My Favorite Time of the Semester

My favorite time of the semester is here. Recess week! A break without having the face the pressure of impending finals (think reading week). Every time it comes when I totally need it. And it goes just as quickly as it comes.

I know I have two upcoming tests right after recess week, and I need to study hard for them during this short little one week break. But then again, a one week break is a one week break. It means a week of not needing to go for lectures, tutorials or labs; a week to catch up with piled up work, and a week NOT to have extra work that I haven't finished piled up at the end of it. :)

Convocation dinner was last Tuesday and it is long over. Just wanted to blog about it because it was my first Chamber Music Ensemble (CME) performance of the year. CME this year is really really small, and we have to do these 1-2 person performances now, instead of the 5-8 ones we used to do previously. I paired with Sharon to do Air in D, which she has never heard before at all prior to this. Sharon plays the erhu, and she's used to listening and playing Chinese songs ONLY. So Air in D is what she calls an 'ang moh' song. I say we didn't do too badly considering the times we practiced were very limited. Of course it wasn't a blast, and did pale in comparism with some performances put up by the Rugged Hallways (that's what RH Band is called now), but then it did fish in quite a number of compliments. Even I who was hidden behind the piano and was not seen at all got a personal compliment from one of the alumni :) I think she was very kind.

Separations test is over. It was 25 MCQ questions, and the duration was only 1 hour. As usual panic signals overwhelmed my brain when I saw the question to time ratio, but fortunately, I managed to recover quite a bit when the exam actually started. I guess part of the panic was due to the unusual absence of Mei, my classmate, who was usually very responsible and punctual when it comes to test. Not only was she absent, but she did not pick up all the calls I sent to her! It turned out that she was on the way to the test, but might not have heard her phone on the shuttle bus. I shall decline to comment on all things regarding this 10% test that I have not slept well for the past week for, except this: I think the lecturer was very smart when he asked for us to put our workings down. He could have just marked our answers alone (because the test was multiple choice) but he chose to look through our workings as well, so as to ensure that our results wasn't just a result of sheer luck.

Not sleeping for a whole day for test prep did take its toll for me. I totally blacked out the whole of next day (Friday) and pigged it in peacefully. I missed all my (webcasted) lectures, and my project meeting! And I didn't realize (or conveniently forgot) that there was a meeting going on until Yew Hong called to tell me the meeting was finished. Somehow I had mixed feelings about his calling me after everything was over. On one hand, I thought it would be better if I received the call when it was still ongoing so that I could at least rush over. On the other hand, I was quite happy because I got to replenish lost sleep. Hmms.

Anyway, today is already Saturday, and despite having made up my mind to spend it mugging, the weather was so temptingly cloudy and cool and rainy that I compromised by spending another half of the day pigging it again. When weekdays come I think I'd have to drag myself to some place around school without a bed to mug. Otherwise the allure of sleeping in such a nice cold weather is too much for a tired soul like mine. Hopefully that some place would have a range of nice (affordable) food to go with it too. Won't mind putting on a little weight this week, and food does in a way keep me awake and fuel me to keep on going.

Had dinner with Wai Pheng, Tirza, Zjun and Jon today at Thai Express, which Wai Pheng insisted on treating. I forgot to took pictures though. :( Last time I had laksa, so this time I tried their green curry. It was super delicious when ate together with rice. Zhi Jun appeared to be quite fond of my curry too, and since there was a lot of it, both of us splashed generous amounts on our rice. Oh no, just blogging about it has aroused my taste buds. Tirza's tomyam soup should be nice too, but it was so unusually hot that I couldn't stand it. There was this little baby next to us, with the most expressive eyes ever. The mother pointed out that the shirt he was wearing had the words 'Big Flirt' on it. Haha. I think it was rather an apt statement because you could really describe his eyes as 'seductive'. He kept on staring at us and allowed Zjun to hold his hand.

That's for the beginning of my recess week. I wonder how it would end. Hopefully with the blog post saying that I am well rested and at the same time well prepared for my tests. =p I hope this won't be wishful thinking.