Prelims prelude

Alright, prelims are 2 days away and I can barely wait. You see unlike most of my friends who are dreading the prelims 'cos they're afraid of messing it up, I honestly can't be bothered anymore. All that the prelims have done was to make me one pissed off fella who has been stuck at home for the longest time ever, been unable to play dota freely and anytime I'm not revising which is most of the time, there's that little niggling warning at the back of my head. So as one can see, the prelims are a thorn in my side and therefore I simply can't wait for it to be over. And now just for the fun of it, let’s see how many ways I can pass my prelims. Assuming grades of A, B, C, D and E to be pass grades and the fact that I would still like to pass all my subjects, that means 5 different grades for 5 subjects each! So it'll probably be 5^5 because every subject is independent of the other, and the grades can be repeated and order doesn’t matter. So yea, 5*5*5*5*5 = 5^5. Woots! I've just revised permutations! And based on that, the probability of me getting 5 As is 1/3125 but the probability of me passing with any other grades is 3124/3125 which is 99.968%! Thus, one can see that aiming for 5 As is an inefficient allocation of resources. Hence, I should simply aim to pass because the chances of doing so are higher and this translates into more slack for me (I.e. Higher margin for error.) So folks, don't pressure yourselves too hard for prelims, as I've proven somewhat, passing isn't all that hard. In fact according to my (flawed) theory, one has a 99.968% chance of passing! But (in the words of some advertisement) why take my word for it? Try it for yourselves! Oh not to mention there'll probably be moderation too if enough people screw up. That means, your chances of passing is close to a 100%. Alright, enough for now, the real deal is in 2 days time. Till then, have fun mugging!

Prelims!

Alright it's been so long since I've posted anything here that I almost forgot about this space. So anyway, prelims are coming up and to celebrate this joyous occasion, I shall ensure that I document my prelims preparation to end as well as I can. And for all you other people in the school where I come from, apparently there's only 41 more days to prelims! That's like a little shy of 6 weeks which IMO is still a long, long time. To put things in perspective, try counting down in seconds. Last I tried I had in excess of 4 million seconds and it made me feel so at ease with myself. After all 4 million seconds is a long, long time until you realize that the seconds literally tick by. Muahaahhahaah.

Musings

PW

Hmm, I've no idea which week of Term 2 this is but I figured we still have many more weeks before the hols because the teachers haven't started dishing out holiday homework. Well maybe they have but I wasn't listening. Anyway, the holidays will come either way so no worry. What I am worried about is my screwed up PW results. Yes, like half the cohort of students out there in every JC except HC, I'm wondering what the hell happened to my PW. Now since this is a public domain and everyone's all sensitive and stuff, I cannot start on my highly vulgar rant about PW here, again. So, I shall have to talk nicely about PW.

Now, I'm still in favour of PW (Don't get me wrong, this ain't no MOE propaganda.). But I personally think PW has its purpose. For one it allows you to work in a team and unlike IPW in Secondary School where it didn't count for anything so no one gave a shit, PW in JC matters so everyone's taking it more seriously and teamwork abounds. That's what I like about PW. Cos everyone in the group actually does something and we all get to learn to work together. So, you see if the grading was taken away, I guess PW would be just like IPW and it would defeat the whole purpose. But then seeing that PW counts for 10% of our admission to Local Us, the grade would matter quite a bit especially for those aiming to enter the more competitive courses. So how? On one hand grading ensures we do work, but then who's to say the grading is entirely reflective of the effort we've put in? This is especially true for assholes who didn't do anything and still got a decent grade. Now, now I’m not pointing fingers but you guys know who you are. Also, isn't the learning process more important than a grade? So there you have it, the great dilemma the MOE is in. Of course there're many other factors for them to consider but the way I see it, grading keeps us from slacking but the grading system is flawed and it has a significant impact on our future. So maybe PW isn't such a good idea and what's even funnier is the teacher from a certain JC who started this whole PW thing going has one of the least number of As this year. LOL. It's really damn funny and I take my hat off to that JC for coming up with such a scheme.

But after all that's said and done, we can't really do anything about the grades can we? All we can do is bitch about it and curse and swear at anything and everything related to PW. And that I'll do with pleasure.

