today was bad. i think i'm going to flunk history. i finished half an hour early with only thirteen sides.i was supposed ot have filled 18 sides methinks. 2-4 sides per part 1, and 1-2 sides per aprt 2. for half an hour i had to stone and bear with the people around me just writing on forever.
it was totally shit la.
my mind blanked, and none of my mugging in the morning helped.
huge chunks of stuff i just couldn't remember,
i could remember things describing them eg. rich cornfields given to Romania,
but i couldnt remember any of the names.
but, someone mentioned the first syllable after the exam, and it just popped into my head.

Banat and Transylvania.
gah.
and so many other things, i attempted China 1927-36, only to find nothing came to mind, did pac war in the end, and mangled all the details, i probably skipped a whole chunk of minor battles, and confused leyte gulf details. no specific dates. hitler was nothing fantastic, the only one i think i might score in is the u.n.o. essay, and maybe stalin's rise. horrible la

means i need to score in my a maths and physics.
oh man, no distinction in history at all, and that just sucks.

on the other hand visited st mikes, had a good laugh reminiscing, the meal afterwards at pizza hut was damn funny, recounting all the funny stuff that happened in st mikes.

NI GOU HUN DAN!
MEI YOU JIA JIAO!
a la mr goh!
hahah yeah, 6g people are damn funny!

and my grandma rocks!

sure, she tried oni (hokien yam paste), and now everyone in the family laughs when the word is mentioned, coz her oni was plain weird, so was her chng tng, it was thick and gooey instead of being watery.
but today was teh bomb! even my grandpa ate quite a bit for once, and it wasn't half a roti prata.

japanese rice balls!
ahah! stuffed with tuna, she says shes gonna try unagi next!

woot!
night!

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bio today was all about labelling.
alice labeled the amniotic cavity, embryotic fluid.
i labeled the thermoreceptor arterioles.
some idiot even labeled the feeding hypha, vegetative hyphae.
oh yeah, jp labeled the sporangium spore sac, then changed it to spore bag.
AHAHA

geography elect was not half bad i guess.
i should have studied more in depth for manufacturing and environmental management, less range.
but oh well.

okay so its history tmr, and my brain will probably dry up by tmr morning,
but i'm gonna take my chances, try for a distinction.
wish me luck!

night
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i think i need a miracle to get my 9 points.
geography elective and bio later on.
so much to remember!

AND, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE TOMORROW COME.
MODERN EFFING WORLD HISTORY 2138! !$#@%#!%@#
that means 8000 essays to remember, and write out.
actually just 8. but 1000 words each.
my hand's gonna drop off after the exam, and my brain's gonna grow fuzzy hairs, and become a new vegetable-animal-sludge hybrid thingy.

i'll get my a1 at 'o's, yes i will, prelims will just be practice yes? yes!

okay, i'm not lucid anymore. shit
night.
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studying development for geog elect now.
human geog is bloody boring.
marianne chong just writes on and on in large chunks of text,
with numerous bullet points, and the pages only have a few nice pictures here and there.

so a random thought came to me, and as always, i decided to preserve it here.
i think success isn't so much about making money, as it is having a legacy and people remembering you when you're long gone. and that legacy should be that you changed things for the better. that's how i define success anyway. i see no point earning your first million, only to look forward to your next million. and thats how i saw the o levels and grades until recently. achieve straight 'a's only to look forward to your next exam.

i just want my grades so i've got more choices.
i want my grades so i won't look back and say i didn't realise my potential.
and so i won't feel guilty when i'm out enjoying myself after the o levels, haha.

yeah.
future's pretty much hanging in the balance now.
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okay, so here's the deal:
today i got home after chem, had an
'afternoon nap' around 3.30, and woke up at 11.30pm.
not only did i have totally no
awareness of the time that had passed, but i also managed to totally sleep
through an appointment i was supposed to have with hashnul, only calling him
three hours late.

call me lazy, or me just being plain tired, but this has happened too
many times already. i sleep at weird times of the day, mostly at inane hours of
the morning and struggle to get up in the morning, my punctuality suffers in the morning. so i decided to do research.

i typed sleep disorder in wikipedia and i found something that matches
what has been my lifestyle for the past two years or so.

Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), also known as delayed sleep-phase
disorder, is a chronic disorder of
sleep timing. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep at very late times,
and
also have difficulty waking up in the morning.

Often, people with
the disorder report that they cannot sleep until
early morning, but they
fall asleep at about the same time every "night", no
matter what time they
go to bed. Unless they have another sleep disorder such as sleep
apnea in addition to DSPS, patients can sleep well, and have a normal
need
for sleep. Therefore, they find it very difficult to wake up in time
for a
typical school or work day if they have only slept for a few hours.
However,
they sleep soundly, wake up spontaneously, and do not feel sleepy
again until
their next "night" if they are allowed to follow their own late
schedule, e.g.
sleeping from 4 a.m. to noon.

The syndrome usually
develops in early childhood or adolescence,[1]
and sometimes disappears in adolescence or early adulthood. It is usually
treatable, but cannot be cured."

And these are even more features:

• "The following features of DSPS distinguish it from other sleep
  disorders:
  People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater
  than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the
  afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much
  easier to sleep during the morning than at night.
• People with DSPS fall asleep at more or less the same time every night, and
  sleep comes quite rapidly if the person goes to bed near the time he or she
  usually falls asleep. Young children with DSPS resist going to bed before they
  are sleepy, but the bedtime struggles disappear if they are allowed to stay up
  until the time they usually fall asleep.
• DSPS patients can sleep well and regularly when they can follow their own
  sleep schedule, e.g. on weekends and during vacations.
• DSPS is a chronic condition. A diagnosis of DSPS is generally not given
  unless symptoms have been present for at least a month.

Attempting to force oneself through 9–5 life with DSPS has been compared
to constantly living with 6 hours of jet lag. Often, sufferers manage
only a few hours sleep a night during the working week, then compensate by
sleeping until the afternoon on weekends. Sleeping in on weekends, and/or
taking
long naps during the day, gives people with the disorder relief from
daytime
sleepiness but also perpetuates the late sleep phase.

People
with DSPS
tend to be extreme night owls. They
feel most alert and say they function best and are most creative in the
evening
and at night. DSPS patients cannot simply force themselves to sleep
early. They
may toss and turn for hours in bed, and sometimes not sleep at
all, before
reporting to work or school.

By the time DSPS patients
seek medical help,
they usually have tried many times to change their
sleeping schedule. Failed
tactics to sleep at earlier times may include relaxation
techniques, early
bedtimes, hypnosis, alcohol, sleeping
pills, dull reading, and home remedies. DSPS patients
who have tried using sedatives at night often
report that the medication makes them feel tired or relaxed, but that it
fails
to induce sleep. They often have asked family members to help wake
them in the
morning, or they have used several alarm clocks. As the
syndrome is most common in adolescence, it is often the patient's parents
who
initiate seeking help, after great difficulty waking their child or
teenager in
time for school. "

And to explain why I still managed sleeping at proper times here and then.

"Once the patient has established an earlier sleep schedule, following highly
regular sleep/wake times and practicing good sleep hygiene are
essential. DSPS patients are counselled to not go to bed if they are not sleepy,
as doing so generally does not result in earlier sleep times. They are also
advised to avoid alcohol and caffeine before bedtime.

If treated successfully, a person with DSPS can sleep and function as
well with the early sleep schedule as with a late one. Stimulant drugs
(including caffeine) to keep the person awake during the day should not be
necessary. The chief difficulty of treating DSPS is in maintaining the earlier
schedule after it has been established. Inevitable events of normal life, such
as staying up late for a celebration or having to stay in bed with an illness,
tend to reset the person's sleeping schedule to late times again."

i'm going to the doc once prelims are over, and according to the wikipedia it is difficult to diagnose and frequently misdiagnosed.

"Lack of public awareness of the disorder contributes to the difficulties
experienced by DSPS patients, who are commonly stereotyped as undisciplined or
lazy. Parents may be chastised for not giving their children acceptable sleep
patterns, and schools rarely tolerate chronically late, absent, or sleepy
students and fail to see them as having a chronic illness."

