That's right, the exams are now OVER!
*victory dance*
Well, not really. Today was Chemistry, which is technically the last paper of the exam. But tomorrow we have two more subjects: Physical Education, and Civics and Citizenship. Yeah... try treating it like it matters. As my teachers say, you may as well hand in an empty paper and no one will think the worst of you.
So, the important part of the exam is, once again, OVER!
*victory dance*
Its kind of strange, but I've just left a week of Deepavali holiday, and now that my exams are over the students at school practically have free reign in class. Its going to be like an early year-end holiday. But I might have to do some work for the school's editorial board during school hours, so it probably won't be that bad.
And as a treat for finishing my exams, I'm going to celebrate by ending the day with a really short blog update. But don't worry, plenty of things have been happening recently, but I didn't want to write about them under the title "Exams", so I'll reaccount them tomorrow.
As a teaser for tomorrow's update, here's a shocking picture:
Dear readers, I have to apologise for my unfaithfulness to the blog. During this Deepavali 1-week holiday, I have only updated my blog twice. On my quest to fill my time with anything other than video games, I have done all sorts of things: Practicing table-tennis, playing Pokemon cards, running on the treadmill a bit, but it never occures to me to sit down and write my blog.
A lot has happened this week, and at the same time, nothing much happened at all. On Wednesday I had Chemistry tuition, wich serves as a sort of preparation for the exam on Monday. My dad was supposed to come pick me up, but he got a flat tire some distance from the tuition, so I had a short lesson on how to change a tire.
I played a lot of table-tennis on Tuesday, and started playing Pokemon Cards on Monday. Considering the usual nature of my holidays, I did a lot more activity this week than any other holiday before. Video games and TV don't count. Not really.
And yet at the same time, I feel that nothing very much as happened this week. Holidays are boring. I actually enjoyed going to tuition on Wednesday, and if there isn't going to be anymore tuition until next year, then this end-year school break is going to be dull.
All this gray nothingness seems to have blunted my wits. I don't feel much creativity to write my blog with, and if its a little dull, well, I can't help it. Depending on how things go, I might fill up my blog with nothing but pictures during the holidays, at least until my mind is resharpened by school and tuition.
Chemistry is on Monday, but that's still years away. Deepavali isn't over yet, so happy holidays to one and all.
Here's a picture of my baby sister doing goodness-knows-what:
So exams are practically over now. Every subject has already been taken care of, except for Chemistry, which is at the end of a week of holiday. All that studying is over, and I've plowed through my exams and I'm still standing. I have a week of holiday ahead of me with no assignments and minimal studying. I practically have full freedom.
So why aren't I excited about it?
Becaus I'm afraid of what's ahead of me. After the History exam on Wednesday, the only two subjects between me and the weekend were Moral and Mathematics, both of which are such easy subjects that I started my holiday 2 days early. And ever since all my tuition stopped for the exams, I've had nothing to do in the evenings. All there is, is video games and television. I used to be incredibly anti-social, but things changed mid-way this year, and now, I notice that after videogaming too long my anti-sosial personality returns. I cannot allow this to happen.
What is to become of my one week of Deepavali holiday? With no tuition to attend, no homework to complete and no studying to do, I'll be reduced to leaning on my electronic companions, especially since my sister has SPM coming up and my mom sleeps in the afternoon, leaving me with no real people to play games with or anything. Unless I come up with something ingenious, I'm going to become a nerdy video-game introvert all over.
But then, I'm being silly. Why wouldn't I have anything to do? There's a ping-pong table in the porch to spar against, a school magazine design that needs...designing, and a couple dozen of blank sheets of paper on my table waiting to be filled with essays. The only trouble, of course, is that I'm a lazy pig. I would not, in any ordinary circumstances, be at all inclined to do any of those things. But it looks like I'll have to.
I used to spend all my holidays, as I have said, video-gaming. But now, for the first time in my life, I am trying to find other things to do to detract myself from all that. This is turning out to be the weirdest holiday I've ever had.
Since I still have a Chemistry exam next Monday, my exam is, techinically, not yet over. This week would presumably be spent studying for the last exam, but heck, my Chemistry rocks already, and I won't be studying for it until next Friday. But that doesn't change the fact that its still exam season, even though its a holiday week. Still, to those of them facing a similar situation, don't let that distract you from enjoying your holiday.
Happy Deepavali and Happy Holidays to everyone!
