Yiling
19 happy years
born 1 May 1990
Chongfu Primary
Anderson Secondary
Victoria Junior College :D
Nanyang Technological University

Ohhhhh I am totally enjoying the end of my crappy mid years. JC exams are like totally different from secondary school ones, unlike in secondary school, in JC you kind of do not expect to pass subjects. So far I've cocked up practically everything except for GP (which was only because they set absurdly easy essay topics which have been tested before like 70 times, and I thought the comprehension wasn't that bad lah, but then again I thought that way for my Sec 4 prelims and I got 10.5/25).

Econs was like OMFGSCREWED because I was ill-prepared and didn't remember anything about market characteristics, and of course it just had to come out, and I couldn't remember my EOS shit and what "administrative managerial economies" was so I had to make something up. Come to think of it, I made up most of my answers. It was ridiculous, I had so little to write for all the essays that I finished like 1 hour before the paper was supposed to end, and I looked up and saw Sok Mui who was sitting in front of me with her head on the paper, and I was like "Oh hurrah! I am not the only one" and totally did not bother about my answers and started staring into space. Eventually I did go back and make some more stuff up so that the answers might seem longer, but essentially practically everything is rubbish. It was quite traumatising for me because I have never yet gone into an exam with that "I freaking have no idea what to write" feeling, and that was my virgin experience.

This virgin experience was to be repeated twice, second time during my Lit exam, where we were given 3 essay questions that were 50m each. I progressed reasonably well through the first 2, them being the Great Ex and Owen essays, as I had prepared them, and by the time I was writing the Owen essay I was DRAINED (eh 50m leh! No joke okay, one essay one hour, still must plan and all that shit) and completely not looking forward to the third question, which I had cleverly left to the end as I knew I sucked with unseen poems. So picture me sitting there freezing to death in LT1 and my fingers stiff and unmoving, done with my Owen essay, and reading the Unseen poem Warning to Children by Robert Graves (Here is the poem so that you might try to imagine how I felt when I first read it).

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel -
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says he lives -
he then unties the string.

I think I read the first 10 lines, said shit and went back to reread it, thinking if I concentrated harder I would perhaps glean a deeper understanding of the poem's content. 263725 readings, 30 mins and half a page of absolute nonsense later, I still had (and still have) no idea what the fuck Graves was trying to tell us. Honest. No clue, none whatsoever. I could pick out all the technicalities of the poem and the imagery and stuff, so I wrote about that, but essentially I had no idea what they all COMPLEMENTED so I couldn't expound on the form and structure further, and it all ended up sounding like I was mentally disabled. And the strangest thing was, I was NOT even overly concerned about the fact that I would probably end up failing the essay. I even (briefly) contemplated handing in a blank sheet of paper, but then realised that way they couldn't try to pass me, so I wrote 1 1/2 page of inanity, had time left over to go back and write another paragraph for my Dickens essay, and look at Michelle Yip's (sitting in front of me) question paper on which she had scribbled lots of words by the side of the poem and was on her second piece of paper detailing Graves and his message to the world. By then I was already beyond caring about my own paper and was sneaking looks at other people, who all seemed kind of stuck on the second page of writing for the unseen. That comforted me a little because I was assured of the fact that it was simply Graves who did not know how to communicate normally with human beings and I was not, like, dumb. Audrey later said she realised what Warning to Children meant to us poor clueless JC kids.

Um Math was actually not tough but I was ill-prepared. Like I didn't even remember correctly the AP formula and missed out the + (I was THINKING to myself I KNOW this combination of alphabets and numbers is correct, but there is something weird about it) and so my formula became x and the equation I got was ad = something instead of a + d = something, which resulted in me, when subbing it into my first equation of ad = sth, getting absolutely nothing. 4m leh T_T And I was careless as usual and shit. Blah.

Oooh Geog was miserable but nicely doused with the sweet anticipation of the end of exams so I didn't feel so bad. I wrote quite little for the inselburgs question (because I didn't study the formation of inselburgs -.-) and kind of bluffed my way through some of the essays so I don't know if I'll get exposed as a fraud or something. But I had a lot of time left over, enough to go count how many marks the paper was (102, so weird), and recount again because I thought I had counted wrongly, and then recount again. By then I was already very happy with myself for making it through 3 days of exams and looking forward to enjoying myself so I did not pay much attention to my script! :D:D:D

And then the class went to Thai Express in Siglap for dinner and we had fun debating what to eat (because the food was soooo interesting!) and asking each other what our orders was and putting off the actual ordering until like 30 mins later and when we were starving. We had fun! Xinyun's glass noodles was nice, I shall have that next time I go there :) Oh I didn't throw a fuss about the 9 dollar 12 dollar prices, because since coming back from the UK everything in Singapore is unbelievably cheap to me. The girls on my side of the table (there was 20 of us and like 10 tables lined up together so when someone wants to go out everyone from one side gets up and goes along with her) took pictures and ate each other's food. Justyne kept giving away her gravy because it was really spicy and Michelle Yeong got suaned by Sok Mui because she was lame. Enid and I flirted with each other excessively.

