Hmm...busy day

I'm screwed. I haven't done my maths e-learning, maths CD WS AD1, WS AD1, Chinese past year O'level paper 2012, research for LA panel discussion, physics assignment and Jap HW. Nevertheless, I'm still going to blog this.

Today I went to Yuan Zhen's concert, or a chinese song writing competition. Yo Yuan Zhen you r awesome!!!!! I don't know if she win any prizes cos me and Jia Yan left before the results are announced. However, I really admire the courage of Yuan Zhen. She is the youngest contestant there (the rest are all university people) and she managed to write a song herself and perform it! And she made it to the top 10! No matter what you get, Yuan Zhen, you have already done very well, and you have my full respect. I can't imagine performing in front of so many people, I can't even imagine entering a competition like that all by myself. Good job, Yuan Zhen!!!

Another thing I want to talk about is this music piece Waltz no. 2 by Shostakovich, a Russian composer.

I don't know if it's due to the black and white picture, or his straight and (slightly) worried face, I always feel a kind of hidden sadness in the waltz. Although it's supposed to be happy (?), I feel that the piece want to tell  us sth, a story. Especially when the long violin part come in, I really feel heart-wrenching. Is this supposed to be what the music is trying to convey? Or is it just me?

I researched the story of this composer, and found out that he was a child prodigy. After he grew up, he became a famous composer but there's this period in his life that he's living under the shadow of Stalin. Some really horrible things were done to his family and close friends. Nonetheless, he managed to escape death. During this period of time, he was like a puppet and had to compose things that suite Stalin's taste. However, deep inside he never wished to do that. As a composer, of course he want to express his music freely. Therefore, there's always some form of rebellion in his music style.

I don't know why, I just feel some unspeakable emotions when I listened to his waltz no. 2, and have to listen to it again and again. I think I may have fallen in love with this piece, and maybe the composer too. My heart wrenched when I hear the long "waltz" part, and I thought of what this composer had encountered. He's a great man.

Newest update 18 Feb 2013: Sorry this is actually supposed to be posted yesterday but my comp auto log-off due to the stupid windows parental control. Okay, so I'm posting this now. And I still have so many work left...T.T

Today's biomedical olympiad

Today's Biomedical Olympiad is hilariously difficult and boring. It's difficult, and it's boring, and it's made hilarious by the awesome me.

Well, most of us didn't study so we just anyhow do the paper. Two hours are given for the paper, and it's given for those who actually studied and mugged their way to this competition and aspired to be a neuroscientist and that sort of thing. Most of us finished the paper, like 1 hour earlier? I was trying to make sense out of the question while I can just hear my classmates randomly flipping through the paper quickly, a clear indication that *insert rage face*. I think they finished even faster like half an hour earlier than me or sth lol.

There are two sections: 50 MCQ questions and 25 short answer questions, while the short answer questions are like a cloze passage where you have to fill in specific neuroscience terms. The cloze passage is really hilarious. It's actually quite serious, about people who suffered from certain diseases etc. The funny part is the imagination where random words just pop up in ur mind and making the whole passage sound nonsensical. On the answer script, I write "random word" the words themselves for all the questions that I don't know. However on the question script itself, I filled in really random words. For example, Mrs Toh has this this symptom, therefore she has swag. There's some hormone that is secreted at coca-cola dispenser. The hormone travels through coca-cola and reduce production of pepsi and sprite. In the pituitary gland narwhals are secreted. Increased production of narwhals cause less (random hormone that I filled in) to be secreted. Another patient Me has this this symptoms, therefore she is most likely suffering from International Biomedical Olympiad 2013. This is caused by the virus IBO 2013.

Anyway, even for the questions I "know", I only write stuff base on my sixth sense, which is unreliable to the degree of negative infinity.

After a while I got really bored. I started drawing on my question script. I drew uhmm angry birds (the red, yellow, blue and green one. They look really ugly, ah my skill of drawing angry birds has deproved),  random nerve cell on the first page, a dog that has been drawn on my table, mad squirrel and nutty heaven with a lot of nuts, 2 weird snails, stuff that's absolutely gay to the max. I also wrote some random philosophical questions (such as why the brain name and study itself),  some cheesy science jokes and pi and avagadro's number and half of the periodic table (no time to finish). It's amazing how many things you can accomplish in one hour with the strong drive of boredom.

I even drew a comic script and the rough idea is as follows:

A chemist and his friend walk into a bar.
Chemist: I would like some H2O.
Friend: I would like some H2O too.
Friend drinks and dies.
Chemist: Idiot!

