Little-Wonder.Net

19 September, 2003

Outcome of Chemistry Practical

22:34:31 | School Life | writebacks (11)

Despite prying myself from the internet for three whole days, nothing much has been accomplished. For some strange reason, I am still slacking in the afternoons and in the evenings and would only touch my notes when I feel like it. Such poor work attitude when the promotional exams are only three weeks away. To make matters worse, mt attempt at studying this afternoon failed when I dozed off halfway whole reading through my physics notes.

After combing through countless Sports retail outlets at the various shopping malls here in Singapore, I finally managed to purchase a proper sports water tumbler. Gone are the days when I would be carrying a recycled mineral water bottle during each and every school day. For some reason, the sales of Sports bottles had risen dramatically after the results of a study showed that recycled mineral water bottles contain a relatively higher percentage of bacteria as compared to using a proper bottle. For hygiene purposes, I have no other choice but to fork out $8++ rather than to let my health deteriorate.

The Promotional Chemistry Practical paper was held today. As usual, I was in a deep frenzy whilst waiting at the reporting venue before the practical while Swee Wah was completely calm beside me. I panicked even further upon looking at the practical paper when I realised that I had to complete 2 experiments, plot a graph and answer 5-6 chemical calculation questions within one miserable hour. Therefore, I had no choice but to multi-task. Anyone who was watching me during the whole practical would realise that I would be doing two different things each time. At one particular moment, I was pipetting 25cm³ of FA3 into the conical flask with my left hand and dropping methyl orange indicator into another flask with my right hand…

However, multi tasking would not always be effective as I made a grave mistake during the second experiment. The question specifically required us to pipette 25cm³ of solution FA3 into a conical flask and add an additional 30cm³ of solution FA1 into the same flask. In my haste, I added the 25cm³ of FA3 and accidentally added an additional 30cm³ of the same solution FA3 as I had forgotten to switch my bottles over. I only found out about that mistake when I realised that there was still no colour change even though I had enptied the contents of the whole burette into the flask during the titration. The result? I was delayed by 5 minutes. Thank goodness all my answers to the practical matched that of my friends’ upon comparision after the paper… *phew*

There was a certain teacher who really pissed me off before the practical examination itself. She would yell at anyone who was late in reporting for the practical and my entire class was yelled at for a whole minute in the lab because we took quite some time to settle down. Hello? The seats weren’t even labelled properly, so how on earth would you expect us to find our allocated seats quickly? She even accused us of holding up the entire examination when it was the fault of the seat planners themselves. Her voice was loud and shrill as she yelled continuously at the whole group with me half expecting the glass windows and chemistry apparatus to break any moment. Some lung power! In fact, she really reminds me of a “ba po” or typical Singaporean “ah soh”

Sigh… Physics lecture at 8:00am tomorrow… No more late Saturday mornings for me until the promotional examinations end.

I have placed this weblog off-hiatus, as I have decided that I cannot live without my daily dosage of weblogging.

15 September, 2003

Countless frustrations… letting off steam.

22:31:19 | Ranting | writebacks (9)

The sight of him makes me frustrated and to think that he still has the cheek to speak to Erika so normally despite having snatched her paper and copying it during the Chinese Faculty Test. These kind of people irk me to no end and even the mere sight of then would irritate him. Despite the fact that the whole incident does not concern me at all, I have lost all respect for him. I used to cheerfully speak to him normally but now, I am unable to, except when the need arises.

It turned out that there was no Mathematics test, which meant that I had struggled throughout the whole weekend for nothing. At least that can count as an early preparation for the promotional exams which are coming up next month. For some reason, I just can’t stop worrying about the promotional exams and the mere fact that I am not studying as much as I am supposed to. Too much laziness, perhaps, and too little time. To make matters worse, I learnt from my friends today that the Chemistry Practical component of the Chemistry Promotional Examinations would be held this Friday!

I am not ready yet!

It’s high time that I admit to the fact that I am definitely killing too much of my time online, and neglecting my studies. But according to my observations, Yao Long appears online every single night and he is still doing so well in JC. Rui Quan also spends countless hours online and he keeps topping his class in Science subjects. On the other hand, this girl (yours truly) on the Eastern part of the world with lack of greymatter in her brain is struggling so hard just to even scrape through the promos… and yes, wasting her time away.

Received the results of a Chinese assignment which I had placed so much effort in during Chinese tutorial today and was appalled to find that I had received a miserable 36/100. I had spent almost two hours on that assignment and this is the score I get? What angered me further was that I had received the lowest grade in the entire group.

Physics and Mathematics concepts are also making me more and more confused, to an extent that I can’t even think clearly when doing tutorials. All this has resulted in numerous numbers of Xs on my tutorial sheets and assignments, which is completely demoralising. There are only 26 days to the promotional examinations and my study schedule is still in such a sorry state.

It is high time that I put my big foot down and get cracking. Hence and foremost, I officially declare…

That this weblog/journal is on HIATUS.

I would only blog as and when is necessary, probably once or twice a week. This journal would only be fully back to normal on October the 17th, after the Promotional Examinations end. Wish me luck :)

14 September, 2003

All the hoo-ha about Music Piracy…

22:46:00 | People | writebacks (9)

All the current reports about file sharing lawsuits is surely driving me up the wall, but this is not because I, myself am a file-sharer. If the government tells me to stop, I will. But what is going on is definitely a little too exaggerated. Hello? Hacking into personal computers to check their daily activities is definitely an intrusion of privacy. But according to CNN, this is what the governments around the world had resorted to in order to stamp out this problem.

What is this? Do you think you can actually surf the web in peace knowing that someone is tracking all your activities? In fact, do you even like the idea of something like this going on? All this hoo-ha and fear of lawsuits is definitely making me feel extremely controlled, a hold which I simply just want to break out of. What they are doing is definitely too much and they have gone too far. Who gives them the right to spy on what we do? This is only media files we are talking about, not something so valuable such as gold or jewelrry. After all, the internet is a place where information is freely found for all users, and this covers everything, including media files. We have the right to make use of the internet in whichever way we wish. To me, I dislike the idea of other people (especially the government) controlling our personal activities.

Whoever the RIAA is, I wish you the worst of luck. *pffft*

Yet another eventful day at my grandmother’s house. Joel came over again as usual and later on, David, Jess, Joel and I headed to the park near my grandmother’s house for a stroll. Halfway through, David, my 11 year old cousin started running at top speed for some unknown reason, and ended up tripping and falling on the stone floor. A huge cut appeared on his leg and blood gushed out. Jess started to panic but thank goodness I had my mini first aid kit with me. However, despite having an injury, David continued behaving in his usual overactive manner.

Yes, two photographs taken at my grandmother’s house today. For some reason, all of us were in extremely active moods, making these two photographs look totally spastic. Click on each photo for an enlargement. :)

Back to school tomorrow. The mere thought of having to face Tampines Junior College and my Chinese teacher’s “nian-se” again surely makes me dread tomorrow much more. To make matters worse, I would be having a Maths test first thing in the morning, which I am not even prepared for despite studying throughout the whole holidays. Sigh…