back!

finally back from the trip in aussie! it really ranks amongst my most enjoyable trips to date - be it the weather there, the attractions, the random events that transpired, and esp the company. i can't say that i din have my doubts abt gg with friends i've known for barely a year, albeit all the good vibes and conversations we shared prior to the trip. but u guys sure proved me wrong.

no petty disputes over financial matters, no arguments over the activities planned for the day, no major disagreements over one anothers' quirks and living habits. it really couldn't have gone better, i felt. ok la, there was one little hiccup but it was resolved very amicably by the next day and everything was fine, if not better, after the incident. 

and hmm, i spent abt 2.6k SGD over the 2 weeks there. true, the activities (scuba, WWrafting, surf, theme parks) and accomodation did take up the bulk of the costs, but i really did spend a lot of $ on alot of small stuff like practical souvenirs and snacks or random meals.

like i always say when i give in to the temptation of buying stuff to eat whilst on the go, "i'm rarely hungry, but always peckish". oh greedy me. i need to lose 6kg.

and i've decided tt should i ever go on a honeymoon, it shall be in australia. where better than a place which combines exhilarating activities with scenic spots and likeable weather. add the fact that the food there's decent, as well as the reasonable cost of items in general.

but i would miss the food in SG, being an ardent fan of asian food. now if only the weather in SG was less humid and warm..

post-exams

oh i figured one should like, say, have plans to party or go out straight after the last paper, but i had none of that. simply went home after leaving at 6pm, packing a ton of KFC and satay on the way home for my family peeps. 

sometimes i think it's maybe because i have no friends. but more likely it's cos i had alr been gg out and doing my own stuff since my last paper 6 days ago. haha. so today was like an anticlimax of sorts.

"wah exams finish alr right" my grandpa jokingly commented when he saw my bags of food. 

read my graphic novels, played on my Xbox and met up with the pri sch bestie to get my tennis balls back. then watched the UCL semi-final btw chelsea and barca, the winner of which would go on to face my beloved man utd in the finals. 

figured chelsea would have had the match in the bag but for the fact that the referee VERY weirdly refused to award not one, not two, but THREE penalties. blatant case of bribery, i commented to the cousin. as the game went on and barca got a few of their main players suspended for the finals due to bookings, we both ardently prayed tt barca would overcome the 1 goal deficit and book their way to the final in a weakened state. 

alas, it was not to be, as chelsea led 1-0 even after full-time. we grew resigned to the fate tt it'll be an all-english final once again. 

then in injury time (93rd min!), iniesta popped in a 'from nowhere' goal to send the barca contingent into rapture. i threw my bolster up in celebration and ran circles and cheered like there was no tomorrow (at 4am). ok now i sound like a himbo. just take it tt i was overjoyed k. forget i mentioned the cheering part. 

no way barca's gg to match up to man utd with a second string defence; afterall as agreed with the cousin, they're currently like an arsenal side who can really attack but with an even weaker defence. and man utd just whupped arsenal 3-0 in the other semi-final ytd. woohoo. looking 4ward to the finals. 

it's all over

last day of my academic career, last 2 sch-based exams. it's over. 

NM paper was fine. 20marks worth of MCQs which most pple would have scored near full marks with considerable studying on their part. 

and 80 marks worth (40 each) of a news release and a news story. which really depended on how well you could write even before taking the module. after all, at this age, one's command of English is more or less already fixed at a certain level. 

had 1.5 hrs to study b4 the ChemOcean paper, but din feel like it, despite not being v well-acquainted with the notes. so i went for a swim instead. 

the paper was quite a breeze, unexpectedly, given the amt of effort i put in (nvr go lecs, tuts, no TB, no mindmaps, pure staring at notes). 

only had abit of doubt regarding bioremediation, primary productivity and upwelling, after which i discovered i had got more than half the points for those questions anyway. 

only 2 v short qns (worth 2 marks only) i was totally unsure of, given the fact that i hadn't touched the TB b4, knowing the lecturer's style. actually i figure the main reason i go for consultations is to suss out the lecturer and his style of marking and setting tests/exams. 

so far i've proven to be quite adept at this v unorthodox method of doing well with minimum effort. 

so i decided to have some fun with the 2 qns. 

1. what are the huge amts of lithogenous sediments left behind when seawater evaporates in a specific area at a tremendous rate? (or smth like that) ans: salt mountains (confirm wrong one)

2. what are the appendages that mid/deep ocean fishes use to light up their passage called? ans: torchlights

left after 1 hr (minimum required staying time), after checking thru the paper twice. really despise pple who leave early for their last paper, as they could utilise the additional time to redo or check their answers, but for this case i really felt i could do no better. 

bangs are ugly (mostly)

yes i know it's q the craze lately (at least in my circle la), but i really think bangs look horrible on most girls. 

it only looks decent on pple who were alr aesthetically pleasing to begin with, for it seems to really draw attention to and accentuates one's facial features.

was arguing this with the best friend just the other night during supper and i thought it amusing that i would have a strong view on things seemingly inconsequential to me. 

me to wormy: some girls should really just sport an anti-bangs hairstyle instead. you know, the one with an extraordinarily long fringe (as compared to a short fringe) such that it covers the face totally. i think it'll help them look better. 

but 2 bang-friends (sounds abit wrong but ohwells) of mine do look quite good with them, i must say.

