Im experiencing Exams Withdrawal Syndrome now...

Exams are over finally with Physical Chemistry paper as the grand finale.. But im seriously feeling a slight sense of guilt when watching tv or not touching any books... So not used to not studying after mugging for the past 3 weeks... Ha

Anyway, I dont like the questions in the paper. My most hated topic came out, not just 1 question but 3 out of 5 questions on Chemical Kinetics! Where is Thermodynamic? Where is Electrochemistry? Damn. No choice but chose 2 of them to do...

Fortunately it is opened-book exam. I brought in a lot of stuffs: A-Level notes, lecture notes, photocopied notes from textbook on all chapters and tutorials/exercises. And the table was a bit smaller than the MPSH's. My table was damn messy and stacked with lots of notes. I seriously flipped through my notes when doing all questions.. Waste of time... but at least i managed to complete all 4 questions except the first question where i didnt know how to do and give up. Since the parts were linked from one another, not knowing how to do the very first part means doom for the whole question. So, I just put in all relevant equations in and hopefully they gave me marks for that. (For mid-term test, the lecturer actually gave 13 out of 25 marks just for an equation alone!) The last 2 questions were easy. Some parts were just from the lecture notes. Hmm... I wondered if they will penalise for plagiarism since i copied whole explanations straight from the notes as my answers.. Ha. Lazy to rephrase them.

But still, it is finally OVER. Semester 1 is over!

7 more semesters to go...

... ... ...

Great.

Caught Harry Potter after that and the feeling of going town was exceptionally different and nice after like 2++ months of NUS to home to NUS to home to NUS....

Need more fun to refresh my lacklustre life. And yes, will be going to Nanyang Poly for Funka publicity today... Ha, it was near my house as compared to Ngee Ann and Singapore which i dun have to go..

So fun.

Is this going to be the future Singapore MRT line...?


Certainly looks impressive but it isnt a real, official map. It has become so complicated and it seems, everywhere will be accessible in Singapore in future. Buses are going to extinct!

Anyway, 12 more hours to my final paper and 14 more hours to holidays!

I cant focus on my study cuz once a while, my mind will wander off, thinking of the fun and things i am going to do after exams..

Ho ho ho...

Ok, back to study! Ha

Santa Claus is coming to town....

There seems to be an interesting situation happening...

The more time i spent studying on a subject, the worse i will probably perform for the paper...

It was Living with Maths paper yesterday. I think the paper was not that difficult. Some of the questions are so typical tutorial questions that i was flipping through my textbook and tutorial solutions when answering and literally copying the method and even explanation. Yes, it was opened-book. And so far, it is the only paper i have completed right on the dot. But of course, that doesnt mean i have all the correct answers, otherwise i would be a genius.

Anyway, if all things goes well, including getting method marks for some wrong answers i know i have, i think it is even possible to get 90/100. Ah yes, seems unbelievable, but that's only if i got correct for those took-me-quite-some-time-to-think probability, combination and permuations questions as well. However since it is easy, everyone should be doing well for it. But still, i hope to get at least A- for it to pull my CAP score up..

And as i was saying about the time spent studying, for EAP, I only spent less than 1 hour reading through the notes the night before. And seriously, writing the essay wasnt difficult. And since only a pass is required, it isnt that difficult.

Next, for Living with Maths, i only spent around 4-5 hours on it - reading through the thin textbook, tutorials and past year papers....

The next subject was probably Statics. I sort of gave up on it such that i only studied on the day before. Hence, spending total of around 11-12 hours on it. Despite completed only 3 out of 4 questions, i seriously hope i've got the correct answers, if not correct method for them. Surprisingly, i got the same answer for one question as other people who posted in the forum. It was about calculating friction coefficient. At first, i got 3++. Very odd. So i changed my steps a bit and got the answer as 0.17. Very big difference. And seriously, i wasnt good at such question before and i still believed my method was wrong somewhere but still got the correct answer. So in all, hoping to get at least a B for it.

Next was physics and maths. They tied. Spending about 32 hours on physics over 4 days and 25 hours for maths, i did equally bad for both. Physics was perhaps slightly a bit better than maths in a way. Ha, i cant help but putting my maths help sheet up....