So maybe, just maybe, I'm suffering from a sleep disorder, or I just sleep like a log. Weirdly, my mom catches up on sleep during the weekends too, might be a family thing.

night.

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i'm up studying social studies.
such a bore.
chemistry and ss prelims tomorrow.
stupid timing really.

so, with the school having all the mugging subjects in one week,
i'm pretty much gonna be a zombie this week.

i've bene playing guitar to destress, came up with a few riffs, and verses here and there.
all in E major.
dong's been a big help! thanks dong!
yep, anyway picking up guitar grimoire from hashnul tmr.

so here's the deal this week:
Chem and SS tonight
Geog Elect, Bio and 3 History Essays tmr
Geog Elect, Bio and 5 History Essays on Wednesday
History on thursday

should start behaving like a normal human, and not some stoned mugger after that.

i've a really loooooong list of what i want to do after all the exams are over.
o levels are a bit more lax i suppose.

in no particular order:

1. get my social life outside school back.
2. JAMMING!
3. RUN!
4. CYCLE!
5. band camp
6 movie marathons
7. chalets and reunions
8. APLYC

kann's put me in the heritage play for aplyc, and i've gotta sing and memorise lots of lines.
not gonna bomb like i did with delasalle, hehe.

on the other hand, jeremy gabriel and i have been asked to be emcees for graduation night.
i reckon it will be our last making a fool of ourselves in front of so many people.
so why not!

bring on the honkie accents, short/fat jokes, puns, and lame humour.
oh, and maybe the Parade Commander skit too, that jem and i planned for the sji international camp, but never performed, funny shit i tell you.

i'm a busy man after o levels!

anyway back to how singapore's sustaining growth.
for one, if it wants to sustain interest in social studies, they should improve the bloody textbook.

night.
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sjimb.
whoaho! (:

self-explanatory.

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choices define who we are right?
we know that.
most of us do.
yet, we still make wrong choices.

and sometimes knowingly.

i think i'm constantly making a wrong choice.
to procrastinate.

i will think more about this later.

i need to mug geog and ss.
one of my sec 4 classmates actually called me a secret mugger.
lol.
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we don't wallow in the abyss of self-pity,
we move on.

we don't linger like an unwanted ghost,
we move on.

we don't hold on with reckless abandon,
we move on.

first we are dependent, then independent, then interdependent,
we move on.

we don't whine, we reflect and actualise,
we move on.

change, is the only constant.
we move on.

we move on, our roles change. when it's time for us again to contribute, we will.
for now, let go, move on, and concentrate.
the best and proudest thing we can do now is to excel.

i want my 9 points and below.
i will get it.
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Sometimes we immerse ourselves so obliviously to the outside world, into the worlds and epochs in books we so thoroughly enjoy. The characters seem to jump right out of the book. Suddenly, Harry Potter's struggle with his identity is something so familiar, Bassanio's elopement somewhat similar to friends hiding in a corner of the Macdonalds at King Albert Park, and the Sandman, like the people who inspire and appear in our dreams in the deepest of slumber. They might even bear an uncanny resemblance to our friends. How they converse, how they express mirth, their flaws, and their strengths.

We see our friends in these characters, sense a certain part of him in the fictional, but why? Only because we understand our friends, or so we think.

When plot developments happen, and complications occur, we might understand why a character might have set upon a certain course of action, it being a result of the character's temperament and circumstances. Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy; people who manifest these humours, with one being the dominant one, are so common in our lives, and in the books we are spellbound by.

Yet, no matter how much we understand the sense and sensibilities of these characters that are so akin to our friends, we fail to understand our own peers occasionally.

Funny, isn't it, then that while the study of characters, and the empathy we feel for characters, is supposed to help us understand the human condition better, still we sometimes fail to comprehend the paths our closest friends take.

So how deeply do we understand our friends, and more importantly the mistakes they make?

Which also leads to the question:
How prepared are we to forgive?

