A narrow path lies
between the first and final wail,
Few lived to tell the tale
I wonder why we take life so hard sometimes. We'll still die anyway, sooner or later. I've been rather pessimistic lately and I don't know why.
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Before I go on,
TO ALL MY NUS HIGH FRIENDS!!!!
(who still bothers to visit this blog)
ALL THE BEST FOR YOUR EXAMS!! Study hard!
And those upcoming APs and SATs. Best of luck!!! :) :)
加油加油加油!!!!
It's the final exams you guys are taking anyway. Haha.
And I still need to wait for my A Levels.
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Filled with thoughts of the past and sweet reminiscence.
Gel electrophoresis, and cosy bio lab with round tables :)
DNA probe, PCR, heat shock and fluorescent Euglena cells due to radiography.
Cool amazing machines and rubbery gloves. :D
Micropipettes and centrifugation.
BamHI, Taq Polymerase and HindIII
Southern blotting project and whatnots.
Molecular Biology and Mr Tham.
And of course, deeper into my memory well,
there's always the container classrooms. :D
Cosy and nice. And freezing!
Like a din when it's raining.
Watching GATTACCA.
Being lost once again in Mendelian Genetics.
Drawing stick figures with Sze Min even when Dr Seah was talking. (oops!)
Oh! Dr Seah and her funny powerpoint slides. XD
And how could I forget! 8 by 8 punnett squares!
Doing and counting till we're all cross-eyed.
Ahha! and that memorable debate on cloning.
(Though come to think of it, we didn't really make much sense then.)
And the AMAZING practicals.
Counting the frequency of people with earlobes or can roll their tongues etc.
And counting the different colors of the grains on the maize!
Oh man, crazy stuffs we did.
And doing X-squared tests on the maize, tobacco plants, null hypothesis etc.
Rushing through that 2000 word essay on Human Genome Project.
In ONE freaking night.
Tired, but friends pulled me through.
Hoho, and got a B+ in the end. :)))
But if you were to ask me what's HGP now, I'll just be 'huh? what's that?' LOL
Oh that lovely Year 3 period.
Forensic Science module in the same lab.
Having lessons up till 6+.
Crazy, but we pulled through.
Even more amazing. I couldn't understand a SINGLE thing about permutations combinations and probability. In total confusion and loss now.
Then I opened up the box that contained all the files of the different modules.
And I saw a file with the module name "Statistics II".
And realised I did it in Year 3. But I totally had no inkling what I'd done last time.
Not at all. Omg, I'm such a disgrace to Ms Cheng. :(
She's such a good teacher la.
Flipped through, and I saw words like standard deviation, cumulative frequency, variance etc.
Totally scared the hell out of me. Not even a vague impression of it. (!!!)
Then I saw a quiz which I stared at for about 10 minutes, and finally I THINK (omg, I'm not even sure) I had a very very vague remembrance of it. You know why? Cos I got 1/12 all because of drawing the histogram wrongly.
Then I flipped through somemore... and finally found the file I wanted to find.
'Mathematics Behind Betting and Gambling'.
Reminds me of the container classroom again.
And of course, the card games that we played during the lesson.
(which I keep losing like nobody's business cause I'm such a noob at card games.)
And I remembered....
The super packed class.
Sze Min ALWAYS sitting on my left and Charis on my right.
Mr Wong attempting to teach us probability.
BUT almost the whole class know already so he just skipped right through.
Oh, and of course, Mr Wong's solution are always ever-so-short.
And I'm always busy deciphering what he's trying to do. Haha.
Throughout the whole module, I was like
'look to the left for entertainment, look up to the board in confusion and look right for solution'
Lol. No offense, Sze Min.
Remembered being totally lost when teacher referred to terms like straight flush (is it??) etc.
And of course, Charis was always there to enlighten me. :)
Was flipping through the file (it's the thinnest file, only 0.3cm thick)
and saw words like overround, odds, complicating formulae...
stuffs about soccer betting, 4D etc.
Totally no idea what we did last time, just like for Stats.
Amazing I could even get A for both modules.
Looked at the exam script for the module and I swear I laughed so loudly my parents must have thought I'd gone crazy.
I could remember being super confused right before the paper (it was the last paper for end-of-years) and I went in like, 'shit la, whatever comes to my mind I'll just write.' Then I left THREE freaking questions blank (out of SEVEN questions) when the invigilator says stop writing.
And I got 28/40.
Times were so crazy back then that I seriously don't know what I did. Hah.
We could even sit for 4 exam papers in a day.
But now, I can't even understand the most fundamental permutations and combinations. So I came to the conclusion that either I'd become stupid or it's because Charis isn't here.