Next day I woke up LATE (9am!!!!) but I vaguely remember waking at like 6am and totally dreading getting up and then realizing OMFG NO SCHOOL WAHAHAHA and going back to sleep. And then I went online and watched the Trick TV Special on Crunchyroll.com (I watched Trick Seasons 1 and 2 during the hols when I was supposed to be studying, that's why you all saw me online so often with the Busy sign), following which I tried Full House starring Rain and Song Hye Goo and the starting was REAAAAAAAALLY good! I watched, like, 6 episodes straight, and couldn't continue because suddenly messages appeared on each vid screen saying Crunchyroll's bandwidth had exceeded for the day. Um, I think I was the cause of that, really. I've never encountered such situations before and the first time I watch dramas for so long, all the bandwidth gets used up. -.- Oh well. Oh back to Full House, like all korean dramas the starting is really good the middle is fantastically draggy and pointless and the ending satisfying. Full House's middle wasn't as bad as the ones which really adhere to this rule of thumb (eg. Winter Sonata, Summer Scent) but it still got quite boring after a while. Like especially towards the end. A little disappointing considering the appealing start. And I got really annoyed by how the stupid dialogue was scripted! Like, for some strange reason when asked a significant question, eg. Is it okay if I fall for your love rival, the characters need to express mild surprise and puzzlement. Example:

Ji-eun: So is it okay if I fall in love with him?
Young-jae: Eh? (What?)
(Ji-eun then is required to ask another question of roughly the same context before Young-jae will answer appropriately)

Young-jae: I've only been gone a few days and already you are scooting random men home!
Ji-eun: Eh? (What?)
(Young-jae then is required to ask another question of roughly the same context before Ji-eun will answer appropriately)

SO ANNOYING! Especially when this repeats like 60 times throughout the 16 episodes and you're like are they STUPID why can't they just answer on the first question?? But I digress.

Friday was SPEECH DAY at Anderson :D Lovely affair. I met up with Faris at NJ at 11.45pm but I was late and I got off at the wrong stop (in front of HCI) and HE was even later than me. I waited until noon before he responded to my calls! Yah well it took him another 15 minutes to get to where I was (during which I had to look awkwardly at other places as NJ people walked past the strange VJ girl walking back and forth under the overhead bridge so far from her familiar area). And Faris couldn't stop bitching on the bus back to AMK and I told him he'd be going to hell, but he didn't seem to care and we carried on anyway (it was fine for me because I am a free-thinker). He was quite worried about his mid years (everyone seems to be flunking them spectacularly, oh joy not just me!) but I told him it was normal. Then I walked him to his MOSQUE (-.-) and then walked back to the mrt station to meet Jia and Tammy, who wasn't supposed to be meeting us but ended up doing so anyway haha. I SAW MAVIS WITH XINRU AND I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE HER. She was smiling amiably at me and I was like thinking "hello do I KNOW her?" and I went up to her and said "Hi, um, you're not from Anderson right" and she was like "WHAT? I sat on the bus with you! I went to school with you!" and I'm like you DID? And she went "I'm MAVIS!" and I'm like OMG REALLY? She was wearing contacts and she'd cut her pretty hair short! Oh golly gee wee! Haha! I totally did not recognize her.

We then met Audrey at the coffeeshop opposite school (POOR GIRL! She had to wait for us for 20mins because she reached like real early) and da bao-ed the chicken rice we always ate before remedial in school or before cca in school or before anything in school. Then when we tried to go into the canteen the security guard told us to go to the coffeeshop and eat because they didn't want us messing up the canteen tables -.- Us, respectable JC students, messing up canteen tables?? Ohhh, the nerve. But we went anyway. Nicky met up with us then (who had no chicken rice because his coach was to supervise his diet as he has track nationals next week haha poor thing!) and we had fun talking nonsense as usual and detailing our horrible mid years (kind of like how I detailed mine above). Nicky told us how he totally pissed a teacher off with his couldn't-care-less attitude about his geog exam! Apparently he went off to the toilet like at the start (without writing anything) and took his own sweet time and when he came back the teacher asked if he was still taking the exam, and he went, shrugging nonchalantly, that "he got choice meh?" WOAH if I were the teacher I would totally have been disillusioned with education and youths. But yah well haha. Jia said she had 54marks of blanks for her math paper (she STILL can pass you know! 46 is still pass :D) and that she totally had time to count them because she didn't know how to do most of the paper. Haha the science kids in general waxed lyrical about their horrible science papers (apparently chem MCQ last part is a killer and nobody actually finishes in time) while Nicky and I bitched about how inselburgs came out for both our papers and none of us studied them (SEE HOW INSGINIFICANT IT IS TO TEENS?).