"When you see people furiously reading their text-books minutes before the exam, those aren't the hard workers; those are the procrastinators." ~Me.
Here's a picture of my baby sister Singing (not really) in the Rain:
It is now the Thursday after the History exam. I would have updated yesterday, but with the terrors of History out of sight, yesterday became an early holiday, and I was too caught up playing video games to actually do anything productive.
Anyway, History went okay, I guess. I don't have much I want to say about it. I'm aiming for a B- anyway. Today's exam was Moral. The thing about Moral is, in order to do well, you have to memorise all the definitions of the 36 moral values. I went okay with that too. Now tomorrow is Modern Mathematics. Mathematics is easy, and I don't even plan study for it. Hee hee hee.
The thing about Mathematics is, you need to be able to feel and understand the numbers. How they interact with each other, how each one slots into place in an equation. That makes Mathematics easy.
After that, we get a week of holiday! I go back to school next Friday though, so I'll be getting back my results. History is on Friday too. uh-oh.
But the exams aren't over yet! The Monday after, we have Chemistry, but that's easy. So, technically the exams aren't over yet, but I'm totally going to treat this holiday as if it was. I might update blog a few times then too, so see ya~
No pictures or quotes today. But don't be sad, I'll get one next time.
It is late Tuesday night, and tomorrow is the day of the fated History exam. But first, more blogging!
Monday was Bahasa Melayu and today was English. Bahasa Melayu was, well, meh-worthy. It was average, and I think I performed average. Nothing to holler about. English went well though. Our directed essay was okay. I mean, we just had to write an essay by elaborating on the points given. The Continuous Writing, however, was the real challenge. Being given 5 questions, we must choose to write about one of them. I chose question (e), which was "Pets." Just "Pets."
The last of the five questions is basically free-style. They give you one word, and you have to write an essay on it. It doesn't matter what kind of essay. It can be a Factual essay, a Non-fiction, or a Fictional Narration. Of course I wrote a story. I wrote about a boy whose pet parrot finally rescued him from being attacked by a bulldog. When I get the essay back, I might find some way to post it here. I'm quite proud of it. Smiley!
So, tomorrow is the History Exam, my greatest enemy. I've been studying little else since Friday, so I think I'm okay. I can aim for a C at least. Good luck to everyone, although since its already so late, most of my classmates won't read this until the exam's over. Good luck anyway!
I hope no one is bored of reading about my exams.
I have decided to delete my other blog, thenovelquest.blogspot.com. It was meant to improve my writing skills, but on hindsight, one blog is enough for that. Its okay, it just means that this blog now serves both purposes. Anyway, see you after History tomorrow!~
Here's a picture of my baby sister attempting to play Table Tennis:
Its Friday, Friday...
I'm bummed out. Biology was a mess. Our Biology teacher, the one who set the paper, only taught us up to halfway through Chapter 8 before the exam, but today the questions went as far as Chapter 9 of the syllabus. I mean, really! In Paper 2, the first essay question worth 20 marks was on chapter 8, which is fair enough since we went through most of it, but the second half of that question was about a "nitrogen cycle" which I had never heard of before. Bummer. Fortunately, the question showed a flowchart of the mythical Nitrogen Cycle and asked us to explain it, so I just wrote down whatever information I could deduce from the diagram. But the question also asked what role lightning played in mantaining nitrogen levels in the atmosphere, which was not explained in the diagram and I even doubt it appears in the text book. That second part was 10 marks, down the drain.
The second essay question was on the enigmatic Chapter 9, which I had not so much as skimmed through on the assumption that the teacher wouldn't test us on what she hadn't taught us yet. You can see how far that got me. Fortunately, Chapter 9 is on "Endangered Ecosystems", which is basically general knowledge, so I just wrote down everything I knew about water pollution, and the greenhouse effect, and how it can be prevented. Most of it was right out of my head though, and of course they expect text book answers, so I didn't do very well. That's an extra 20 marks down the drain.
Answering Paper 1 was like trying to cut the right wire on the bomb so that it doesn't explode, except I won't know if I succeeded or felt the explosion until the results are out. It was tough.
Well, the weekends here, so relax a little. Monday and Tuesday is Bahasa Melayu and English, so I can take it easy a little. But Wednesday is History, so MORE CRAMMING!
Happy weekend, folks. Don't let exams get you down.~
Here's a picture of my baby sister playing the harmonica.
Today is Tuesday, and the worst of the exams are over! Well, not counting History.
