Do Not Fear To Be Eccentric In Opinion, For Every Opinion Now Accepted Was Once Eccentric.

Yes welcome back my public. Been off the grid for three weeks now, no thanks to the trials we've been having. Feel pretty confident in Chemistry, definitely screwing up my Add Maths. And our last exams (Biology Paper 3 and EST 1) is to be postponed until after the Raya hols.

Which explains why I'm here blogging. Not that trials didn't hold much excitement (yeah, right) for us. Shall I elaborate?

The date was 15 September 2009, aka Tuesday. We had our Chemistry and Physics Paper 3. Chem was fantastic. But Physics was more panicky than usual since our teacher didn't offer any tips whatsoever and everyone from Mr Yeoh's tuition class were scrambling for notes to read.

Paper 3 was experiment-based, which means they give you two structural questions regarding several experiments and you have to fill the blanks. That was the easy bit. Then the last section was the bit where they gave you a situation, and you had to contruct your own experiment based on what little clues they gave you. And it was this experiment-constructing bit that had everyone cursing to the bone. It didn't help matters that Nicholas Leong, Melinda and some others were busy debating the whole Kanye West-Taylor Swift incident.

So we frantically read through all of Mr Yeoh's notes. Then the bell rang and the teacher came in. So out goes the notes and our last chance at scraping some marks. Dunno if you guys overseas (that's you Shar) do this as well, but even though we're at our places and while the teacher's preparing to give out the papers, we still throw questions throughout the class just to confirm/get some last minute information our brains force us to think about.

Seating arrangements were as thus: seven tables (vertically) by six tables (horizontally). Originally this meant that I'd be sitting at the very back instead of the second last place, but Xian Yao who'd always sat the last seat, second row from the left wanted to keep his place so he got his way. That means he's the last in the second row. Erina was on his right, and I was in front of Erina. Ben was on Erina's right and Gerald was in front of him, making Gerald my right.

The moment the teacher (who was walking around passing papers) gave Xian Yao his Physics test paper, he flipped to the back and checked out the experiment questions. And he started laughing. Erina and I saw what was on the paper and the three of us started laughing hysterically.

You know why?

One of the questions that came out was the one we'd read about. It was especially a miracle for Erina, who'd came back from recess with Candice when she suddenly flipped her notes open, right at that very page with that very experiment, and she said, 'Let's study Physics.'

And then the next day for Modern Maths (abbreviated Mod Maths) we were doing the test when a bat flew in. See my class is the last one on the top floor, and we've been getting visits from bats and moths (Angsana class had a bat that flew into the fan and got its wings torn or something). Last couple of weeks before the exam, a bat flew in when we were studying and Xian Yao was like, 'Look! It's Edward Cullen!'

If you don't get the reference then you're obviously not from this planet we call Earth.

So half way through the Mod Maths test Edward Cullen flew in. And Xian Yao (never one to talk quietly--even his whispers are loud--sometimes wonder are the teachers really deaf or what) whispered to us, 'Did you see Edward Cullen?'

And that wasn't even the highlight. Thursday we came in and Erina noticed some brown balls of stuff on her table. Predictably she went Eww and immediately demanded to know what they were. Xian Yao helpfully suggested that they were bat poo and Erina shrank back in disgust, followed by more exclaimations of Eww.

I began to poke fun at her. 'Maybe it was left by Edward Cullen (the bat).'

Erina glared at me. Xian Yao caught on. 'Yalor. So you mustn't wipe it away.'

Then I couldn't resist adding, 'Just take it as a present from Edward Cullen himself.'

Ok that's all for exams. I am now downloading songs and games, and I seriously encourage you to listen to Alexz Johnson's Deeper and I Still Love You. They are seriously ncie songs and I managed to get Gerald to listen to them.

So I was bored and was tagged via Facebook by Xin Wei where we type in 10 names and click on the question generator and answer the questions. The first one I got was, 'How would Louise insult Erina?'

I asked and she didn't bother answering.

Then third question was, What would Timothy not caught dead in? Lou was laughing at that one.

Some other nice ones were What would happen if you could read David's private diary? But this is the best because it takes the mickey out of two of my guy friends.

Nicholas (Kok) and Gerald are forced to roleplay out a verbal couple fight. Who gets to play the wife?

I seriously burst out laughing at this and after much consideration, I chose Nicholas. Hmm, maybe I should post it on Facebook.

Honestly this generator asks all the stupid questions. Once I put my cousins's (Julaine, Emma and Praise) names and my sister's (Chary) in and I got this two questions:

How would you feel about some Julaine and Emma action?

I could've spat out my drink. If I had been drinking.

And then...

