rather positive turn of events
written: 7:01 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 08, 2004

This is gonna be another dead-boring entry on exams and History so don't say I didn't warn you.

Seriously, I don't think that it is humanly possible for me to pick up a pen and write another word ever again in my life. My right arm is insidiously aching and please do not get me started on this disgusting and uncomfortable lump that is currently seeking asylum in my right thumb. The skin on my thumb and my index finger feels all out of place and rearranged.

And I don't think I could be any more euphoric and ecstatic that I'd never, ever have to bother myself with European history ever again. Like, EVER AGAIN, I'm positive that there's no way in hell I'd be majoring in History when I get to the university.

But anyway, to cut a potentially long and unnecessarily melodramatic entry short, I think today went pretty well. But I'm not sure if I should really think that way, just in case I jinx it, but right now I'm not feeling any negative vibes from the three hours that just transpired.

It wasn't like GP on Thursday. GP on Thursday was a horrendous nightmare (and somehow, over the past few days, the positive feeling I described in the previous entry had completely evaporated and I'm back, once again, to being convinced that I'm gonna get a shoddy B3) and I felt like shit after that. I don't feel like shit now, save for the requisite physical hell which I'm currently in.

I did screw up along the way though. Example: Source-based. Sources C, D, and E. I can't believe I didn't even read the provenance of Source D, which happened to be the same as Source E, so that led me to say that Source E supports the hypothesis when it's much easier to say that it challenges. And I only realised that Sources D and E were taken from The Daily News halfway through my answer, when I was evualuating Source D, so it was too late. I did try to cover my arse but I don't know how much sense it made so yeah, hopefully it made some sense, or else... or else.

I spent like ten years on Source A. I don't know why. Just couldn't stop going off about it and I devoted two chunky paragraphs to it. 'Twas probably dumb but I did manage to kind of finish the source-based question so it wasn't catastrophic.

I overstayed my time in imperial Europe which mathematical induction-ed on to the next two questions so in the end I only had half an hour for the Bismarck question, which was bleeding crazy. European nationalism is my most secure topic but I did the question on it last because I had no idea what the hell the question was asking of me when I first looked at it. I mean... "How consistent were Bismarck's aims and methods in the period 1864 - 1871?"

Like, what the hell???????!!!!?!?!?! To think that I spent ten million years on the 1848 revolutions!

Okay I just had dinner and once again I'm bloated and it interferes severely with my thought process for some unknown reason or maybe I'm just going off again but yeah.

Can I just say first that I really don't understand Singaporeans' obsession with football? (Those pretending to be Americans even though we follow British English call it 'soccer'. Why do you think Liverpool is called a 'football' club and not a 'soccer' club? Duh.) Even more alarming is how they employ the royal pronoun 'we' when they go off about their beloved English Premier League clubs that really have fuck-all to do with them. Truly, I don't understand. And yes, I know I went off about Real Madrid a lot too when I was 16, ie. in the year 2002, but those days are fortunately way behind me and I have no intention of re-visiting them. I mean, I supported China's basketball team during the Olympics but you don't see me going off about how "we" lost to Lithuania by a twenty-point margin even though I have more reason to "we" myself with China because I'm Chinese, like them, but Singaporeans have next to no logical, reasonable reason (oh, how brilliant; just like 'knowingly know' -- ha ha) to "we" themselves with English football clubs.

I mean, I'm just like, "Uh... yeah... who cares?"

Okay, so I don't get it at all and I'm sure whoever engages in such activities get quite a lot of kicks from it, so okay, great, do whatever you want, all power to you (Lenin is such an arse), have fun, good night.

Great, now I feel like throwing up.

Anyway, back to my History tale. I kind of took a wrong approach for the Bismarck essay. I only had half an hour to do it so I was furiously scribbling down, in my usual barely-legibile scrawl, things that were coming into my head. Thank goodness that things were actually coming or else it's goodbye to a B, let alone an A. I didn't really study unification and I've always been better at Italian unification than Germany's and like I said, I spent a lot of time on the 1848 revolutions so it's truly a wonder that I managed to cough out 4.5 pages' worth of... words. And I wasn't even finished.

It's amazing what exam stress and pressure can do to a person. Makes that person perform gravity-defying feats. Like...

Okay, my dad is scolding my brother now so kinda lost my train of thought there. Brother's playing computer games and not studying. I think he should study. He's stuck in a no-name school with a shitty English syllabus such that they're still doing dumb things like editing (Spot the Incorrect Word/Punctuation/Spelling/et al!) at lower sec. English when I was already doing O Level stuff in Sec. 1 back in SNGS. Too bad he doesn't have the drive and doesn't give a shit. If I'm as smart as I am, there's no reason why I should have a stupid brother, you know? So I think he could do better than me for the O LEvels if he bothered enough and yeah, I guess I hope he does.

Anyway, the Russian question was on the February 1917 Revolution. Damn glad I didn't spend too much time on the Bolsheviks' consolidation of power. I knew it wasn't likely to re-appear after it made its appearance last year. Imperialism was on effects. My second time writing an imperialism essay (first time was for last year's promos) and first time writing an effects of imperialism one. I memorised my schoolmate's essay and the majority of it stayed but I kinda forgot how the Fashoda incident began. Then again, I don't even know what the hell 'Fashoda' is, except that it's obviously a place, so yeah. Was pausing a lot because the stuff took a while to return so that caused me to overshoot the 45 minutes.

Oh well, was a 6-page in the end, so shouldn't be too bad. And okay, later 19th century doesn't include the early 1900s, so I shouldn't have gone off about the two Moroccan crises but I didn't know what else to write and I only had four pages so I went off about them. Forgot what the second one was about though. Some shit about Kaiser Wilhelm pulling another utterly stupid and braindead stunt again at Morocco or something. Kept linking events to World War One. I mean, you can't blame me, right? Because, like, the building up of tension did kind of escalate into World War One, and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Wife was just the catalyst. Yeah. Okay.

My fingers hurt. I don't feel like revising my Maths. I feel the most well-equipped for Maths because I've been doing quite a lot of it in the wake of my 48.5% for the prelim, but still, Maths is still Maths, I am still me, hence stupid mistakes can occur and the questions can be impossible, so... yeah.

But it's just evil and wrong to make a person immediately switch to Maths after five days of History. It's just damn weird.

Oh well, at least I wouldn't have to write 21 pages of words in three hours again tomorrow.

On the downside, I'd have to do that next Tuesday and take another Maths paper in the same day. Great. Could hardly wait.

I think I'm watching America's Next Top Model tonight. There's only so much one can do with lecture notes. And anyway, I've ran out of papers to do. So, yeah.

PS. My GP is so dead.

Oh yeah. I forgot this one thing that pissed me off.

NAPOLEON DID NOT COME OUT. WHAT THE FUCK. TO THINK I STUDIED FOR IT. TO THINK THAT SEVEN SCHOOLS OUT OF TWELVE SET QUESTIONS ON HIM FOR THE PRELIMS. WHAT THE FUCK. CAMBRIDGE, YOU SUCK.

There. Feel much better.

PPS. My GP is decomposing. And I mean it. Can't wait to see the B3.

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