Change of perspective

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so people say.
Just as quickly as the oppressive mood hit yesterday, a new wave of determination (to some extent) took over today. True, there are tons of things to do but i'm trying my very best to not let it get to me.

One could say it's cognitive re-framing.
Or one could also say i'm simply choosing to ignore the fact that i've got 12 chapters of CSC, 8 chapters of Psycho and 7 chapters of Calculus to revise in 3 days + SAT 2 subjects to study. And that is denial kicking in.

Hahahaha.

I realize that little little things can often make me happy again.
Like the much anticipated plan for a food escapade down in the city after finals. Having friends who enjoy food as much as i do does wonders for my spirits. =D
And moments on the phone when i can be cheeky, kiddy and totally relaxed. Thank you.
And noticing that there's an AUP lecturer (teaching accounts, i think) by the name of Kiranjeet Kaur. Haha!
And realizing that it's the end of semester 1! Hello Penang, goodbye jungle.

There has been a dry spell of pictures for quite a while. So here are some not-so-recent ones to provide a respite from the usual routine.

The horror!!!!

The good ol' days. I still think we should've beaten the Saints boys. Hmph.
=P

High school
vs.
Out of high school

(Sorry Lynn, I don't seem to have a high school picture of the 5 of us..)


On an end note, SAT Maths Level 2 is no walk in the park.
ps-Did anyone notice that Lynn was holding Joanne's finger in the 2nd picture? A bit odd. Hahaha.
pps-I am NOT a High School Musical fan. Period.

Drained

Starting to feel physically and mentally drained from all the work that's slowly but surely piling up. It's like running a hurdle race where the hurdles seem to stretch on to infinitely. I just stumbled (and possibly toppled it in the process) my way across one hurdle today - the final Psycho class quiz.

The distance between each obstacle seem to grow shorter and shorter until there's barely time for me to catch my breath, much less prepare for them. In 5 days, there's going to finals..which at the moment, i'm ill prepared for. And halfway through finals, there's SAT 2. Yeah yeah, it'll be all play and no work once i'm back home. NOT. There's uni applications to fill in, essays that say "choose me! i'm suitable for your prestigious uni!" to concoct, recommendation letters to obtain, more confusing forms to fill in, transcripts to send, proof-reading and editing of the essays (reminds me of the good ol ed-board days), aliasing with Inti and MGS teachers/personel..Much of which, i'm still rather blur with. Sure, there has been much help from briefings, friends and online sources but still. After reading the walkthroughs and what-nots, i come out half as dazed as before. =S

The essays are what worry me the most. They all require me to write about how i'm supposed to be suitable for the uni, how i can contribute to the uni, how special and different i am from the pool of 30 000 + (super smart and accomplished) applicants and most improtantly the essays need to leap off the page. I kinda wish i had some amazingly spectacular life event akin to that of the main character in the movie, 21. Though i wouldn't wanna get beat up. Haha.

Seriously.

Do we all need to lead a double life counting cards (and win $$$ in Las Vegas) during the weekends and going to classes during the week, get caught and lose everything and get beat up just to impress the people scrutinizing our essays? I'm not so sure about what i have that can make a difference in those universities. My mediocre credentials are very unlikely to impress as compared to International Olympiad winners, world-class athletes..and all those ho-liau people out there. So, it has to be the stuff inside me. My ideals, my visions, my traits, my flairs...stuff (or fluff) that other people are missing. Which i'm not sure what those are. And which i have not had the time to think about. Yet.

Sigh.

Will go play Word Challenge for now.
And maybe think hapee thoughts.
Like haagen dazs.
And baby Ryan's birthday.
And seeing friends.
And glorious Penang food.

Done deal

The results are in.
For the SAT Reasoning test i mean.
Weellllll.
I got an okay score..Though it's nothing to shout about.
And it's so much less than what i got for the mock SAT test prepared by Inti.

Makes me feel a bit not so bright..but hey, the psycho book says that SAT tests have been criticized for not really predicting a person's aptitude in college. It's only MODERATELY correlated. So, a person COULD do not so well in SAT and yet be fantastically good in uni. =P

Hah.