Spent a lot of time doing it and it did prove useful during the exam. Though words are an average 2mm tall, some 1mm, i still can read them. But still, maths was the worst of all. After counting, i really got at least 40 marks gone. Failed the paper already. Now, im hoping everyone will do badly for it and i will be on par. Ha. Im EVIL. But hoping at least C+ for both.

See. The more time i spent studying on a subject, the worse i will perform for the paper...

Should i spend time on my last paper, Chemistry on tuesday?

Ha, it is a joke if i don't.

Im seriously exhausted... mentally and physically..

Sleeping at 4am and waking up at 6.45am for two days in a row is sure draining me... First, it was for statics yesterday. Then it was for Maths today.

But somehow, it din quite pay off despite my effort....

Statics on wednesday seems ok to a lot of people. But for me, i din do one question. I mainly focus on three other questions. So 25 marks gone... But somehow, i answered one small last part of that question that asked which side should an injured NUS lecturer hold his clutch if he injured his right leg.. Ha. 5 marks question and supposedly to answer using the previous part. But since i din do, i still answered that part.

I said right, and explained that since his right leg was injured, his right foot cant touch the ground. Seems to be common sense.. Ha. I was crapping. Reminds me how for physics paper, i also answered one question lamely : "Is the orbital path for a satelite circular? Why?" I said "No, because it is eclliptical." Yeah, i wasnt answering anything...

Anyway, Im pinning hope for the three questions i answered for statics. Though i wasnt very sure the correct answers/method, i still hope they can award marks for the concept and diagrams...

And maths paper today. Was damn tired for sleeping less than 2.5 hours. The paper din seems easy to me because i couldnt answer all the questions. Damn. Some questions werent difficult actually, but somehow, i couldnt think. Oh well, blame myself for not studying hard enough...

But seriously, mugging everyday in school from 1pm to 9/10pm in the library everyday isnt hard enough, what is?

Sighz.. still have Living with Maths paper tmr. Yes, having three papers in a row in three days is tiring. But sure wont beat those who have 4 or 5 papers in a row. Ha, some consolation.

I need some sleep now...

The weather is so nice, so cool, so comfortable. How i wish i can sleep.. but CANT!

9 more hours to Statics and Mechanic of Materials paper. Dreaded this. I know i cant pass. Imagine looking at 5 questions from past year paper and i only know how to do 1. This paper is open-book.

How easy can the paper be? It CANT be.

Oh well, hopefully drawing free body diagrams can give me like 20% of the marks. But of course, drawing correctly is important in the first place...

Maths paper on thursday and i still havent finished studying on it. Imagine i spent 6 hours just to read through and understand 19 pages of notes on part I of series...

Question: What does Harry Porter story have in common with Power, Taylor, Maclaurin and Fourier?
Answer: They are all SERIES!

Yay.. lame.

The battle continues next wednesday...

EAP paper was yesterday. And i was late. Damn the morning bus for moving slowly in a traffic jam. Reaching at 9.05am certainly gave me a seemingly insigificant but actually very crucial 5-minute disadvantage. Every minute counts...

The topics were on English learning and holiday/volunteer work. I chose the question that was about 'What is a good holiday? What are the factors that make a holiday an enriching experience? Why?' Ah, yes, EAP essays topics are relative direct and simple. But i cant agree on one: "Compare the way of English learning in your home country with Singapore's...." Hey.. Obviously this question is not for the Singaporean students! How biased. Haha

But how ironic. In JC, GP was my lousiest and most feared and loathed subject. And now, english became my favourite and the easiest to pass. In fact, i enjoyed English lessons with the interesting tutor and the people in my class....

Physics paper today. My heart beat was accelerating minutes before the start of exam. I suddenly felt as if im going to forget whatever i had studied for the past 4 days. But i resigned to fate.

As usual, nothing is easy. All thermodynamics question i dont really know how to do. And interestingly, some questions can be so short and simple until there seems to have insufficient information or clue on how to do. And 3 out of 6 short qns and 1 out of 2 long qns didnt involve any numbers and answers are just variables.

Really a test of understanding and not pure memorising..

But still, time to keep all Physics notes away and hopefully wont see them ever again..

Anyway, when the papers were being collected, i think someone got caught cheating. He looked like a China scholar and he was just a few tables diagonally away from me. At first, an invigilator was seen talking to him or something, but thought nothing special. But a while later, the ang moh chief invigilator walked to him. This time, it attracted the attention of several people at my region. I saw the ang moh flip through a small piece of folded paper and keep it. Then he took the China scholar paper, wrote something on it and took it away. That student appeared expressionless. Later, he packed his stuff and was asked to sit right in front of the examination hall...

