Sorry for the long absence.....

....n sorry in advance for the long absence ahead :P

in case anyone hasnt guessed, i had been bz studying like mad for the past week (well, not exactly like mad..u can still c me on9 punctually at 12 every night....but lazy 2 update mar :P)

anyway...whoa....sure has been a long time since i opened the BlogThis! window n sat down to spill my thoughts...so....here's a brief (?) account of my week:

[warning: long post! for best results, take in moderate doses i.e. one section at a time]

to start it off, i bring u the 2nd n final episode of....
24 Hours: To KL And Back - An Unforgettable Journey of Epic Proportions
at about 12.45 we left the bus station...besides kai lin n me, there were several other clhs ppl including chenn yih, chia yong, chern chung n choon yee (notice the 'c's...heh). the bus was quite new, all nice n comfy n big seats, which gave me a (wrong) impression of Gunung Raya as a good bus company...

to cut a long story short, i slept most of the journey, tho b4 dat i did manage to aggravate kai lin by singing to my discman :P

reached pudu raya in kl around 5.30am...all in all, we made rather good time (as compared to yst, at least). we then went hunting for the Old China Town Hotel where the rest of our class was staying....got there, made a racket banging on the walls, then went inside the 'men's room' where samuel, shin jeh, kok wei n tze liang were staying (the 'ladies', choon yi, chee siang, yong shen n suat hui were staying in the other room) where i terus collapsed on the bed dat kok wei n shin jeh so kindly vacated :P actually, they had to go change ticket at the bus station cuz shin jeh had to go home....his parents called 2 say his grandfather passed away last nite...haih...

oh btw, there were comps for use but the exorbitant price (RM3/HALF hr) put us off..

anyway around 7.30, after seeing shin jeh off at the station, we had breakfast porridge at 'chi cheong kai' the infamous kl street where u can get a gun for two dollars n some fine ass for even less. juz kiddin. upon reaching the examination centre, SM Confucian Private, we encountered a LOOONG queue...apparently the japanese embassy staff wasnt as efficient as supposed :P there we met up wif 'half of chung ling' - while dats an exaggeration, there WAS around 50-60 ppl from our sch...making up over 10% of the 400-odd ppl. looking around at the huge crowd, raptor's chick-radar clicked into overdrive but failed to turn up any promising specimens. hehe :P

the tests: to sum it up, disaster.

first off was english, supposedly my strongest subject. wat i din expect was dat japan has long progressed beyond the "All your base are belong to us" level of english n the paper went from being 'ok' to insanely tough...it was in 5 sections n the last, a comprehension passage, was so abstract dat later when i asked yst he concurred dat it made no meaning to him either. probably the critical lack of sleep was affecting me too....wif less than 2 hrs' solid sleep, i cud hardly keep my head off d desk. in fact, true to my style, i took a 'nap' after finishing the paper b4 rousing myself to go thru the paper wif my partially-replenished energy.

next up: maths. prior to the paper, i unleashed my 'secret weapon'...a can of cafe latte nescafe coffee i brought for emergencies :P still, stupidity n lack of practice took the place of sleepiness, n i messed it up....left one whole section (out of 3) blank save for some meaningless scribbles...

chem - even worse. ever since entering f6 my chem had been on the decline (for some reason, i got the highest in form for chem in the 1st test in lower 6...then dropped until 60-something in the last test) n those from my class know who's to blame right? wrong! its my own fault. anyway, even the physical chem parts i had some unsure parts even tho its easy cuz i havent revised...n the organic chem parts were killers! wat made me most guilty was a section concerning isomerism which ah pek has taught but i wasnt paying attention to...

then following that we had a lunch break, my class wanted to visit the bakery of all places so i went wif ming tatt, yst n a few others instead...tried out 'char seow rice' at a coffee shop...it was ok (more than ok at dat time due to our rumbling stomachs :P) but expensive by penang standards - RM4.00 for a small plate barely satisfying my hunger...

