i woman. i bitch.
written: 5:09 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2004

What is the point of doing MCQs? Most of the time the questions are based on abstract assumptions that do not remotely hold in the real world. Worse still, sometimes there is actually ambiguity in the options, so that two options are so similar that either of them can be the right answer.

Take a question from my prelim for example.

Question: Which of the following are features of a monopoly and a monopolistically competitve firm?

A. Some insignificant crap that is wrong.
B. The former can prevent entry of new firms while the latter cannot.
C. Some other insignificant crap that is also wrong.
D. The former need not engage in advertising to capture the market while the latter has to.

(I obviously paraphrased the thing; I'm too lazy to go to my room, rummage around the mess that is my bed, dig out my MCQ paper, walk back here again and type it out, hence wasting 5 minutes.)

The correct answer is B while I chose D. But it is not true in the real world that MC firms cannot prevent entry of new firms into the market. Doesn't it depend on the nature of the industry? I mean, if I wanted to open a sporting company I would definitely think twice about it, considering the fact that it's dominated by companies like Nike and Reebok. Right? Their overwhelming presence in itself is a barrier to entry, isn't it? Why would I open a small company selling modest sporting equipment when I don't have the funds to engage in relentless advertising like Nike and Reebok do? What's the point of opening a firm for two months just to shut it down after that when I'm reaping subnormal profits?

And why in the world does a monopoly need to advertise if it has 100% market share? You hardly see Microsoft advertising... I think. At least, I haven't seen any Microsoft ads on TV. And it's not even a real monopoly. And the question doesn't even bother to state explicitly what sort of a monopoly we're talking about here. Why does a natural monopoly need to advertise? In fact, why would it even want to advertise? And aren't we supposed to assume that the monopoly will not advertise because it does not feel like wasting resources? I mean, in the first place, like I said, why does it even NEED to advertise? I mean, yeah, some firms are stupid and hence they feel the strange urge to waste their bloody resourcse, but I thought everything is supposed to be kept under ceteris paribus conditions, ie. all monopolies will not advertise because, ceteris paribus, there is absolutely no need for them to do so. Again, I ask the question: why advertise when the consumers only have YOU to turn to to satisfy their demands?

MCQs are so banal and braindead that half the time I forget that I'm supposed to be banal and braindead too, and as a result I'm always getting stuff wrong. And the stupid ten year series has the most atrocious answers ever. They tell me that Option A is the right answer when it's obvious to anyone with some semblance to intelligence that Country Y does not have an absolute advantage in the production of Good Q because it produces a smaller amount of the good than Country X given the same amount of resources. What the hell kind of ten year series is a TYS that is ridden with wrong answers?

Evidently, I'm damn frustrated and I really wish that the Econs paper consists of essays and DRQ/case study, so that I wouldn't have to put myself through this excruciating torture. I think doing Maths is even preferable to this pedantic nonsense.

Increasingly, I think I'm just going to die in the exam hall next month. Most of the self-confidence I once had has dissipated brilliantly into thin air, leaving me hanging high and dry. And I just read my GP essay over and I really, really, really, sincerely believe that it was badly written. It lacks sophistication, it lacks complex sentence structures, it lacks everything that I think my essays should have. And the thing is, I don't even know what I think my essays should have, except that they should have something more than that. Whatever that is.

Fact: I am an overrated fraud. Or maybe it's just because I'm stuck in a school full of hopeless losers.

I hate to bitch about things that I have already bitched about lengthily in the past, but I have to do this or I will absolutely die. I do not, for the life of me, understand why people are so dense in my school. Tubby's classes are starting to become 90-minute sessions in time-wasting. He says the same thing over and over and over: use the topic sentence, use the keywords in the question, be relentlessly relevant, so much so that I can recite these three bloody points in my fucking sleep. I'm not kidding. Ever since JUNE, for crying out loud, he's been saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Today was no exception. And you know what? I don't blame the teacher. I blame the students.

What the hell is wrong with everyone? How difficult is it to transplant words from the question into the first goddamn sentence of your paragraph? Why do I have to sit through lessons in which the teacher says the same thing over and over, just in different, varied forms? Why can't everyone just get the fundamentals down pat so that we can move on to deeper, higher level stuff?

Everytime I'm just sitting in there, listening to his rants and waiting for him to move on, but of course he hardly ever does, because the brilliant and bright students of my school do not allow him the leeway. I mean, for goodness sake, we're not in secondary school. At least, the last I checked, we're not supposed to be in secondary school. Seems quite obvious that a disturbing number of people are still stuck there.

I don't know how much this contributes to my lack of an A (apparently I got a 68.5% for the paper) but the environment in there is awfully uninspiring. I've never felt so down-trodden in my whole life. Even in secondary school I've had my bursts of inspiration and times in which I could really write and produce quality essays. Over here? No such luck. Teachers only think I'm good because everyone else sucks. Honestly. I'm not that great, and I know that, but I also know that I'm better than most people in school. But so fucking what? I get absolutely no consolation from the thought that I'm better than the people in there because I think the majority of them are losers anyway.

How can such a horribly-written essay get a 41/50? It makes no logical sense and I'm not just being hard on myself; amazingly, I assessed the piece of shit objectively and arrived at the conclusion that it sucks. If I wrote like that for the A Levels, I'm going to get a catastrophic B3 and I cannot get a B3 for GP if I got an A2 for Chinese. It makes no sense.

But the point is, I am so sick of the amateurs and their lack of competence that I have to painfully co-exist with in JJC. I think the school would be lucky to get 5As in Lit for November's exams.

Anyway, I did much better than expected for Paper 4 but that's about it. I'm afraid to even guess at the outcome of the Paper 1 crap, considering the abysmal 32/50 for the Othello essay. And Paper 8? Like Maths, it has never been retrieved from hell; the only difference is that it's resting a step higher than the position in which Maths is situated.

In conclusion, therefore, everything sucks and I'm sick of it all but there's nothing I can do except to grin and bear it.

If I don't feel half-dead every day, I'm not doing enough.

If I merely feel half-dead every day, I'm only doing the bare minimum.

Hence, I should feel like I'm totally dead every day. I should not sleep until it's 2 a.m. I should not waste free periods (ie. GP lessons) walking to the canteen just to walk back to the benches empty-handed. I should also cease to waste time typing in here because it takes me close to a bloody hour to do so. I should stop watching TV programmes like America's Next Top Model and record everything for my viewing pleasure on Sunday mornings.

I don't even think that I'm going to watch Ladder 49 when it opens here on Joaquin's birthday (October 28). And it's his film. I've never missed any of his films in the theatre except for Quills. And I don't even think I can watch 2046 anymore and I really really really really really want to catch it, considering how much I loved In the Mood for Love. I mean, Wong Kar Wai is just amazing, as is Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi.

I hate this. I really do. But what I hate even more is how I'm always riddled with negative thoughts early in the morning, about how I'm not going to get even 2As, let alone 4, for the stupid exams. If I choose to be fatalistic, I will be fatally shot in the head, point-blank, come November 4 and beyond. Maths Paper 1 has proven that very clearly. (I kinda did it like, oh what the fuck, anyhow do lah, I'm going to fail anyway, and indeed I failed.)

I feel so helpless, and enervated, and stretched beyond my limits. Maybe I really can't do this after all. Who am I kidding? When have I ever excelled academically? Why do I even bother? I'm just helping Cambridge to confirm that I am just a fraud masquerading as someone intelligent. Everyone's gonna know and I'm gonna be the ultimate loser.

Oh fuck it. I'm hot. I'm going to take a shower. The weather is monstrous today.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010