I was momentarily demoralised just now. For that moment, I told myself what difference would it made if I had taken Physics instead of Biology. Yes, I took a risk by taking Biology even though I didn't do it in secondary school. Because I know I would score much, much better in Biology than Physics. But heck, I almost wanted to break down in class just now. I did revise, I know I did. I did all I could to commit everything to memory. I just didn't know what happened; everything seemed to be so distant away. It's like I can't seem to recall anything.

I'm taking this as a learning point. I am going to try and memorise accurately all the details by next Monday. I know it's crazy, but time is running short. It's better late than never I guess. I know it's a bit late but, it's mugging time.

Promos are really close and I'm really scared. My parents told me that they didn't have to worry about me because they know I can PASS; it's just a matter of whether it's an A, B or even a U. But parents are parents; they want their children to ace whatever examinations that they have. Tell me, which parent want their child to sleep on the streets? Definitely none. I fear to disappoint them again, which I don't want too because they worked really, really hard for the family.

When I teared after receiving my O level result, my mum cried as well. I could tell that she was really damn happy for me. And though my dad didn't show, I could tell that he's proud of me. That's what I want. I really don't want my parents to be disappointed or whatsoever. I want to do well for my A levels, get into a university, get a good job and support them for the rest of their lives. I'm not those ungrateful brats who forgot their parents after earning millions.

But, I don't have the motivation to do so. Like everytime I try to study, there's always this invisible force forcing me to do otherwise. I know it sounds really bad, but I'm trying to put in whatever effort that I can for this 2 weeks. It's not like last year. Prelims made me realised there's A LOT of improvement to be made. Like who gets an L1R5 of 25 for Prelims when you should be damn prepared for the O levels already. Sure I did it, but what about now? So what if I got 6 points for O levels? My mum told me to look forward and not drone on the past. I have set goals for myself, but sadly I won't be seeing them come true.

Let's just leave it to the future eh.

Didn't come and will not be going to school till Monday. Not feeling well, so doctor gave MC. Full-stop. Staying at home is not fun. Seriously. Though at times I wanted to pull out that stack of notes and revise, it just didn't happen. This is really bad lah; Promos is in 19 days only. Yes, 19 days and I have not even covered half of Biology. But thank god I'm quite done with Organic Chemistry then maybe I'll spend 3-5 days on the rest of the chapters.

Okay, that went off slightly. I didn't mean to blog about how Promos are near, how I have not completed revision and blah blah blah. You would have already seen enough of it already aye? Okay, remember I was unwell. I tried my best to get my body back it shape because I promised my junior I would teach him Chemistry like long ago. The last time I ever saw him was like back in 2003? Somehow my body was feeling slightly better minus the coughing and runny nose part. So I managed to go down and meet him.

Teaching Chemistry is fun, but it's terrible if everything somehow disappears from memory. I really wanted to share with him whatever I can, but somehow the only thing that kept buzzing in my head was like electrophilic addition, Friedel-crafts Acylation, substitued amines, alkoxide ion, 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine etc. I mean, nothing of secondary school Chemistry appeared in my brain. It took me quite a while to recall electrolysis, reactivity series and so on. So practically, half of the time I stoned at the question trying to figure out an explanation as simplified as possible. But somehow, I couldn't and I stumbled on my words, making me sound like some fool. And in the end, he couldn't understand. I feel damn bad lah.

Hafidz, if somehow you're reading this, I really really wanted to help. But, yeah I can't be a tutor/teacher for heaven's sake. I should just continue to be student forever. But, I know you can do it lah. My L1R5 for Prelims last year was not even as good as yours. I'm sure you can and you will score for the actual Os, insyaallah. I really admire you for being able to mug till like so late on a schooling day. I swear I can never do it, seriously. Like the only thing I can do punctually and readily is sleeping.

Yeah, even when Promos is in 19 days time. Good job Hamizan.

Citrate is Krebs starting substrate for making oxaloacetate.

I deleted yesterday's post, seeing that I have to use the computer. So I might as well type out a complete post. Hari Raya's tomorrow but the atmosphere isn't what it used to be. I guess people now are not so hyped up about Hari Raya eh? Especially those sitting for major exams like PSLE, O and A levels. Me? I'm feeling rather neutral about this whole thing. One thing is for sure; Promos is definitely nearing at the speed of light, I presume. Heh.

Yesterday was quite bad, seriously. During Biology, my head felt like as if it was going to spilt any moment. Throbbing headache = difficult to concentrate. The hot weather just made it worse. The moment I got home, I dropped my back and went to sleep. Then at night, I tried to help out with the house work but apparently, there wasn't much to do so I decided to study. Since there's going to be a Biology test next week and I'm certain I'll not be touching any notes tomorrow and Monday, I might I as well finish studying 3 chapters. Cellular respiration down, photosynthesis ending and then starting of genetics of virus and bacteria plus O and C.