2pm - last paper, physics. i suppose i did reasonably well in this, oddly enuf. or mebbe its becuz i had been following the lessons :P at any rate, the paper was challenging but for clhs students its no problemo...anyway it was the only paper i did not swear at the moment i pass it up..hehe

to sum up the tests, apart from english the papers were actually quite easy if u had read thru the whole f6 syllabus. basically if u wan to get the scholarship, i think all u hv to do is read thru the syllabus without needing to go into any chapter in depth like stpm does...but of course if we followed the sch's pace we'll be 'overstudying' certain chapters n 'neglecting' others.

after we finished the tests, we had some time to kill b4 our bus leaves at 5.30pm...so we decided to go separate ways n meet up at the appointed time n place...i went wif yst, yu hee n han yee to the infamous street again....actually, we were headed for popular bookstore. when we got there, we searched thru all 4 storeys of it n found nothing but stationery n chinese books...then baru saw a sign 'advertising' the other popular bookstore 2 blocks away...apparently the english n chinese books were kept in different stores...so off we trooped (bunch of english-worshipping OCBCs we r...)

at the other store we met up wif some of my classmates....after browsing thru their painfully tiny collection of novels (there were only THREE stephen king novels on display...somebody sue them!) i picked up a book on martial arts (hehe) n read it till the other ppl pulled me off to tea/dinner...they figured we'd better fill our stomachs b4 boarding d bus cuz it'll only arrive in pg at 11pm....along the way we stopped outside a ba kua shop (some famous brand but i cant remember) n the pig kai lin dragged me inside to look around...imagine wat DAT did to my growling stomach! n the pig bought a packet summore...damn expensive at RM30-something for 600g....

anyway, after having dinner at mcdonalds, where i discovered the wonders of pepper-laced french fries (oso discovered its much more convenient to apply ketchup to the fries straight from the dispenser, thus bypassing the need for a saucer to hold the ketchup) we headed for the bus station...then apparently a few of the other guys got lost so i headed back wif yst to look for them...along the way i divulged my secrets in the art of toilet-rating....yst listend wif an encouraging interest...hmm, perhaps its time i took an apprentice...anyway, i 'rated' the toilet in a kfc outlet b4 we headed back to the station. oh, b4 i forgot, we passed by an old malay guy wif a guitar outside the station...wif his loudspeaker-enhanced song/chanting n jarring chords he was prob trying to 'sell his talent' as yst put it in chinese, but in reality he was adding to the already negative image of our capital...hehe

after boarding the bus we fooled around taking pics n such, n had a major scramble for the mini-badges dat we bought to distribute to our classmates back in pg....the badges had smiley-faces printed on a flag background...n we each picked 2...

about 2 minutes into the return journey, we realised dat (1) the bus was dangerously close to falling apart, especially at the wheels/suspension; n (2) we hv a nutcase for a driver. along the way out of kl, he cud be heard honking his way thru traffic n shouting obscenities out the window....n believe it or not, he drove straight thru a red light! as if dat wasnt bad enuf he took corners at (relatively) breakneck speeds...breakneck for the bus dat is, which in addition to being already top-heavy, had wheels dat threatened to fly off whenever d driver did his 'stunts'..

fortunately once on the highway things settled down n the rest of the trip passed uneventfully...by unspoken consensus we had 'dinner' consisting of bread n such at around 8.30pm. around 11pm, we pulled into the bus station near pesta....chin kok our ever(over?)-responsible monitor was actually waiting in his car to pick some of us up...so i tumpanged his car to greenlane mcdonalds then my mom picked me up....

n so concludes the Unforgettable Journey of Epic Porportions....


nothing eventful for the week, except i stayed home mon n thu cuz (1) lazy, (2) had to study, (3) raining; so...fast forward to...
Friday: Sardines in Bio Tuition
the early class for tanjong bio tuition has been changed to 2.15pm, so i headed there straight after sch to 'book' seats...when i arrived at 1.45pm there was already quite a crowd....n the stupiak clerk was late n made us all wait outside the building for a good freakin' 20 minutes!

