actually 76.5/90, which was an A+. I need to do something about my Chinese compositional writing skills.
Oh well. Using Ansel’s CAP calculator, and assuming that all the CA stuff will equalize itself, I got a GPA of 4.5/5. Not too shabby.
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