Back to school we went, met so many of THEM whom I laughed joked played talked with (Wei Ching's hair is more coloured than ever, wth, and I just bet she gets away with it in RJ, as usual, like how she has been getting away with it since Sec 3 -.-) and none of them has really changed much! It was really really really nice. I think we'll never have friends closer to us than our secondary school friends. That period of time, you just make so many of them whom you know you'll still remember maybe 20 years down the road. It's different in JC. Not sure why.

The actual Speech Day was as boring as ever! The ex-Andersonians were really mean and made so much noise during the piano performances (from how loudly and inappropriately Philip and James were talking during then, you'd never have guessed they were both 6 pointers hahaha!), and Mrs Poh, skinny as ever, updated us on the school's progress (liew apparently our L1B5 for Os was 9.6. WTF, that good???) and how some teachers have left (omg Lim Shioh Hwee! Sally Lee! Mrs Lowe RETIRED!) and how some were promoted (LIM KIANG WEE and ALLISON LIM to subject heads of math and bio respectively). Mr Tan Teck Poh, who has all the girls in his classes under a spell, 's picture appeared (like he die already, Jia whispered secretly to me, in case any of the 4/6 4/7 girls heard her and tried to kill her) when Mrs Poh announced his retirement as well (strange I thought he did so in like 2005 or something). Blah blah and something else more. We went from sub-theme 1.1 to sub-theme 4.3 and then it ended! Prize-giving next. All the 6 and 7 pointers with Distinction in English totally zhuan dao as we got 30 dollars' worth of Kinokuniya vouchers! And a nice trophy engraved with Outstanding Performance GCE 'O' Level (to remind you you at least had some former glory if, perhaps in As you end up being less-than-outstanding). Ex-Andersonians were undignified and cat-called/wolf-whistled. Then the representatives from each JC/poly presented their gifts to the school. Us Victorians gave them a cheapo Hi-fi DVD player set. We also stood up to cheer when we presented our gift to further emphasize our image as enthusiastic, spirited students. Sasa and Faris told us to shut up and sit down.

Performances by the various performing arts groups ensued and I was very impressed by the slender, graceful chinese dancers. The chior did good as well with their incredible soul-summoning pieces (haha kidding). But band was definitely not as good as it was during Sasa's time. Drama was just, well, the script was quite bad =x

ENDED and then it was refreshment time. We got wrong info and tried to get food from the "distinguished guests' " buffet line instead of the student buffet line (this guy told us prize winners and simply ex-andersonians are separated, and are to eat separate food -.-). Quite embarrassing. Anyway, food was secondary as we took pictures and talked and then took more pictures after the food was gone, then took jumpshots, and took group photos, and omg so many pictures! Audrey has most of them on her blog. Someone send me the 4/4 class shot, I want it! We discovered Nicky's TJ tie was seriously fugly ("banana and fungi", he declared, drawing it out from his bag), some odd combination of green, light green and yellow. Jia put two pots of flowers on her head and the water spilled out from one and wet her tie and 100+ dollar Crumpler bag. Audrey took pictures for all of us with her shiny black Z6101 or Z1061 or something :D Dev was just being Dev who looks good in 1 out of 20 pictures because for some reason he never manages a normal smile during them.

And we finally left at around 8+ (the day was swelteringly humid and we all felt like crap). Some of us tried to take the 265 but we got dao-ed by the bus uncle who drove of with Dev chasing after him. =x And then Nicky suggested running to the bus stop at the mrt station before the bus got there to say vulgarities to the bus driver, which was funny!!! No wonder they have to put up the ads to stop abusing bus drivers, if it had been some foul-mouthed gangster not us decent JC students the bus uncle confirmed kena attacked can. Dev bought this bottle of (seemingly brandless) root beer "Since 1919" and said he sincerely hoped it didn't mean it was the bottle itself. Which was funny too. Hahaha.

Eventually we split up for home :(

But we've made plans in school to watch the Harry Potter movie when it came out, together :D

You know my sis took the cat to be sterilized a week back, and his balls were all blackish and stuff after that, and yesterday I came home and I realised his balls were gone? Apparently they are to shrivel up and fall off =x There's still some part left, but still. Poor Meow Mee!

Heh will blog about UK/France soon.