How about Praise and Chary?

I was like, Shit. What's this guy's problem?

But it's addictive. So I do it again just to see what kind of questions I'd get.

1. Lou got turned into an animal. What animal is it? ~Something unique but spicy. Maybe something like a killer whale. Or a tiger. Or an eagle.
2. Super fun fun adventure amusement park marathon with you, Timothy and Louise! How will it go? ~Hysterically. We probably can't decide where to go first.
3. Who is Gerald's best friend? ~ Dunno. Darrel, maybe? One of the guys from BR class.
4. Chiau Hui suddenly knows all your secrets. What do you have to say about that? ~The same one I got for the Ben question. I'll give the same answer: only that now they know why I've become what I am.
5. What musical instrument would Chary most likely play? ~ She already plays one: piano, just quitted it ages ago.
6. Would you love to read Praise's very personal diary? ~ Considering that she is 12 years old, I doubt there would be much to interest me. Unless she's writing about a boy...then I might be interested. Cue evil smirks and maniacal laughs.

Then I got bored cause they were repeating the questions. Anyway, I'm off to play a couple of games before dinner. Like Lou coined,

Fare thee well, comrades, conspirators and calculators! May the pi be with you!

(All Add Maths references, in case you didn't know. The only subject I truly hated. Seriously, this test results will prove I'm not fit to be an Add Mathematician.)

Cheers.

Hope Is Tomorrow's Veneer Over Today's Disappointment.

Disappointment.

It's the worst feeling in the world. It makes you doub yourself, makes you question everything you ever did. It eats you from the inside, a stab so painful nothing will ever fix it. It is, essentially, the emotional equivalent of acid.

Being disappointed is bad enough.

Knowing you are the source of disappointment adds insult to the injury.

Remember, disappointment kills.

So study hard.

Okay. Blog will be on temporary hiatus till my trials end on the 18 of September. The above refers to an incident in Chem tuition today.

We were given Paper 1 to do. I got 76 %, which I thought was good but not good enough. It annoyed me that Timmy got higher than I did, and I was slightly pissed that I made so many careless mistakes.

But the clincher was, Mrs Foo asked for my marks, and when I told her, she just said one sentence:

"I expected better from you."

It stung, really, because I consider Chemistry to be my best subject, and I love it. It hurt that I had so many careless mistakes and I didn't trust my gut. But worse of all, she was right.

And that hurt the most.

P.S. Anyone has a copy of T.H. White's The Once and Future King? It's an Arthurian legend book. Really like to read it.

Chemistry Is Just Like Cooking, Just With A Lot Less Tasting and A Lot More Explosives.

The first week in Chemistry class, you're required to memorise the electrochemical series. The teacher makes you memorise it, memorise until you've got everything down to boot. Where is Carbon? Above Zinc, below Aluminium. Where is Copper? Above Mercury, below Lead.

After that you're required to memorise the first twenty elements in the Periodic table. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium so on and so forth. You have to memorise it, or so the teacher says. It's important for you to know.

Then you're again required to memorise the colours of metals. Gold is yellow, not gold, and the others are either brown or grey. Three colours only. Basic. Very basic.

So it should stand to reason that we'd remember this, especially now, what with our trials so near. Yet we could still make the same mistake.

Mrs. Foo was writing on the board in tuition today. She drew 3 test tubes, A, B, and C. Reading out the question as she wrote. Metal L displaced silver from silver nitrate solution in test tube A. Metal M displaced silver from AgNO3 in test tube B. Metal M could not displace L from L ion solution in test tube C. Write out the order of metals by increasing electropositivity.

So she wrote out the equation on the board.

L + AgNO3 ----> LNO3 + Ag

And started explaining at the same time.

'So if L displaces silver from AgNo3, it becomes LNO3, right?'

Furious nods throughout the room. Well, furious nods on my part, mostly. Everyone else was just so vanilla.

'And you get LNO3 and silver comes out.'

Now here's the real clincher.

'What colour is silver?'

Forgetting everything our Chemistry teacher drilled into our heads back in Form 4, Elaine, Montri and I said in unison. 'SILVER!'

Mrs. Foo looked at us, smiled and said, 'No, it's grey.'

Somehow, it was just plain hilarious.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade. And Poison It.

Bit of a lazy day. Started off decorating the class. Then got bored halfway and did bits and pieces of Chem and Add Maths and Mod Maths. Continued this way till BM where Pn Maziana gave us some study guides and wished us good luck. Recess. After recess we had Sejarah. Bought a Sejarah answer book for RM 4 from Pn Nur Azlina. The whole class was clamouring to buy it. Then we started arranging the tables even though we're supposed to do so during last period. But what the heck, everyone was doing it. Peer pressure, no?