Here's things as they stand: Physics and Additional Mathematics are done and dealed with. Tomorrow is Chines and Tamil, and the day after is Accountancy Principles, neither of which have anything to do with me whatsoever. In other words, two free holidays! whoo. On Friday is Biology, and I have two days to study it, with History on the side.
The Additional Mathematics exam was terrible. Don't get me wrong, I could answer it just fine, but it was still terrible. We had the Paper 2 first and the Paper 1 second. The Additional Mathematics Paper 2 was the worst. We were given two hours to finish it, and I answered the last question with 15 minutes left on the clock! Then the teacher was kind enough to wordlessly add another 2 minutes of time, and during that time I spotted a crucial error in one of my answers, and managed to correct it! That's not just a close shave; its a shave so close that it almost hit a jugular.
Answering the Physics paper felt weird. What can I say? I looked at the paper in front of me, and I answered what I could, which was most of it, but when I reached those bits I didn't know how to answer, I just closed my eyes and fired. I just wrote down everything I knew about physics, and the thing that makes it weird is, I didn't panic at all. Whenever I reached an obstacle in answering the papers, I feel like I should have panicked, but instead, I simply didn't, and wrote down some bogus answer instead. Somehow, this doesn't seem like acceptable behaviour for a student in the first class.
I'm still training up for the day I'll face off with History, so Biology is going to have to take the back seat for a while. Luckily I have practically all the time in the world during the next two holidays, so it shouldn't pose a problem.
That about wraps it up for now. A lot of other people are having exams too, so best of luck to everyone!~
Here's a picture of a can of Coca-Cola Light balancing diagonally on the edge of its rim.
I have read through other people's blogs, and I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with mine, so hah.
It's that time of year again. Exam Season! *Fanfare* Ah yes, I have fond memories of the last exam season. Out of 9 subjects, I walked out with 8 of them at least A's! 4 A's and 4 A+'s, the best I had ever done in years, not counting PMR during which the grading graph was "pulled down", as I understand it. However, it was the last of these 9 subjects that caused my season to be less than perfect. I got a C for History. Very bad indeed. Despite my awe-inspiring blunder in History, I still got the third-best Grade Average in the class, so its all well and good, but I still want my straight A's.
The exam starts on Monday, or to be precise, 2 more days, and it ends on the 1st of November. It lasts for 22 days. The dreaded History paper is on the 19th, and that's 11 days away. I feel confident in every other subject, so here's my basic study plan:
Study History lots and lots and even more lots. The first day of exams is Additional Mathematics, and that one's in the bag, so don't bother about it. Tuesday is Physics, which is a little shaky, so I'll squeeze a bit of Physics in between studying History. Wednesday is Chinese and Tamil, and since I don't take either paper, I'm taking it as a holiday. Same for Thursday, which is Accountancy Principles. This gives me more than enough time to study for Biology which is on Friday, and even more History. Weekend of History. The following Monday is Malay, which can't really be studied for, and same for English on Tuesday. Finally, Wednesday is History, and if I'm not prepared by then, no amount of time ever will. Thursday is Moral, and I've already memorised the definitions for the 36 values, so I think I'm fine. Friday is Modern Mathematics, and I've got that one down too.
After that we get a week of holiday for Deepavali, after which we have Chemistry, which is easy, and Physical Education and Civics, neither of which are important in the least. With a week to study Chemistry, its going to be like early end-year holidays.
So, there it is. Exams from now until next month. I'll be keeping updates on the exam throughout. Smileys!
Our newest member is Red Joker, whom I suppose must be Ng Wai Yang from school. Thanks as always! The exam updates might be boring to read, but either way I won't have time to blog about anything else what with reading History. Cheers, and good luck to all those others sitting for exams~
"If you study to remember, you will forget, but, If you study to understand, you will remember." ~Unknown apparently, but I first heard it from Mr. Tan Kok Cheang, Additional Mathematics Tuition Teacher.
So. Unexpected blog update. I finally peeped into a couple of other blogs, both of them belonging to my cousins, and I read through them a bit. Man, they were political. One of them complains about Lim Guan Heng, some guy I've never heard of before, but apparently he's the Chief Minister of Penang, some position I've never heard of before, and apparently he did something bad to Johor. The other cousin rants because Bibles are being, uh, "serialized" it says here. If that's what regular blogs are about, then I'm going to be terrible at this. Bluh.
