Twelve

Chem today was... quite bad, honestly. Don't quite know what to make of it.

Dofu is trending amongst 'A' level candidates right now (chem 'A' levels insider joke haha).

Tomorrow is GP. Very little confidence, frankly, but as a consolation it will be the very last time I have to write an essay, summary or AQ ever again :D

OK I guess I don't hate GP that much. It's a sort of love-hate relationship. Hate being the majority, though.

I'll put up longer posts and elaborate on all the 'A' level proceedings after all this is over.

Maybe.

Thirteen

And so it begins.

Thirteen papers. I never really saw it that way. It makes it seem so much less daunting. Daunting nonetheless, don't get me wrong, but it's a much faster countdown than 21 days (or at least it seems to be).

Part of "A Violent Strike" is looping in my head right now: "Where's your bravery? What will bravery do for you now?" I guess to a certain extent it is true in this case. The time for plucking courage and beating down our inner fears has passed, and now is the time to charge into battle, oblivious to the risks but always conscious of the knowledge that we have acquired over the past grueling two years. Bravery, we should have plenty by now; now is the time to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.

Good luck guys :)

Thinking without acting

Well, it's November 8th: the start of the 'A' levels. Well, for the geography and history students, anyway. Best of luck guys! :)

When I finished revision for the day, when I settled down and am typing these words now, one thought came to my head:
My 'A' levels start tomorrow.


And then I start to tense up, and my heart beats faster, and I can feel just a hint of a cold sweat forming. I keep thinking to myself: have I done enough? Am I ready? What if I'm not? I can see myself grabbing and clawing at the ground as I'm being dragged towards the fateful day by the hands of the clock. My mind acknowledges that this day must come, but my heart, my animal instincts even, are telling me to run away from what is obviously a threat.

As bad as acting without thinking, is thinking without acting. I've done two years worth of thinking; now's the time to start acting out.

9 before 29

3 more days. 2 more days actually, if you don't count today (after all it's already close to 11pm). Every bone in my body wants to go into overdrive, to deprive myself of food and rest just to squeeze in those precious few more minutes of revision, but the mind must resist. As counterintuitive as it may seem, I think the important thing now are to clam the mind and quieten the heart. Oh, and reset the biological clock too. Can't be sleeping at 2am during the exam period, can we?

It's 3 days to the beginning, and 23 days to the end. Something deep in the back of my mind is already looking forward to November 29th, but the realistic part of me just keeps reminding it that November 9th has to come first. It's not the time for despair, but it's also definitely not time for celebration yet.

Recently, I started listening to The Human Abstract again, and I have to say that they're a much better band than I used to give them credit for; Nocturne is a really good album. And while the general consensus is that Midheaven isn't as good, I have to say that this particular song, A Violent Strike, is the song that is currently playing and replaying on my iTunes:



I think I shall sleep now, in an effort to reset my biological clock before the first paper. 11.10pm, what an early night. There was a time when "early night" meant about 10pm.

If you don't have hope, you have nothing

It's all happening too fast. The 'A' levels are literally the very next Tuesday, and I still feel very unprepared for it. But still, I think at this point, the psychological battle is the most crucial to win. All the countless hours of studies painstakingly given away these past few weeks will all be wasted away if you get crushed by the weight of your own self-doubt on the big day. Let's face it: the 'A' levels is a fight that is skewed very much against the student, and we walk in without much to cling on to but optimism, so it's the most important thing we have to safeguard the next few weeks. Really, if you don't have hope, you have nothing.

THE NUMBER WAS 69 D:

Yup, it's November the third sooo...

Why thank you, Grey Worldwide! :D

OK you probably guessed that I have no idea who or what is Grey Worldwide and I found this clip on youtube in under a minute. So anyway, I went out with a bunch of 28s to the plaza sing Carl's Junior to celebrate my birthday early. Last year on that exact same day (2nd November) we celebrated my birthday at that same exact place, immediately after Chinese A levels, and this year we were back there again. It's quite cool to have an annual birthday meal place haha. After we finished eating we played zhong ji mi ma (to those who don't know, take turns guessing a number between 1 and 1000, and the "winner" gets a "treat") with whatever condiments and free-flow drinks we could get our hands on (read: a LOT), which culminated in me eating a lemon wedge marinated in ketchup, chili sauce, barbeque sauce, mayonnaise, coffee, salsa sauce, salt, pepper and sugar syrup (to the best of my memory). At first it tasted like a horrible combination of thousand-island cream, celery, coffee and sugar, but (erm, thankfully?) after the first few seconds I couldn't taste anything but the stinging acidity of lemon juice. What an awesome way to celebrate a birthday man; and they haven't even started the taupoks yet :) So anyway, thanks to Bryan, Lionel, JP, Jaron, Chin, Nigel and You'en for the birthday treat man, I really appreciate that you guys bothered to celebrate with me despite the coming exams. And thanks to all the people who wished me (and are still wishing me :D ) on Facebook and Twitter man, I'll reply to them ASAP but I just feel like sleeping right now -_-

Anyway, I recently got hooked onto this awesome meme called troll science, where you come up with fringe science ideas that are so blatantly unscientific that they become funny. Example:
1. Cats always lands on its feet.
2. Toast always lands butter side down.
3. Tape a piece of buttered toast onto a cat.
4. Anti-gravity! :D
Yes, troll science is very epic and everyone should go check it out. Just remember that you need to differentiate between troll science and actual science, especially with exams looming so close.
(You can guess how much studying I must have done to have found this in the first place)

It's not you; it's me

OK, I feel quite guilty right now for more or less wasting my entire weekend away. That's 2 days gone. Or to put it in perspective, that was 2 days out of what was originally 11 at the start of the weekend, so I have basically wasted away 18.2% of my remaining time before the 'A' levels. 

That is not a comforting thought.

The worry that keeps swimming around in the back of my head right now is econs. I am absolutely horrible at it, I swear. Starting to have feelings of regret. Should I have taken geog instead? Or even (I can't believe I'm saying this) gone back to those frightfully unpredictable days of lit? There is not a a single drop of humanities blood in me at all, not one drop, but even discounting the "contrasting subject" syllabus requirement I don't have much of a choice (Me? Biology?) so there's really nothing for me to complain about. It just so happens that I'm a guy who can only do three subjects with any level of competency, in a syllabus that requires four. Nothing to blame but my own inadequacy. Which means I now have 9 more days to make myself adequate.