 

graduating

after my 4th paper (QM), i happily told ivana (fellow NIE trainee-to-be) tt i was q sure i'm gg to graduate. hell, i'm glad it went quite well. quite a big part was similar to that which i erm.. spotted (yes, again). 

i'm sure i did well enough to pass, at the least, even despite my very absymal CA component (me to mel: eh i got nearly a 400% improvement on my 2nd midterm!)

obviously i din do wonderful for my 1st midterm. 

and i haven't been studying much over the past 3 days for my last 2 papers on wed. only studied like a solid 5 hrs in etty's rm after tennis ytd morn. both her last papers on wed were cores and she was therefore v serious abt them (unlike me). well, it was gd motivation for me to start staring at my notes conscientiously. 

shall hide in the lib after a short workout early tml morn - finish up my revision and leave 2 days for a 2nd readthru. 

then a relaxing swim and tennis w linky on mon and maybe meet up with zl on tues for a movie and catchup. i'm like in hol mood alr la. 

'last' paper tml

ok i'm 3 down, 3 to go. my last of 3 physics papers tml evening. so effectively i'll be damn free after that, cos the last 2 papers are oh so far away, not to mention they're my easiest/strongest modules respectively. if only tml's killer paper (QM!) could be interchanged with either one of them. 

ytd's Solid State Devices was alright, as expected. i mean, it's like a contest to make the most comprehensive cheatsheet and being able to utilise the hundreds of cryptic formulae to solve most of the problems. very engineering. sometimes i dun really see the point of taking these modules - once is fine to get the grasp of the skills required to do well but beyond that it's just diminishing returns all the way.

and today's Thin Film Technology (fave module, fave lecturer of all time!) was kinda of a disaster. to quote a random person whom i passed by in the exam hall: zhen1 de3 shi4 chi1 da4 bian4. thought it really very apt. did 3 past year papers for fun a week ago and found them very, very doable. by that i mean the effort marks per question averaged 15 for a total of 25 marks per qn.

[definition of effort marks: marks that can be secured if u have the notes/TB with you during an examination (closed-book) and you uds your material fairly well]

all the 4 qns available only had like.. 5 effort marks out of 25 each? or even less. definitely the most stingy out of all the chem/phy/engin modules i took in my entire academic career. oh and i wasn't the only one who felt that way. even jeff (mel: the one thing u can never say about jeff is that he's lazy or doesn't put in effort) found it a killer and ivana was her usual "dun know leh" or "ok lor". 

ok update more laters!

3 more days

ok i figure i have 2 papers on the 6th but given that i have 3 more papers in the next 3 days i have like 3 days to study for each of the last 2 papers. and the thing is that they're the 2 modules which require the least studying (i think 1 day for each is more than sufficient).

so i should be in hol mood after the last of 3 physics papers on wed evening. shall do the study by the pool regime and alternate swimming with reading my materials at a luxurious pace. should be able to clock 100 laps at the least per day, methinks. shall have to go below 70 before the end of exams before i resume my tennis and trg for IPPT. 

really feeling the strain on the knees even during normal walking, not to mention during impact sports. yeah i do lose weight to look better for my own sake. but it's mostly to be able to engage in the things i love w/o constantly worrying abt my knees collapsing all of a sudden. i don't ever want to experience that sensation ever again.

the colour and vision exam was horrendous. much, much harder than the tests and CAs.. so i can't figure where i stand in the cohort now. but i'm sure my 80th percentile for the 40% CA should guarantee me a decent grade despite the exam results. 

and damn the lecturer. punishing the pple who skip lectures by asking questions like: "we watched a video called 'at first sight' during lectures. describe what the video was about." this is so unfair given it has nothing to do with knowledge of the module itself. and there was a few questions similar to this. 

ohwells. as usual i put it all behind me when i stepped out of the exam hall. no point dwelling over something unchangeable and therefore inconsequential, esp when i have other pressing/pertinent concerns looming over the horizon. last sem le. let's finish it with a bang.

the question

i figure i'm a compulsive liar. 

after forgetting her b-day, i assured her that i had alr written her a card and picked up a gift for her, and had not wanted to meet her then cos i knew she was busy with projects. 

5 days later, on the day we were supposed to meet, i hurriedly wrote the card and rushed to JP to get the gift. 

met her for the b-day dinner at vivo. enjoyed the conversation throughout, as well as that at the outdoor pavilion whilst admiring the night scene and the view of Sentosa. the mood was set for the question, but i let it slip again, partly due to purposeful intent, partly due to nervousness. 

on the way back, after hesitating many times, i finally asked. but it wasn't the question i was thinking of asking before. after 10 long mths of supposed dating, i have to know, i felt.

"ehh. so are you attached now?" (or something of sorts)

sometimes i really do amuse myself with my lack of dating protocol and subtlety. shouldn't i have asked this much sooner. ohwells. at least i know she's single. and most likely available.

one thing abt her is that we have virtually no mutual friends (ok there's one, in my closest clique too and hopefully he din leak my blog add to her otherwise i'm dead) so it's harder to ascertain her r/s status. 

and i do require a long time to develop considerable, lasting interest in someone, lest it's obviously a close to perfect match coupled with sublime chemistry. 

there's a good reason why i'm stalling, and yes jack u hit the nail on the spot 1st time. i know myself only too well and circumstances (after graduation) may lead to adverse consequences should i alr be in a r/s then. i need more time. 

if taking my time leads to me losing what i have now, so be it. perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. let's simply let time tell - it never lies.

 

envious! haha.

from a friend's blog:

"we will sit under the sun and have our long promised picnic, stay under the velvety sky and star gaze, run to the beach and hit the volleyball, watch many bimbotic movies without the burden of project meetings, explore new places to feast, hold hands and flirt extensively with each other while walking along the streets of orchard road"

ok when will it be my turn to do all the above? not very long, i figure, if i finally get down to it. but the question is: will i pop the question? hahha. maybe. maybe not. let's just go with the flow.

april

"God didn't create the world in seven days... he slacked off for six and then pulled an all-nighter."

hahaha i think it's gg to take a miracle or lots of effort to do decently well. but at least it's not both for the moment i think. i think. hahaha.