Musings

Ah, it's now the time of the year known as the calm before the storm. In a few more weeks, (months if you're a slacker, any longer don't bother.) before the preparations for the great prelims start. And I'm not too excited about it, obviously. Anyway, the Terms are just over and amazingly I don't have to attend remedial for everything! LOL. It would really suck having remedial for every subject. But if you have lots to catch up, then I guess remedial would help to a certain the extent. The extent of which one cannot be certain of, even the certainty of which one is certain that the remedial would be helpful to any extent cannot be ascertained. I digress. But remedial is supposed to help, right...
So, today I must talk about something which has been annoying me for the past weeks. It's the share a tune on the bus syndrome. It's a chronic illness where the sufferers who have been living off Pedra Branca and haven't seen a handphone since forever, pick up one and much to their amazement realise it can generate noise too very much like the birds from the island they came from. And these sufferers are really pitiful. Having not used a handphone before, it's certainly normal to find out what great functions the device has. But having a brain and some common sense, they should realise that unlike the birds off Perdra Branca, we humans on the bus do not need to hear some awful techno song being blasted from the pathetic little speaker which is probably not designed to output sound at such a volume which probably explains the great distortion in the sound. And why techno? Why can't you play something more radio friendly? Or at least something more quiet? It certainly isn't my idea of entertainment to be onboard a bus at eight plus, jammed with many other passengers, with the aircon either too cold or not working and having some clown(s) in the seat(s) behind me legs propped up against the back of my seat playing some shit music and talking in such loud voice(s) that even my ck9 cannot possibly isolate. And being the nice Singaporeans that most of the passengers are, we respect these deprived individuals and choose not to tell them to stfu in their faces. So we be all nice and courteous about it, shooting them the look every now and them, attempting to communicate the idea of bus etiquette to them. But no those idiots just don't get it do they. So, I've decided to post a list of dos and don'ts here just in case those fellas discover the Internet in the near future and maybe chance upon this space and learn how they should behave aboard the bus.

Nofing's guide to commuting on Singapore's public transport.
For buses:
As long as it is a public bus and not lim peh's (your father's) bus, treat it as public property. That means keep that pen knife/marker/screw driver/wrench away from the bus seats. If you've a screw loose, taking one more screw from the bus seat won't help. And don't proclaim your undying love for someone on the bus seat. The person would never find out and it shows how bloody atrocious your English is. We have Design and Technology (D&T) in school for a reason. It's to keep you from taking your carpentry to the bus.
Next, since it's a public bus, there are other individuals in the bus known as strangers to you. For that reason, don't talk so loudly on the bus so as to maintain the status quo of strangers. There is no need for anyone but yourself to know why Ah Hui left you for another girl, or whether you should pon (skip) school tomorrow to go to K (An entertainment outlet-Karaoke.)
Thirdly, much as loud voices are not tolerated on the bus, so are loud ringtones and music. If you're using stock iBuds (aka cheap white apple earphones), please go change them. You're not hearing your music because it's leaking out and now everyone but yourself can hear Jolin Tsai or Metallica or whatever it is you're listening to. If you for some reason have no earphones and really need to listen to your music, blaring it from the in built speakers is not an option. We already have TV mobile on board and it's bad enough therefore please don't add to it. Rather, position the speaker to your ear as if you're having a conversation and play the music softly. Granted it's not stereo so take your khaki's phone and place it against your other ear. Ok, it's dual mono but who cares?
Fourthly, for those trishaw riders/coffeeshop uncles wannabes, the bus is not your trishaw/coffeeshop. That means no propping up of legs against the back of the seat in front of you. Sounds confusing? Never mind, it means just keep your feet on the ground. However, if you insist, then when boarding bus, and there're two two empty rows of seats one behind the other, take the one behind so that the seat in front is unoccupied and you can prop your legs up until someone seats down. So we have a formula here. For all leg proppers out there. Let N be the seat you want to sit on, where N>1, and take the N+1 seat. If the N+1 seat does not exist or is occupied, it means you have to take the N seat and you cannot prop up your legs unless the N-1 seat is vacated. It's really simple right? Don't prop your legs up and save yourself the Maths.
Fifthly, as mentioned earlier, the bus is public property and not your second home. (The second home is your school not the bus.) That means no lying down to sleep on the bus. This especially applies during peak hours when the buses are packed and you're the sleepy asshole occupying 2 seats. It only serves to piss the other passengers off so much so that they will block your way and prevent you from alighting.
Ok, that must be about all for buses. For trains, well since I don't take it often, it means 2 things. 1, I don't know all the nonsense people do on trains. Most importantly, I don't encounter it often enough so I'm not too affected by it. So, I'll leave the train guide to later.
Alright, that must be all for now. Until next time, please do keep the bus rules in mind.