And some lame jokes:
A neutron walks into a bar.
The bartender says: "For you, no charge!"

Gosh I'm really too bored.

I can't imagine someone actually flipping open my question paper, it is filled with doodles and these crap. And the cloze passage at the end... I'm really afraid that I'll get stomped. The reputation of me and me school was good, until someone stomps a random question script, aaaand it's gone.

Anyway, I flunked this **** and we proceeded to lunch. I saw Si Jin!!!!! I saw her at the LT but we were sitting so far away and I waved to her a few times but the attempts failed terribly. Afterwards I finally managed to talk to her during lunch. Our conversation went like this:

SJ: Long time no see!
Me: Yeah, really long time :) I saw you just now!
SJ: Yeah me too. *a short period of awkward silence* So how's the paper?
Me: Hehe I'm prepared to fail.
SJ: Me too I'm prepared to get zero.
Me: Haha me too. I was like too bored so I started to draw stuff like...uhm angry birds, and narwhals and snails...
SJ: Really o.o I drew things too but I erased them.
*another period of slightly awkward silence*
Si Jin's friend came.
Me: Okay...bye!
SJ: See you!
Me: Bye!

Okay I sound like a socially awkward penguin. After that we never see each other again and I just went home.

But before I went home I was with Celine and we had lunch. Technically, for me it's considered dessert time. Ahhhhhh I couldn't eat!!! I just tightened my braces yesterday T.T. So I watched them finishing the delicious spaghetti with mushroom cream...and broccoli... and fried fillet and roasted chicken...T.T



Then there's this dessert that looks green and suspicious with bits of unknown material floating inside. I tried and it tasted like pandan. Quite a lot of people were queuing for it. When it's my turn (actually I think I cut the queue of some RGS ppl but I don't know they r queuing...sorry) le wild random Indian uncle suddenly cut my queue and he dropped the ladle into the big container of the suspicious-looking dessert. AND HE ASKED ME TO PICK IT UP.

WTH. So I tried to use the plastic spoons provided to scoop the handle out. I managed to get it out. Then the uncle used the ladle to scoop some for himself and he passed it to me. Then another wild usher came and tell the uncle that he should let the contestants take our servings first O.O Who's that random uncle???

Anyway, I really didn't want to touch the handle, but I have to. So I did. Afterwards, I took some tissue from the food table, wiped my hands and passed to the RGS girl to wipe the handle.

Afterwards when I was queuing for the drink which is very near to the dessert. The same thing happened. The girl was like "OMG I'm so sorry!" and I'm like *put on sunglasses* calmly saying "It's okay it happened before." Then I used the spoon to take out the ladle again. This time I just took a whole packet of tissue and place it on that table, then I took some tissue and wiped the ladle. I think the person may thought I cut her queue (another person). But I just briefly wiped the ladle and left. (and in the process I dropped it AGAIN) Then I spotted that there's two ladles in the soup like thing. O.O Okay now I seriously doubt the level of hygiene of that dessert, since so many people touched the ladle and the ladle dropped like don't know how many times...

Okay so that's the whole story of today's biomedical olympiad. Oh and Yung Shan spotted like 4 HCI chem olympiad people. Awkwaaaaard...

Okay that's all. Sorry for being long winded ^_^

I give up...

I give up on studying neuroscience, for biomedical olympiad tmr.

Yeah, I should have started earlier, whatever.

Anyway, firstly, the questions posed are really difficult, and according to a blog I saw, it doesn't matter if you actually studied really hard, because the words in the questions are unrecognisable and everybody was guessing.

Secondly, I asked a lot of classmates who seemed *cough cough* to not have studied a lot for the olympiad, challenge, whatever you call it. Some of them just read the textbook. We, as nygh people, really have no time. Who would go and study for an olympiad when you have so many pressing homework already?

Thirdly, the teachers also did not provide a lot of help. They only put up a few websites (like 2). The suggested references posed by the olympiad community are also not to be found in our school library. The teachers always say vague things like you need to read up a lot, read the terminology etc but where????? I just feel very confused and it is really too tiring for me to look up a lot of websites and absorb all the infos present. Also according to my classmate her friend from other school received a thick stack of notes from their teachers. I guess our school just don't value this competition as much.

So, I give up. I'm not even clear on the basic concepts. Now I suddenly remembered some muggers from 401 who was reading up on it with their phone during GCP. Errr I just don't have the passion! I use to have it, but I'm so stressed up now. Who talks about passion when you have so much stress piling up? (The competition is tmr and my comp is logging itself out in 2 min!!!!!)

Screw this. I kind of totally regret signing up for it, and I'm depriving another person of her chance.

