Back to School and Exams

Recess week was just over, and the beginning of a new school week was celebrated with Process Dynamics mid terms. I don't know what I did, again it was a state of blurriness and a mad rush for time as I struggled to lift concepts from my text book into the answer sheet. (It was an open book test.) I will be having another test on Numerical Methods this Friday.

I suppose it was due to the test and on-off sleeping for two nights running. I developed a headache at the side of my head today afternoon. Fortunately it didn't come till way after my test. I couldn't even fall asleep when it came because it hurt when I rested my head on the pillow and caused me to cough a lot because I was feeling nauseous. In the end I had to take Panadol to ease the pain while falling asleep. I took a good long 4 hour plus nap (thanks Tirza for packing my food) and woke up finding that the headache was gone. Feeling much better now. However, this means that I didn't study for the whole day and I have to mug through the night again. This is a terrible vicious cycle. I wonder if my grades are actually worth this much, but judging by how high the school fees and expectations are... I think the least I can do is try not to do too badly each time.

Yeh Yeh has just revived his blog again after a long winter of hibernation. Pretty long entries he has written too and I was encouraged by them today. :) Lately there are so many reminders for me that I haven't been placing priority in things that matter. The preaching in church about the end times that are drawing near. My own daily devotional about the warnings God gave the wayward people through the old testemant prophets. Jon's praying session with me. And things happening in Campus as well as issues brought up during Bible study.

Jesus coming again is not that far away as we're in the times we're in now. And even as the Bible said he will come suddenly, in a blink of an eye, with no one expecting it; we can't say death will give us the chance to expect it by either. As I lay in bed with a headache today, I thought about how my mum had just fallen in coma in her sleep before she left us, and I wondered for a while (well you do think of things like that when you're not feeling well) if I'll just fall asleep and not wake up again either. Things like that will just leave you unprepared, and right now I'd just be too ashamed to face God and say that my whole life is just centered on studies and exams, preparing for a career, that I might not even live to pursue, forsaking more important things that matter.

Keep thy fire burning
The fire of your faith
The Master is coming
The hour is too late

The battle grows stronger
He told us it would
But Christ is the victor
Will be understood

I can't remember the rest of the lyrics of this song haha. It's the midnight hour of the age of man. Prepare, prepare to meet Him in the clouds.

To someone who just told me she couldn't put down a death - if this helps, perhaps as the times of separation grow shorter, we should no longer quake for the death, but for the living; and for our own selves. Looking forward and no longer looking behind, running for the goal. The right goal.

NUS and its competitiveness has made me love and hate it so. But most importantly, I find it a battleground that has taught me so many things through my weaknesses. For it is through that in our weakness we're made strong. It taught me not to be puffed up, to accept myself as who I am, be it superior or inferior to others. It taught me that responsibilities are important, but not to the extent that I sell my soul chasing after the wrong things. I'll try not to make such a big hoo-hah about exams and just let them be part of my life. And trust God to guide me through and prepare the way ahead for me after doing my best. And doing my best means not compromise other more important things for the books and do just enough for what I should be doing.

23 September 2009

Today is the most fruitful day for studying in recess week. At least I managed to stay up the whole day (up till now) and been studying on and off without sleeping.

Some random issues:

1. I feel like wanting to change my blog template again. I wonder if I should. The current template is nice, but it's a little bit too cute for me now. But then nice templates are really hard to find! And I don't want to give myself excuses to hog on the laptop finding new templates when I'm supposed to be mugging for mid terms.

2. Two mid terms after recess week. Monday and Friday. Plus other non mid term modules and projects to catch up with. Projects! I've been immobile in them except for a bit of fruitless research. I feel like I'm such a let-down as a project mate. Would buck up.

3. I want to put on some weight! But not too much.

4. I felt like wanting to change my blogging style. Note the past tense. Reason for that was I've been hanging around some popular blogs lately (thanks to Dawn's blog roll which I go to if I have nothing to read from my own feed), and some blogs are just so nice to read! Not that the content is thought-provoking and inspiring, but they are just... fun. But then I decided that I'll stick to my current style, because I don't want to turn into a blogger going for hits. I decide that I am not going to blog for hits. Not that that will be of any use even if I tried to anyway, but most importantly, that will take away the whole meaning of my blogging altogether. Won't go for what people want to read, but just what I want to say, and what I think, and who I am. Ahh well, you might be thinking: "Duh, isn't that elementary?!" But then, sometimes I get on the high horse so much that I forget the elementary.