& Selamat Hari Raya to all (:

I swear I am already in the Hari Raya mood. But, somehow for the past few days, time seemed to pass really slowly. Gosh, it is seriously slow compared to when fasting month just began. And in a blink of an eye, we are left with just 3 more days before fasting month ends. I'm also feeling really lethargic out of the late, as if I am completely drained out of energy. Must be working too hard I guess (haha)

Okay, just now GP was strangely okay. Apparently, all of the groups prepared the answer beforehand and for some reason, most of the answers were deemed correct and got accepted by her. So, perhaps that explains why the class wasn't so dead like on Monday. And she returned our essays which we did ages ago and bleah, I flunked it terribly. There's also comprehension test tomorrow and I foresee that I am going to flunk it real bad. Again. Especially at the AQ part.

Gosh, I'm supposed to be studying for Economics test tomorrow. Thank goodness it is on Market Failure.

I'm really, really tired. I don't want anymore of this nonsense.

Just when I thought the term would start on a right note, things just simply didn't go the way it's supposed to be. But still, I managed to concentrate fully during the Mathematics lecture just now. But during GP lesson, things turned complete haywire. Probably during the last period, while going through the Application question. Gosh, I could tell she wasn't in a good mood right from the beginning of the lesson. The facade she had put up was really convincing and she just needed something to trigger the unrest that she was going to cause. Okay, maybe we do have some difficulty explaining and comprehending your question although how simple it may be. And yes, we could probably be the worst class you have ever taken; poor grammar, difficulty in comprehending simple English and what have you but still, you didn't have to blow your top off. At that point of time, I really wanted to leave the class and when we all did, I felt so relieved. The atmosphere in the classroom was really scary. Thank god there isn't any more double GP lessons till the following week. God knows if we could ever survive.

Then, Economics lecture was quite okay I guess. Somehow, I managed to catch bits and pieces of what the lecturer was saying although half of the time I completely blanked out. After lunch was the supposedly Chemistry practical turned Chemistry tutorial which he only go through 2 deductive question. I think Mr Tan is quite a good teacher compared to the other subject tutors. He really make sure all of us understood what he was going through before proceeding to the next question and his explanation is very clear and comprehensive. Thank goodness we got such a teacher, otherwise my Chemistry grade will really be at stake.

PE elective afterwards and by then, I was completely drained. The afternoon heat just make things worse. I was contemplating to be excused from PE but on second thoughts, I didn't. Because I know if I skipped PE, I have to do a make-up for it. Now, who on earth would ever do make-up PE? The moment the bell rung at 5.30PM, I heaved a complete sigh of relief. No more PE elective. BUT, there is this Sports Exposure thing after the Promos and I'm doing Bowling. Peer pressure I guess. But hey, at least I don't have to stand under the heat, which was one of the deciding factor before we came to a consensus. And furthermore, by then I don't have to fast.
Oh, on Tuesday next week, I am going to rush to the Good News Cafe and grab my chocolate croissant which I couldn't eat for a month and seriously miss them.

I heard a super, duper hilarious joke before Chemistry just now. But, I'm not going to share.

Till then.

Okay. I remember saying that I wanted to mug through the holidays. Truth is, I didn't. I only spend 2 days of my holidays studying Biology, the rest of which were my rest days. It's not that I didn't want to study. Just that I feeling slightly lethargic these days. Ramadhan is ending really soon. Gosh, this fasting month is probably the fastest to end compared to previous years. This week is really, really going to be hectic. With schoolwork and preparations for Hari Raya.

Thank god Promos is after the fasting month. I'm not saying the fasting month is bad; I lost weight during this month. If any exams were ever going to be during the fasting month, I'm sure the results will be horribly horrendous. It happened last year during the Prelims, and yes I screwed it up really badly. I could remember mugging for Geography but end up failing it with a D7. Urgh. Those bad memories of Geography, my worst subject ever but yet saved me during O levels. What irony.

And I'm missing secondary school very much.
Even though I had to take 2 Mathematics subjects, it wasn't so bad as taking JC Mathematics now. I swear the whole topic on Differentiation was enough to kill and Maclaurin's Series didn't make sense to me.
Even though Chemistry is getting quite interesting now, it wasn't so difficult than secondary school. I mean, O level Chemistry is damn easy. Yes, it's damn easy compared to now. Questions were so guided then, unlike now. Dang, I shouldn't have thrown my Chemistry papers away.
Even though I'm taking only one Humanities subject now, I think the difficulty level is 10 times than what I used to do; History Elective, Social Studies and Pure Geography. Economics is damn boring lah, I tell you. I regretted taking it.
And even though we had to sit for 4 sections for English then, things were much much easier. General Paper is one hell of a difficult paper. The comprehension is enough to take your brain away. Literally.

But then again, life still has to go on. Why not just let nature takes its course and see how things go. Maybe there's still hope for the future (this sounds like one of the themes from the History textbook) Like the saying goes, God will not help those who does not help themselves. Perhaps, part of what is going to happen is still very much dependent on us.

On a separate note, anybody going to Japan? Because if you do, I need to pass a long shopping list to you. Just kidding. But honestly, I need to go Japan to get as many electone books as possible. If only they could open a store in Singapore and sell them. Then it would make the life of the electone players in Singapore much easier.