Dat feeling...when you just don't know to go to the left or the right (or up or down or front or back)

Hehe, I'm posting so frequently now.

I shall start with a sharing of 2 pieces of classical music. Both by Liszt. Just listened to them (and is still listening now :)

Does the first one remind you of Tom and Jerry? :D

Okay. So now I'm again facing a dilemma (after the previous post "a dilemma"). This time, it's about my GCP trip. OMG I WANT TO GO TO SO MANY OF THEM!!! Cough cough, anyway, a lot of them are very appealing and I really really want to go.

There was a briefing earlier on about the silicon valley trip to US and the maths and science trip to US and I thought they are the same thing, until when the e-fair came out today. So, my first dilemma: to go to silicon valley or maths and science.

Both is to US. Both is about science and technology. If you go for silicon valley trip, you get to go Google. If you go for maths and science, you get to go NASA. Both are equally awesome.

Second dilemma: To go overseas or stay local.

To go overseas, of course is to go US, either the SV or MS.

To stay local, there's a couple of interesting programmes for us. Attachment to A*Star!!!!!!!!! OMG chem chem chem chem chem. And synthesizing new substances!!!

There is also physics programme. Nope not going to consider bio. Physics is more like a workshop. (some may notice my change of tone here, not going to tell you why). You also get to do cool stuff, and there are courses on programming and microscopy. It's also quite interesting, and mainly because of 91414531. (This is a code you will never be able to decode. Even if you are a genius and manage to decode you still won't know what it means. :)

However, since my parents already granted my $2000 loan which is going to be paid by my future salary (T.T), I still prefer going overseas (although the local programmes are pretty awesome as well). Going to US is a rare opportunity. Going to google or nasa is an even rarer opportunity. Opportunity is to be cherished. Therefore, dilemma#2 solved.

Let me discuss with my parents, although they may give undesirable suggestions. (But if I ever have a will to go against them my dilemma is solved, and if not I just follow what my parents suggest :D I'm such a genius.)

Okay. Now I have bio quiz to study and plenty of other homeworks. Time to go for dinner too. Bye :D

dizzy like never before

Today is a busy and slightly depressing day. We had 2 quizzes and one graded compo that must be completed on the day itself. I also had AMC. Totally flunked it. It was till 30-40 min passed that I realised I never flip the booklet open properly and I missed out a lot a lot of questions (like half of the questions). No wonder the questions are like so hard (cos I did the end part). So I quickly chiong but at that time my brainpower is all summoned to tackle the die hard questions and had died. I was feeling ultra dizzy, like I could easily fall out of my chair if I swing my head too much. The feeling is horrible, and it continued till now. My head feel like stone, and is supported by my vulnerable neck. Urghh I can support my head anymore, it's going to drop...it's going to explode!!!

So in the end I also cannot do the easy problems properly. Never mind, I'm expecting my participation cert now.

Conclusion: Never attend these kind of thing again. You pay $8 dollar to suffer and make your head explode. Hmm...

Updates on life

My life has became more and more depressing now...

I was late twice, in 2 weeks. I feel bad, and angry and frustrated.

I forgot to hand in my physics as 11.1 today, although I have done it

I forgot to DO my chem spa skill 3. Which is really really bad. Out of all things, why WHY  why did I forget to do my chem hw?????

I feel like a really sloppy student whose life is in the process of degradation.

This. must. stop. NOW.

I have AMC tmr, 2 quizzes and one time trial.

I have not studied for any of them. This made me feel really really bad. :(

And I'm still here. Writing this.

Also recently our smp is kind of a fail. We ended up in phase 3.

Anyway the SMP community is also fail. Their website still link to the application for phase 2. It's either they don't put in effort cos they think it's not very impt, or they have also given up hope for us, the phase 3 grp.

I'm really blue.

More updates:

-Liow is getting more and more weird. She tied up her hair today, first witnessed in the course of my 4 years in ny. She is also very angry today and scolded her class.
-I'm hooked to 2 pieces of music.
First is waltz no. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich. It's really really awesome, and elegant.

Followed by Do you hear the people sing in Les Miserable.

The 2 pieces of music are just stuck in my head. :)

-Determination to study for biomedics olympiad, do finish notes for respiration, and get a new bio notebook to insert notes for sec 4 bio topics.
-I'm now in this very feverish, dreamy mode. I often wonder about things that may never happen to me.
-Okay I really love the 2 pieces of music

Now I feel better. A smiley given. :)

I hope, that life will get better and better, and I will have more times when I feel really happy without knowing why.
These are real happiness.