Saw the Merdeka decorations judges from the window. Jit Sun commented how some Form 4 class was so bersemangated they wore cheongsam and whatnot. So Gerald, Rin and I rushed to the window where Sun was perched on the table and we all peered down. So Rin said casually that we should do something like that as well. Sun cheekily answered that Rin could strip for them--she had the curves, and some.

The judges came in. Bit disappointed, really that they didn't really scrutinise the class as we would like. Most likely glanced over the Unity poster Phei Fang and Eng Hoe collaborated over. But never mind. It's done with.

Sat at my table. Now I'm at the very back of the class. A bit annoyed, really, cause I'm so far from the board. But Rin was sitting next to me, and we started gossiping, and Gerald, Sun, Xin, Kee Wei, Eng Hoe (from now on will call him Chris) came around. Benjamin from Dahlia I think came as well and we started yakking. At one point Erina and Jennifer were mock-kissing each other until Benjamin whacked Jen's back, pushing her forward. He didn't succeed though; they only bumped noses. So I've come to love the place. Gerald's just two seats down from Erina and Elaine in front of me, so I'm quite protected. XD.

But the real fun starts at home.

Came home today. Sis was complaining of unwellness so Dad took her to the same clinic I went to before. Came back with report of high fever and sore throat but not the influenza thank God. She had to have 2 fever pills 4 times a day, a sore throat pill and antibodies. The thing is, she can't swallow pills.

So Dad obligingly uses the knife and chops them into little bits before he left for work. I stayed at the table watching my sis eat her meds. She took one, swallowed a glug of water, and promptly spat the whole thing out, water and all. Made a mess on the dining table. I was laughing too hard to breathe. Does the same thing with a small chunk of antibiotic pill. Spat it out five times. You know how you'd onyl take a minimal amount of water to swallow your pills? It took her three full glasses.

So she slept the whole afternoon while I cleared out my file and bookshelf. Was eating tapioca chips to stave away the hunger pangs. Then we had dinner together, and when I told Dad the troubles Sis had swallowing pills, Dad nodded solemnly. 'Do you want me to make the mango ice?' Dad used to blend mango, sirup water and ice together to make some sort of smoothie. Idea was to blend in Sis's meds with the smoothie so she could just eat the whole thing like ice-cream. Sis agreed while I washed out.

In minutes Dad was slicing the mango and cleaning the blender while Sis took out the meds she was required to take. Dad chucked everything inside and we watched as the blender crushed the white and pink pills to bits. Then Dad chucked in the mango, and added some water and ice. He'd omitted the sirup since it had to be made from scratch and he couldn't be bothered.

So when it was ready, Dad poured it out and went and prepared some more mangoes as dessert for me and him while Sis took the cup and sat down at the table with a spoon. She sniffed at it, then took the whole spoon in her mouth and promptly pulled a face of disgust. She stuck out her tongue and announced that it was too bitter. So I went on explaining my rate of reaction theory: When the pill was its original size, it was bitter on the outside 'cause that is the total surface area. But when you crush it, it becomes smaller, total surface area becomes bigger, therefore it is more bitter. All said with a smile, of course.

Sis gave me a look that I will translate as, 'Very funny and go die.' to put it crudely. She kept on pulling a face as she took spoonfuls of it and had to eat some of the mangoes and a Sunkist sweet after.

Told her it was so funny I'd blog about it. Only minutes ago, she'd stuck her head from the door, took one look at the laptop and arched an eyebrow.

'Are you seriously blogging about it?'

I nodded yeah. Her eyebrow was raised further.

'I thought you were joking.'

To Err Is Human, But It Feels Divine

Attention attention! Here ye here ye.

Unfortunately I have made a mistake regarding the "Louise Making Her Teacher Cry" Issue. It appears to be the work of an irreponsible Form 4 instead of our beloved friend.

This formal apology is hoped to have satisfied our beloved and wrongly accused CHS-ian who says, and I quote, 'You make me sound so Evil!'

Copyrights apply.

You're Nice and Helpful, and People Take Advantage of That

Okay, not much to talk about. Wrecked my head trying to bloody figure out what the hell was Earth as a Sphere. Felt like giving up.

Uh, double Mod Maths we were...actually I have no idea what we were doing. Then it was double Bio and we went down to the lab. Love the Bio Lab. Brings back so many unforgettable moments. Remembered once when Pn Cheung was talking about the female reproductive system or something and the guys were all "excited" at the whole thing. Then someone started singing, 'I can show you the world...'

Cue hilarious moment.