So there.

The universities need to know this fact. =P

Annnnndddddd,

MGS Review 2009 is out.
Got my face inside wan.
Wheeee!
Hahaha.

I'll see it. Soon.
=)

=(

Will only get to enrol for next semester on next Tuesday.
All the slots this week are full..
Don't even know if the subjects and time slots will be available by then.
*cries*

Decisions

Decisions, decisions, decisions.
What to take as an elective next semester. I'm definitely taking 3 pre-major subjects (Calculus 2, General Physics 1 and General Chemistry 1) but the confusion comes when deciding on my electives.

These are the electives i have to complete:

2 Social Sciences (PSY105/ SOC103
2 Humanities (HIS251/ HIS252/REL200)
2 Computing (CSC202)
1 Communication (COM110/ COM211)
1 Fine Arts (ART 105)

This semester, i've already done one social science (Psycho) and one computing (CSC) and i'm definitely not taking another Psycho or CSC class. Don't wanna anaylze human perceptions or computing technologies anymore. Who wants to know what S-HTTP, TCP/TP, WiMax and all that stands for anyway? Or what metacognition, Freudian theories, Gestalt psychology means? Not me. (I suppose that makes me shallow..=P)

And i'm definitely leaving Fine Arts to be done in US. I don't wanna waste my Fine Arts elective on something boring like Music Aprreciation/ Music Theory when i can do theater/drama/more fun stuff in US.

So, the plan now is either to take Econs or US History..Leaning more towards Econs though. Maybe US History in the second semester.

The plus point here is that i'm exempted from both MPW subjects so i got more free time. =D =D =D and i'm better equipped for SAT Chemistry and Physics subject tests. Thank you, Disted. So you see, going to school for 6 months wasn't such a waste.

On another note, FINALS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 AND SO IS SAT 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Final draft for the final exam timetable is not out yet..but there's a 99.9% probabilty that Psycho and Calculus will be on the same day. And that would be the Friday before the November SAT 2 paper which so happens to be on Saturday.
Crazeee.

*bangs head*

Why?

...

Panic At The Disco Hostel Room

It just dawned on me that Inti expects to see great achievements from our class. Since our class was the only one to fully have scores above 1800 for the SAT mock, the head honchos(including Dr. Lim) definitely want to see good scores for our real SAT 1 and SAT 2 test. Not to mention they probably want to see MOST, if not all of us flying off to Ivies/Ivy Standard unis.
*gulp*

Ok, sleep first.
Work tomorrow.

=P

ENL 101 (7B) July 2008

Before the Raya holidays, the fourteen of us from ENL 101 Section 7B came up with some ideas to put together something special for our US trained professor.Thanks to Jie Min who managed to get the shirts done within one week. And thanks to Crystal for her forsight and saving us the trouble of doing another 'assignment' today. =D Plus, our litttle compilations is so much nicer than just writing on plain white paper. Heee.

So after we all came back from the Raya break, we rushed to get everything ready. Including taking several shots like

This

and this

All in all, we manged to catch Dr. Lim by surprise today. We gave him our 'project' which was actually a compilation of our personal thoughts and expressions for him, we sang him a song, we each got a hug from Dr Lim, we listened to his wisdom words for one last lesson and...

How can anything be complete without pictures?

Our pre-Raya stroke of inpiration successfully presented.

The orchestrators.

The real person himself and his name.

There're still more photos but we've yet to synchronize all of it into an album or something. Heh.

Like Crystal said, ENL was the only class where we knew each classmate by name (in full!) and the only class where we could interact openly. Come to think of it, Dr. Lim was the linchpin of the class. In the early weeks, our constant fear of being scolded for not following his instructions fueled our cooperation with each other. We compared and discussed assignments to make sure everyone did the same thing (so if we 'die', we 'die' together. XD)

Soon after, the bonding and everything seemed to come naturally. There was this gradual development of mellowness in class (which i think affected our professor too) and often, all of us would leave class feeling happy. Hungry but happy. We didn't really bother with how late Dr. Lim's classes would end cause usually he has so much wisdom to impart on us. After class, we'd often hang around a bit more just to listen to him talk about life experiences, US culture and stuff.