finally at 2.05 she showed up n unlocked the gate n we filed up to the classroom...being gentlemen we clhs guys let the gals go in 1st (well, actually they were bunched up outside the gate so there wasnt much choice) n cuz of the narrow staircase up we cudnt overtake them...so it looked like they were gonna get all the good seats...but suddenly a heroic figure flew up the back staircase which they overlooked n got into the classroom juz in time to book a good row of seats for his fellow brethren...n guess who was that? none other than yours truly :P

so after plonking down my stuff i went out to hv lunch....nasi kandar...imagine my annoyance when i came back n found dat some miserable unfortunate ingrates hv 'displaced' my seat! luckily mona has arrived n i managed to squeeze in beside him. reminder to self: next time, juz get a seat for myself n dun budge from it until support (mona) arrives...

anyway...to clarify the heading above...it was PACKED like a sardine can in the classroom dat day....basically there r 2 classes for this bio tuition n u can choose to go to either one..but the other class is at 6.45-8.15pm - an inconvenient time for most ppl - so about 80% of d ppl preferred to cramp their way into the early class...which makes it about...200? 250? ppl squeezed together closer than sardines....

things took a comical turn when the tuition teacher strode in with a stack of blank white papers...then he started taping them to the whiteboard....rupa-rupanya the projector screen went to the Big Projector Room In The Sky d....then later on, the teacher's speech kept coming out distorted cuz the microphone system went to the Big Audio House In The Sky....so, in his own words: "today the centre everything oso rosak"...

anyway, dats it for friday.


the next day....
Saturday: Maths Mess-up
as implied above, the olympiad maths paper was a damn buggering disaster. there were only 5 questions, 3 compulsory n 2 to choose from, so we hv to do 4 in all....n i only managed to do 2, both of which were so cheap it brings shame to the whole olympad maths standard. in fact, the whole paper was damn easy compared to past years....i remember when i participated in f4, i cudnt answer even a single problem. but anyway, out of the 2 questions i cudnt answer, one of them made use of a simple mathematical relationship which, had i known it, wud hv made the question almost literally kindergarten work...the worst thing was, almost everyone else knew that relationship n hence was able to solve it....in fact from asking around it seems like everyone but me managed to do that questions.....haih.

now one thing doing this olympiad maths had in common wif sitting for the japanese scholarship test was dat in both papers, i did horribly where i shudnt...then finding out later on dat the solution to a particular problem was actually painfully simple had i directed my thoughts in the right way

in conclusion, either i'm intellectually inferior or i simply wasnt working hard enuf to maximise my potential...both of which dun exactly leave me feeling good...


other random stuff....
apparently frequent insomnia has changed my sleep pattern...or rather, reduced my sleep requirement....now dat i'm used (relatively speaking) to sleeping 3-4 hrs a night, i feel much more rested when i get 5 or 6 hrs of sleep on weekends....even tho half a year ago dat amount of sleep wud leave me half-conscious throughout the day...

damn clhs for always fixing exam dates juz b4 holidays! immediately after exams (sat 28/5) there's state tourney....n did i mention i was absent from tkd AGAIN today? dats the 3rd consecutive week i missed training...this time i prob wun even get anything for individual pattern...n immediately after THAT, there's ms. ho's piano concert....its juz my luck dat she decided to hold it in a public place this year (komtar auditorium, come support if u interested! :P) when i m busiest wif exams....i'm playing Brahm's Zwei Rhapsodien which is seriously out of practice...add that to the traditional shaking hands dat accompany public performance n i foresee disaster....

finally *sigh of relief* i discovered dat i've got hooked on powdered drinks lately...on a typical schday i drink a mug of ovaltine b4 sch, a cup of coffee in d afternoon, n another mug of ovaltine (sometimes mixed wif coffee) at night....believe it or not, dats roughly half a mug of powder total...plus sugar....i wonder wats it gonna do to my health in the long term....



[total time spent blogging: 1 hrs, 42 minutes]