This also makes me realise something about me. I appear to be the only pro-government person in my family. I'm not so naive that I don't know the business about BERSIH that's been going on. Fortunately I had no yellow shirts and I would not have wanted to wear one either. I think that BERSIH is just a non-legalized organization that wants to cause a lot of trouble over nothing. They say that there was a lot of bribery in the elections, but I say that if it really was that bad, how come we don't have any wars going on? BERSIH is so over their head about so-called "bad government", but they're the only thing causing a disturbance of peace in Malaysia, which shows that there aren't any problems with the government, until BERSIH appeared. My parents seem to think otherwise though, and looking at my cousins' blogs, it seems that I'm the only patriotic one in my family.
Great, I have been affected. I refuse to talk about politics for much longer than is neccesary, although I fear I have already broken that resolution. Starting now, then.
As for my cousins blogs, one of them has posted 463 posts in 5 years, and the other, 325 in the same time. According to my calculations, that would mean one blog every 4-5.6 days. I think I'm keeping good pace.
P.S. Also, their posts were a lot shorter than mine so far. Another sign I'm not doing it right.
P.S.S. I actually planned to make this a short post. That's why I didn't bother with the title and the regular relevant quote. Guess I got too carried by my anti-BERSIH rant.
I feel due for an update, but I don't really have much to write about and nor do I want to. So instead, here's a few words you never realised really existed.
The word Snuff has several meanings. The first meaning is a kind of finely ground tobacco that is sniffed through the nose, eg., a packet of snuff. Another meaning of "snuff" is the burnt bit of a candle wick that is always present on any half-used candle. Finally, "snuff" may mean a film or video clip in which someone is actually killed, without the aid of special effects, with the purpose of entertainment.
The word Jingo, according to Wiktionary, is "One who supports policy favouring war". In other words, one who thinks that war would be a jolly good way to bring one's country up into the world. Aggresively patriotic.
Torpor means slow, lethargic, sluggish, and/or inactive.
That's all I have to say. Remember, reading a dictionary is a productive way to spend one's time, as opposed to, say, facebooking.
Today is Sunday, so that means you get a huge update! Yay for both of us!
Since I have mild paranoia about putting my actual face in the display pic box, I have substituted it with a geeky video-game-web-comic picture. The upside of this is that it cures my anxiety, but the downside, and a huge one it is, is that no one knows what I look like. Well. I suppose most of my followers do anyway, since they all know me personally, but nevertheless.
At least the one thing I don't mind sharing about my features is that I wear spectacles. Or glasses, or even eyeglasses, if you prefer.
Here's the funny thing about said optical aid: They are more often refered to as "spectacles" or "glasses", and sometimes "eyeglasses", all of which have double meanings. Spectacles can either refer to the regular optical equipment or an extraodinary item placed on exhibit. Glasses can mean a pair of lens on your eyes for improving sight or it can mean, well, many glasses. For placing water into. Eyeglasses refers to all manner of glass worn on the eyes designed for improved vision, including monocles, opera glasses, and the rest.
The most accurate term for the apparatus is "a pair of glasses/eyeglasses". All the other usual terms for it has more than one meaning.
That's etymology covered. Now about the item itself, it really is very strange but when a person needs to start wearing them he will usually, out of vain, refuse to wear them around the clock and only puts them on when he needs them for driving or looking at the whiteboard in front of the class. However, when he finally gives in and starts wearing them long-term, after a few weeks he can't imagine life without them. Also, people who looked at him not wearing glasses for five years before, after he wears glasses for three months people can't remember what he looked like without them, and they think he looks so different when he takes them off.
There's something about glasses that have integrated themselves into human life such that sometimes it seems that people who wear glasses are born that way, in almost the same sense that left-handers can't help the way their made. I mean, genetically when two parents are short-sighted then of course you can't expect much better from the child, but I think you know what I mean. The world can be divided into two groups: people who wear glasses, and people who don't. People who wear glasses have always been that way, and for some of them, wearing contacts instead would be unthinkable, because the glasses have become such a familiar part of their lives. Like watches, bracelets and hairbands, these things sometimes feel like additional body parts and we can't go anywhere without them.
Those are all my thoughts on glasses. I'm not sure if I managed to get my point across. Sometimes I have trouble expressing myself in writing. But that's why I have my other blog of course. Don't forget to visit The Notebook of an Amatuer Writer, the blog in which I improve my writing skills! [This blog has since been deleted.]Have a nice week of school~
"Don't call the world dirty because you forgot to clean your glasses." ~Aaron Hill