Today, he told us that he treats each and everyone of his students like his children. And he wants all of us to work hard and get on the Dean's List or President's List. Then, he'll come witness us going up on stage. So sweet right. =)

Good thing i never switched to some other class at the start of the semester. It's been such a great deal of fun knowing these bunch of classmates and lecturer for these 2+ months. If i were to be given a chance to do everything again, i wouldn't change anything..except mebbe my first Class Assessment scores. =P

Thank you, everyone.
Viva la ENL 101 (7B)!

Haha.

Conditioned Taste Aversion

There's this term that i learnt in Psychology called 'conditioned taste aversion' (signs of Psycho taking over my brain?). It happens when something you ate made you sick and you become revolted by the particular food. Which was what happened on Monday night. I had economy rice (from the china stall in the cafeteria) for lunch and by night time, the lunch threw a ruckus in my stomach.

Diarrhea + vomit reflex = sleepless night

Throughout the entire night, images of my lunch kept replaying in my head. The more i tried to not think of it, the more persistent the image was. And the more the image played out in my mind, the more i felt like vomiting. 5 times of diarrhea and countless times of vomit reflex without the stuff coming out is so not fun. The worst part was when my stomach muscles contracted so hard, trying to push out food from my esophagus but nothing came out.

Went to see a doctor the next morning and subsequently lost RM 40 from the recently received allowance, just for him to confirm that it was food poisoning. Bah. Missed Psycho class (which i didn't mind one bit) and ENL(Prof. Lim showed a slide show of his time in US ok!).

Now there's assignments and tests piling up like a mountain. Am starting to wonder if it was wise for me to sign up for the November SAT 2.

I want free stuff also!

High Fashion Handbags Without The High Price.

Seems like a pretty good deal to me. =)

HANDBAG PLANET

Handbag Planet is almost here. To celebrate the October 15, 2008 launch, we are giving away a free handbag every hour for 24 hours on the day of the launch. Our high fashion, trendy handbags are inspired by popular designer brands and priced between $30 and $80.

After signing-up in one easy step below, you can select the handbag you would like to win. There's absolutely no catch - this means no shipping/handling fees or credit card required. Yes, it's really that simple!

24 handbags in 24 hours!!!

HOW CAN YOU SAY NO??

$$$

I GOT MY ALLOWANCE!!!!!!

YAAAYYYYY! =D =D =D
No more sad pathetic state of scrimping and saving. Can go shopping!! =P Kidding kidding. Not like i'm going to waste away 6 months worth of tax payers' money. I can be miserly when i want to. XD

Felt so over-elated when i saw the sum displayed on the Automated Teller Machine (ahahahaha..effects of csc) screen. I bet fellow sufferers feel the joy too. =D Mum and dad are now officially free of paying for my expenses..except when i'm back in Penang. Heee.

O yeah, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARREN!
Though i doubt he reads blogs..much less mine.

Oooh yes, that's Darren/Kia Haow. Credits to JyoLyn for the picture. =)
Yes, he's wearing some 70-ies style spectacles. Without the lenses. Only guy i know who likes dressing up and going shopping for clothes. Hahaa.

An interesting fellow he is.

Sigmund Freud

I dreamt that one of our juniors showed me the front cover of MGS REVIEW 2008.
Does this signify that i miss Pn. Leong?
O.O i hope not.

Anyway, i miss those days huddled in front of the computers in the hot and stuffy AVA room. Was exhausting editing and reprinting stuff but it was fun nevertheless. Goodness knows how many stacks of A4 paper we wasted reprinting because of slight errors and perfectionism kicking into overdrive. And those agama insights that we garnered whenever there were Agama Islam classes conducted in the AVA room. XD Now if only the school was bigger, then ed board can be upgraded to at least a proper room instead of computers mounted on..a row of shelves? That's how sad our ed board is.

On another note, i wonder how the ed boarders fared with Mama Leong this year. =P
The magazine should be out soon. I mau tengok!