Till then, and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri in advance.

In case you haven't heard of it, I screwed up my first ever music exam big time. Seriously. I know I did last minute preparations, but I didn't expect to screw it up so badly. Especially the hearing part, which I will elaborate later. So, while waiting, I was damn nervous about the improvisation. You see, we are given 5 minutes to prepare our improvisation WITHOUT the electone. It was already bad that I was having a slight mental breakdown and I really needed the electone at that point of time. I just prayed that they gave me something very easy and thank god, it was. Somehow, I managed to recall every single method and tried to change wherever it was possible. And just when I thought I could score on improvisation, I screwed it up. But it wasn't so bad lah. Just stepping of wrong pedals because I wasn't used to playing with shoes.

Then, the examiners told me to play Itsumo from Spirited Away. For a while I was like, what the hell is Itsumo? Anyway, I was hoping to play One Love or Omens of Love. But nonetheless, I thought I did okay. I made sure all the dynamics were in place. Arrangements were fine and luckily they asked me to play the longer version which I hoped they would. And then comes the worst part, hearing. I wasn't good at this ever since I took the achievement tests. I swear I wasn't improving despite the attempts to try to recognise the notes. To make things worse, the chords has to be included as well. Damn, I totally blanked out during the hearing. I couldn't distinguish between a D7 and a D, a G7 and a G chord. The only chord I could recognise were the C and G chords. Oh, when the examiner told me it was in G major, for a moment I got it confused with F major. So I forgotten that the G major has got G, G7, D and D7 chords in it.

URGH. Let's wait for the results.

I'm shivering, panicking, shaking, whatever verbs you want to add, because of my music exam today. I didn't know what made me skip Grade 9. The pressure is like damn overwhelming, because I know I have to at least pass. Otherwise, I would let my parents' money go to waste just like that. And I would have wasted Miss C's effort in helping me preparing for my arrangements, doing the sounds, going through improvisation etc. I tell you she's really one good teacher. Gosh, this is worse than getting my O level result. Seriously, no kidding. I mean, it's really difficult to predict what will come out for improvisation and hearing. It's not like the Os, where there's a chance of spotting the right question.

Should I pass, either with merit or distinction or whatever, I'm going to stay on and take my Grade 6 exam before the A levels. And should I fail, I'm still going to stay on and probably skip Grade 7 and move on to Grade 6, or retake again in March next year. Sheesh. If only I could plan for my future like this. But, in fact, I already did.

Yup, let's for the good/bad news.

I presume this would be a long post since I can't find anymore suitable time than now to update. And yes, my September holidays are not holidays. Geez, that always happen ever since 2 years ago. It's just that in upper secondary, we used to have truncated lessons during the holidays but now, it's make-up lectures and tutorials. Apparently, the tutors are trying their best to rush out whatever they've yet to cover before the Promos. Seriously, I feel we're really, really behind time. Take Chemistry for example. Lecture is now somewhere in the middle of Halogen Derivatives but where are we for tutorials? Alcohols. There's still Carbonyl Compounds, Carboxylic Acids tutorials to go through. Gosh, I'm dreading the arrival of Promos.

Speaking of which, the timetable has been given out and I'm quite pleased with exam dates, unlike JCTs. Biology paper first and it's damn nice I tell you. Why? Because on Term 4 Week 2, there's a Biology test which practically covers half of the chapters tested from Promos. From Organisation and Control of Eukaryotic/Prokaryotic Genome all the way to Cellular Respiration. So, I can't find a reason why I should not study for this test because after the test, I just need to study 4 chapters.

SPAs are over and I just have this feeling that I did quite well for them. Maybe because the tutors have been drilling us so much so everything seemed to be quite familiar to us. For Biology, I didn't even bother to complete the whole experiment because writing down the answer is much, much more important. Agreed?

And I went back to TK on Teacher's Day eve. Gosh, the feeling of nostalgia was definitely overwhelming. It was really nice to return to a familiar place that you've spend 4 years in and called 2nd home. Met Mrs Tan, and the whole group of us was complaining to her how difficult Chemistry is now. I even told her how badly I flunked my Chemistry for JCT. Thank god, she understands and she even agrees that Organic Chemistry is interesting. Organic Chemistry FTW (: Talked to Mrs Koh and Mrs Chen. Oh, Mrs Koh says that she misses 4B so much and she even told her current form class about us. Awww. 4B'08 loves you too Mrs Koh. Chatted with Mrs Chen and somehow the conversation turned out be a complaint against Project Work.

I know I have said this many, many times but my music exam is on this coming Tuesday. I'm like panicking like there's no tomorrow because I fear for Improvisation and Hearing. Okay, maybe more of the Hearing part. Why? Because I can't really distinguish the notes from each other and the chords are not that obvious. I'm going to pray for an easy Improvisation and Hearing component. The arrangements and the exam pieces are not much of a problem. Unless Miss C forgets to do the sound for my other arrangement piece. I really, really hope it will go smoothly so that I can take my Grade 6 just before I take my A Levels. But, hey, this is my first music exam. Wish me luck.

Till then.