Poor scholar. I supposed that paper was his cheating tool. Well, the worst outcome for him would be expel. How sad.

Oh well... cheating is bad. But if cheat, just don't get caught. Hahaha..

Yeah... 32 more hours to mark the unstoppable beginning of the onslaught!

Gonna face the english paper first.. Ha, the only paper im not going to do any preparation until the last hour by reading through some notes...

It has been 3 days since i've started studying on Physics and i have not finished.

Darn. Cant finish studying and i fear i cant remember anything i have studied. I foresee a stunned face when i look at the paper. Thoughts of putting down my pen, standing up, and walking to front to hand in a blank paper will then fill my mind.

But no, i cant do it...

Damn Physics. Why cant they provide us a formula list or allow us to bring a help sheet like maths. O Level, A Level and Uni. None has provided us at least some formulas to save us from memorizing. And now, we have at least 90 formulas to remember, an average of 5 per chapter. An underestimation i believe.

Maths is so much better. They always provide us some formulas. And better, we can bring a help sheet to our paper this time. Gotta squeeze as much formulas and even examples as possible into a 2-sided A4 paper..

Fortunately, Statics, Chemistry and Living with maths are opened book. So much more realistic isnt it? In real life, dont we have the chance to refer to books when we have to solve problems?

14 days to fun!

No no no no.. 4 days to exams..

Yes yes yes yes.. 16 days to holidays..

Delirious i am.

Mugging mode i need.

Infomation keeps going in. Yet for equilibrium, energy needs to be given out.

Im hungry 24/7.

Seriously, NUS is a scary place..

It was 5pm on a saturday and most tutorial rooms were occupied by muggers.. I was there to join the forces of the mugger but, damn, couldnt find an empty room for myself to study.. And library and YIH study room are out of the question. They are always 90% full at any time.. since YIH is 24hourly opened.. Students camp there...

Ended up at a loner bench outside LT1. Though no air-con, it was peaceful and secluded.. Managed to finish all remaining Statics online tutorial questions except the 2 discussion questions for simple beam experiment.

And im not going to touch Statics anymore until the eve of this exam paper.

Need to focus on physics now.

Hiaz.. Physics is so hard...

9 more days to exams... Panic panic panic.

To think i went to Eugene's birthday BBQ at Downtown East on saturday nite and played 2 games of bowling put me into uneasiness.

On top of that, i have fallen sick. On monday noon, my nose began to drip like a leaking tap perodically. This morning, it was serious nose block and dry cough. And at evening time, i began to feel feverish...

But thanks to 2 Panadol tablets, my fever has subsided. Nose still blocked despite taking cold relief tablets. Occasional cough also.

Ahh.. bad to fall sick now. Exams are coming. Gotta see the free doctor at NUS if still persist. Ha..

Got back my Statics quiz results. Well, i have fallen into those category of people i loathe. And yes, there are people in my class who got 20/20...

But seriously, my tutor has been lenient. He passed everyone in the class. My question 1's answers are all wrong as i made a mistake in the first step and some missing forces in two of the free body diagrams drawn and hence, affected all calculations. And second question, all answers wrong too; forgot to multiply perpendicular distance in first part; wrong equation used for second part and third part; uncompleted third part; no explanation given for last part...

Obviously, i would have gotten a U. But lucky to get a pass.

Gotta force myself to love Statics, Physics and Chemistry. Only then i will probably put in more effort to do well...

It's hard though.

I feel so guilty.

2 public holidays in a week put me into holiday mood.

I couldnt study, especially when at home.

Exams in 14 days time. And i have probably only studied 10% or even less.

I kept thinking how i will change faculty at the end of semester 1.. how im not cut out to be an engineer.. how if i cant get into environmental engineering, im probably dead in other engineering... how statics and mechanics have dragged me... how am i going to face tougher semester 2 modules - programming, electrical, critical thinking and writing, Maths II, Physics II.... how.. how... how...

But well, Im forcing these negative thoughts to keep out of me. Im trying hard.

But darn those people who are out to get straight As, CAP 5.0, and full marks for every tests and exams. They are just adding stress to every other people.

Im a victim.