Even GP periods are bringing me back to all those wonderful times in Year 3.
FALLACIES!!!
Haha! Hasty Generalisation, Begging the Question, Ad Hominem etc.
And the speeches we did in Ms Pang's class. Can't remember what's the topic about.
But I remembered talking about Beethoven.
And those times when we're trying to compare the Russian governance with *ahem*. Hahaha. Tsar, Tsarina and whatnots.
Hehe, and that project we did. "Where's Anastasia?" Or something like that.
A fun time we had amidst the bad. Sze Min, Charis and I. A really fun time indeed.
Amidst the dark cloud of pessimism, there's always sudden bursts of laughter.
(And actually Charis isn't even from my class. but ok, that's besides the point. haha.)
And how we complained about using GCs. Hahaha. (Only to realise 2 years later that GCs used in JCs are even worse.)
Really miss them all, really miss them both.
Miss those o_O??!! expressions. (no offense, sze min. haha.)
Miss those 'Gone with the wind' quotes.
Miss the mutual teasings we had with one another.
polar bears, penguins and all. (ahem)
The times when it's stressful but not really pressurising. Times of sleepless or late nights (what's new?) Times when rushing lab reports till 4 am when school's going to end at 6pm on the next day with only ONE break. Times when you thought you cannot do it but the results are more than pleasing. Times when you think you're going to fall but friends will pull you through. Times when enthusiasm was high and the times when we just could not stop laughing. Times when parents are not constantly comparing you with others since the nus high program is ever-so-unique. Times when parents will not give a curfew simply because school ends so late anyway. Times when parents will not insist that you drop your CCAs because art club and string ensemble are both only on one day anyway.
Oh well, life has to go on anyway, despite getting more stupid or not. Hmm. I guess the only thing that remained the same is I was, and still is, a treasurer. Haha, not that it's really worth mentioning, but that's the only thing that didn't change. Haha.
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During the first 3 months last year, suyi asked
"Do you regret transferring out of NUS High?"
"no, not really. Other than friends la."
(What?! If I didn't transfer out, my future might be screwed up by Prof XXX.)
At the end of last year (during PW mad rush), suyi asked again,
"Do you regret transferring out of NUS High?"
"Yea, a bit. Life's like no difference, rushing without sleeping."
(But the friends are different.)
At the beginning of this year (when I was facing with some personal problems as well), suyi again asked,
"Do you regret transferring out of NUS High?"
"Ya, obviously."
(And begin reminiscing about the past esp Year3.)
Recently, (in the struggle to drop econs), suyi asked once more
"Do you regret transferring out of NUS High?"
"duh."
(Life wasn't as hard without Econs. And all those hellish impending pressure.)
It's amazing that I could change my stance so quickly only in a span of about a year. With respect to my very first thought, I think my life here is equally screwed up as well. And I always wonder why it's always suyi asking me the same question. LOL. But well, it serves as a reminder for me to appreciate whatever that goes on currently, I guess. I used to think how life sucks back then, only to realise that actually I was really 身在福中不知福. Like, the quality of education I could have gotten, the passion and love for science that drive the entire cohort forwards, and the much wider opportunities I could have gotten. (Let's not talk about the qualifications at the end of the day.) Er, and of course, I DON'T HAVE TO TAKE ECONS.
Right now, yes, A levels route is more established, more recognised, etc. But our learning is compromised. When we want to know more, teachers say 'Why? It's out of syllabus. Just concentrate on whatever's going to be tested.' compared to 'Ok, it's good to find out more. (and starts to explain)' and the usual reminders/ encouragements to ask questions (Remember to ask if you don't know; no questions are stupid.). It's just so different la.
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Okay, this is like the longest post I've written so far. haha. I'm not in school because I had gastric, but thank God the pain less intense compared to yesterday already. Haha, after reflecting so much, I think I really feel less emo now. Lol.
And my sleeping hours is totally haywire I've totally no idea how to fix it. :( I can't last beyond 10.30pm at night now and could just wake up randomly at 2 or 3 and couldn't get back to sleep again. (And ahem. Stone during lectures or something.) I wonder whether this is the effect of accumulation of the late nights I had ever since Sec 3. Bad bad bad.
I guess that's about it. The climax of my life is all that you can see above. Other than that, it's rather pretty boring since there's really nothing exciting about school (esp this school. *cough* )
Another friend of mine asked recently,
'what's wrong?'
'Everything.'
The only constant is change;
The only certainty is that nothing is certain.
On the narrow path, the tale is told,
between the start and finish line,
these are the gems.
Treasured and cherished, all mine.
D E C I D E D L Y O N H I A T U S