I believe before I can practise 'forgive and forget', I need to understand what has transpired first, and why I should forgive.

What's your reason?
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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you
simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I
don't
know any other
way of loving

but this, in which there is
no I or
you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so
intimate
that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

- excerpt from Sonnet XVII; 100 Love Sonnets, 1960; Pablo Neruda
used in the movie Patch Adams. beautiful! (:

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i think mugging brutishly sucks.
you know when you just read through more and more chapters?
especially for chemistry and biology?
total waste of time.

i know people who take a chapter on one at a time.
but seriously, it's a gross waste of time.

example:
boy A does one chapter of chem a day, starts few months before exams.
boy B finishes chem in about two days, summarising the main concepts and things to memorise on the first day, and drilling them in on the second day.

similarity:
both boys listen intently in class.

difference:
boy A reads the chapters.
boy B reads, understands, and makes links inter-chapter, and intra-chapter. then summarises into one compact set of notes, to be mugged just before the exams arrive.

so if you want an analogy, let's say mugging is like a fight. the subject is your opponent. you need to master him.
boy A is a very very very patient sumo wrestler. boy B is a ninja! he attacks the weak points, striking them swiftly, silently, and really effectively. the former just attacks with brute force, maybe coupled with a teensy bit of strategy.

so seriously, mug 'elegantly'! stop wasting time!
i think mindmaps are damn good, especially for chem!
using nunchucks are good, ie revision guides.
those that really concentrate on concepts instead of details, details can come later.
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went for prata with my mom after night study, got home, and heard someone from downstairs sneezing really loudly like a japanese.

you know how he sneezed?

oii-shi!

i'm serious! :D
night.
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excerpt from my offline journalling.

during the national day celebrations, the old folks from kwong wai shiu
came.
i'm not sure if it was to show the school who they are helping or
really because it would cheer them up seeing loud pubescent kids like us
mangling national songs. (it's loud and there's a melody i suppose, but
still)

when it came to the end of the day, the old folks, in wheelchairs, had
to be brought down from the hall. sji though, isn't wheelchair-accessible for
the upper floors, so i just happened to be in the area after doing
guard-of-honour duty. along with ruggers, we brought one auntie and one uncle
down.

for the auntie, we brought her down half the flight, she walked the
rest of the flight down. when she got onto the waiting wheelchair, the footrests
were swiftly swung out for her and all. we didn't hang the seatbelt over
the handle so she wouldn't sit on it however and she took it upon herself
to take it and fasten it.

one of the nearby caregivers tried to help her with it, but for an
instant, there was a flash of indignance and anger across her face, and she
brushed away his hand.

so can you imagine one day when you're old, and not exactly capable of
doing everything, people start assuming you're quite incapable of doing simple
tasks. either that or they're just really helpful, but still having people
around you who think you need that much help,
it's painful.

that's one thing i realise, sometimes we try to help others at the
expense of their dignity, especially old folks.

if one day i lose all my motor skills, and
coordination, i'm old, infirm and maybe even sick.
who's gonna
care?
my family? volunteers? kids doing CIP?

so really, i
realised while yes we need to study, adults need to do their work, and life
needs to go
on, society is so segmented, that we don't see the bigger
picture, and mind you, the progress
of a nation is not the bigger picture.
what we don't see published in the papers is how much
more people care about
others, how much more families stay together, how spiritual or bothered about
greater things singaporeans are.

sure, we're a properous country,
most of us have all the material comforts we need and sometimes
want.

but somewhere out there, someone is looking up at the plain
ceiling, staring glassily at the fan that's spinning endlessly,
when, when, will the day come to a close?

and that question will be repeated the next day, and the day after,
for many weeks to come.
volunteers might help alleviate the loneliness,
and the activities at a nursing home might help liven things up, but
there's nothing quite like having your loved ones near.

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Hello
wax and wane,
ebb and flow,
inspiration comes,
only the dunce lets go.

pander to fickle inspiration,
it will do for now,
stories fade with print,
but the fantastique lives forever.

i'll be blogging here from here on out.
but i'm still on hiatus until after prelims.
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