I'm So Sadistic I Laugh When You Cry

Lou was talking about how she made her teacher cry so I've got one as well. :) Pn Cheong was going through Biology again since she finished the syllabus on Saturday and only 8 out of 41 were present, me included, the only girl. Don't laugh at our attendance. Ixora class only had two.

So crap started in Bio where she went through Variation. There's a bit in the Success reference book where it talks about the grey-coloured moth and the dark-coloured moth, some thingamajig like that. She was talking about it when she suddenly said, 'You all know what a moth is? It turns into a butterfly.'

The whole class were so taken aback (yes, even the sub-science classes; so few attendance meant we'd have to combine classes and so they followed our schedule) that we all shout out, in unison, no hesitation, with one voice: NOOOOOOO!!!!

Then the uproar happened.

'No lah, Pn Cheong! I tell you, the moth is different from the butterfly!'

'The moth is a butterfly! (double wth I tell you) I read somewhere the moth is a stage of the butterfly!'

'No lah teacher. A moth goes through the same stage as a butterfly. See, they both go through pupae and then only they become a moth or a butterfly!' This was Montri.

Then Zhuo Liang or Xian Yao said: OMG lah Pn Cheong! Fail lah! Fail as a Bio teacher!'

Eng Hoe and I were too hysterical with laughter at this. It reminded us of the time where we asked Pn Cheong if we could use fish blood instead of human blood for an experiment (put sample under microscope, see the biconcave shape like in Form 4, Chapter 3) and she replied, the quote of the year: Fish got blood meh?

Pn Cheong immediately began to protest. 'Hai ya, one tiny mistake only what. Even I sometimes can make mistake.'

Xian Yao/Zhuo Liang (again I don't know how; sometimes their personality are too similar when it comes to Pn Cheong): Fail lah teacher.

And so it went on until she came to a part in genetics where she was explaining about how faulty genes can be passed on to children. '...and when they do that thing--'

'Teacher, what thing?' Xian Yao interrupted.

Pn Cheong: Hai ya, you already know what. That thing lah...

XY: Teacher we're not seven year olds lah. Explain what that thing is. How we know what that thing is?

We could see her struggling to find a word that explained it yet didn't sound too sexual in content. Finally she spoke: Intercourse.

Fast-forward till Monday. Like I said, she was going through the last chapters again when she saw Phee Yee and the other girls doing Add Maths. Then she blew up and warned them to get out if they were doing maths in her period. She even went towards at one point in a threatening way. Then she left the lab and came back after a while. Phei Fang later reported that Pn Cheong came back with red eyes and a runny nose, so we assumed she was crying. Quote Phei Fang: Haihz, she just couldn't handle the pressure.

On a more sober note, Erina, Sam and Hui Xin are at home recovering from high fever. Zhuo Liang also had a fever but he's getting better now. Then we heard via PA system that someone in 5 Lili kena H1N1 so the whole class was bundled off home and Mr. Allen said to go home if sick. We were in front with En Amara who was teaching us how architects drew their plans (for Chpt 10 Plan and Elevation) which was completely (okay, maybe mostly) irrelevant to our SPM. He forced us to go to the front so yeah. Then he made a mistake, had to re-do, and we were confused like mad when David came in with the news. Our class is a bit far off from the speaker so we can't hear announcements all that well in class.

All at once, Nicholas Leung and Jit Sun started coughing. 'Ah, sick lah sir, we need to go home now.'

Highlight of the day was when Amara taught Earth As a Sphere and he was doing a question when Melinda noticed he did it wrong and proceeded to ask him and debate with him about his method in front of the whole class, not pausing to give him a moment to interrupt. Saw her true ability as a debater. She even went something like, 'Mr Amara, your method is wrong. Shouldn't it be .......?' and everyone was like shell-shocked. Yes, even Amara himself. Go Mel!

Tim taught me to do CRO and all that so my Physics is much better thanks to him.

Then last period Ming Kang the gentle giant became Ming Kang the giant, period. Zhuo Liang was playing with the bendera we were using for Merdeka Day, and went to tease MK abt some equation (later explained to be MK liking Jennifer who was absent). MK ran at him, wanting to take his water bottle but gave it up. Not one to learn, ZL did the same thing, causing MK to flare up (doing that a lot lately) and take ZL's bottle and moving his arm back to throw it. Unfortunately, it was semi closed, so water came rushing out and hit Hui Sheng who was seated behind MK.

I called Jon over to ask him about something he'd written on the board which I saw. He replied that it was payback for MK scratching a line from his left ear to his jaw. Seems a bit violent, don't you think? The moment MK saw him talking, he came over and strangled Jon. Took a sharp scolding from Jenn Yee before he relented.

Talk about drama.