Termzzzz

This week is Terms week here where I am. Terms is actually a good thing because Terms means no lessons and we all get to go home early. And Terms also means no attire check. Well at least I haven't kenna any yet. But the d-comm just had to announce that there's an attire check this Friday! So nice of them to warn us in advance. But yea, appreciate it. Anyway, damn the J1s! I bet they're the cause of this attire check. See, the J1s after JAE seem to have forgotten that they're still in school. So, the girls shorten those skirts and wear those drawstrings on their blouses to look like Saints. Not that I'm complaining, but do try to be more original? Maybe instead of lengthening the blouse, hitch it up and tie a knot? Lol. That would surely put the school back into the limelight and the d-comm would most certainly have a field day catching them. Ahaahhah. And the issue with hair colour. I seriously don't understand. As long as it's not pink or some outlandish colour, surely it's ok right? Maybe if you colour your hair with the school colours it'll be fine? Red, blue, gold watch it unfold. My ass. Anyway, there's nothing much that can be done 'bout the hair check 'cept hope that it's a random one and I don't run into the d-comm. Hah.
Back to Terms now. Today was Physics, yesterday was Maths and the day before was Econs. Tomorrow is Chemistry. Well what do they have in common? I screwed them all and they're going to be my ticket to ssp! Woots! SSP isn't some Secret Service Program. In fact it's the opposite. Everyone knows what SSP is. Kinda like the Diamond Club back in ASS. Lol. SSP is Self Study or Supplementary Study or something study program. It's rather like having perma detention cos you gotta go down to the library a few times a week sign in like the dc people and sit down and study. But it's a bit better I suppose. Least you can listen to your mp3s. But it still sucks. But if I do strike the lottery and kenna SSP, it's not all too bad. High time I hit the books anyway. So, for the past three days, well at least yesterday and today, I had to do my papers in the badminton hall. How cool is that? It's actually kinda cool with a stage, aircon, lousy PA system and highly entertaining teacher antics. I think the only reason I go for exams is to see the highly entertaining teacher antics. They make it all worthwhile, very much like a circus act, highly recommended, 5 stars. Anyway, these two days, I must say I didn't perform well for my papers. But, but it's not all my fault. Granted, I should have tried harder but it was the birds' fault. See starting yesterday, 2 birds (Mynah birds, those medium size black birds, abit scrawny but they're strong. They're the good stuff ya hear me? Nothing like some big black birds.) somehow flew into the badminton hall and they didn't want to get out! Well they couldn't since the doors were closed but there were the windows were there not? Anyway it was fine to have 2 birds. I mean it's like moral support to know 2 birds are perched up there ready to shit on you the minute you answer a question wrong. Especially for MCQs. But the birds didn't shit, at least not on me. Maybe they should shit on the CPE and then he'll have to make a report and send it to SEAB. Something along the lines of birds attempting to cheat. Terminated. So, those 2 stupid birds decided to have a chit chat session on the rafters or whatever you call those high beams in the hall. And since the hall is rather big, the chirping was amplified and it resonated around the hall. Ok, amplified yes, resonated I don't know. What's resonate anyway? Lol. And the chirping was really disturbing. It really disrupts my train of thought especially when I'm cracking those damn problems. And because of that, I could not concentrate during the paper hence if I fail, I'm going to appeal and the birds be my witnesses.

Musings: Holidays my ass

These holidays have certainly been most meaningful with me spending the first 3 days participating in school based activities. Quite a feat given the only school based activity I ever do is, well attend school, and reluctantly doing so at that. So, now that I've wasted three days away, that leaves me with 4 more before the Terms arrive. And I must say that having Terms after the hols really suck. But I can't imagine having them before the hols either. Therefore we should just scrape the idea of Terms altogether and just wait for the big As. Makes life less stressful anyway. Alright, I don't feel like typing anymore, cursing and swearing at people online requires vigorous use of the keyboard and what's worse is that there's no spell check for it so I gotta type carefully. Super waste time. But then the people on the receiving end deserve it. Shame I don't have a microphone set else I would yell at them. And notice it's just the microphone and not the headset. So they can't yell back. Well they can but I won't hear them. Ahaahaha.