5. I love Country Story! Even though it's getting a bit monotonous playing now. But I'm still a little upset over the fact why the livestock/animals look blur or boring after they mature. They were so cute when they haven't grown up!

6. I'm having my first band practice tomorrow. Never really played in a band before. The closest to it was actually the song 'Zhen de Ai Ni' in church a few years back for Parents' Day presentation. But I like this group of people I'm going to work with for Orange Week performance in Central Forum. They are all very good musicians and Chuanbo sings well. This is going to be exciting. Would be more exciting still, if I don't keep on bringing up the fact to myself that practices may get into the way of my mid term preparations. But then I think they won't.

7. I'm now using rough paper Tirza gave me. There's a whole stack of them and behind some are some Japanese exercises. So when I get bored of calculations, I flip them over and try to copy the Japanese characters behind down, even though I don't know what most of them mean, and I can't read any of them.

This doodling has somehow produced two effects. Firstly, it made me miss writing in Chinese. As in writing Chinese by hand. Not typing it. Half the Japanese words are the same as Chinese ones, only they are pronounced differently, and maybe written a little differently. I want to write Chinese words! Hence I end up writing random Chinese phrases all round the page. The second effect this mindless doodling had on me is it actually caused me to want to learn Japanese! I don't know if it's the doodling thing or if it's a Tirza thing. For those who don't know, I've been psychologically affected by Tirza lately. Don't ask me why, I don't know and it's not really her fault either. I saw her eating cup noodles and I had a craving to eat them too. I saw her drinking 100 plus and I wanted to drink 100 plus as well. Then one morning I woke up seeing her eating McDonalds for breakfast and my mind itched until one fine day I decided to do the same. And Tirza's taking Japanese this semester. Hmm.

I don't really think it's Tirza this time. And I don't believe I'll actually take Japanese as a module anytime in NUS. The learning hours are just too long, and I know nuts about Japanese to begin with (except those few words Tirza repeats to herself in the room). I just want an excuse to write something Chinese, or similar to Chinese. An academic excuse. Something more than teaching Boss how to do his Chinese Language tutorials (not that I have, just recalled that he asked for assistance two weeks back). If the craving gets really chronic I'll borrow all Jap lecture and tutorial notes from someone, mug them through the holidays and take Jap in my Final Year. Chances of that happening is pretty low though.

8. I suddenly lost all passion for ice-cream. Now that's really, really sad.

He Gives and Takes Away

Was singing the song 'Blessed be the Name of the Lord' in church today. There was one line in the song that goes 'He gives and takes away'. A line that was deeply etched into my mind and heart on those days my mum went to heaven last year.

Today is Charissa's birthday, and it's overwhelming to see the number of friends she has who still remember her deeply, and whose life she's still very much a part of.

I received an SMS last Thursday while I was halfway through my bio lab from Matthew saying that he lost his dad to death, following with details of the wake and cremation. My heart just went out to him and his family then. It takes the experience of facing a death personally, to understand what it feels like. There is just this void gap when you lose someone that there's this vacuum in your heart, telling you the person is there no more, and you're so thrown off balance that you just need to fill it with something. With sorrow, with memories? With the assurance of God's promises that there is life after death? With the love of those around you?

I think there is no experience yet in my life parallel to losing the people I love to death. No wonder it is one of the only recorded incidence (at least directly recorded) at which Jesus wept. Yes, there is life after death, but still, death separates and it is very painful. Yet it is still very assuring and comforting to know that death is not the ultimate conquerer.

As I was sitting in the BTC bus on the way to church today, I saw how it was bright and sunny outside on the road. Again nature reminds me that although dust has returned to dust, life around you is still there, and you must somehow learn to move on.

Pastor's message today was about the second coming of Christ, which is very near, any time from now, because almost all the prophecies of his coming are fulfilled at this day and age. And the idea of Christ coming again any time of now, in a blink of an eye, when we are still unprepared, really blows away my heart and mind. It made death seem so insignificant, and that it is just but a passing moment, when suddenly all of us will be swept into eternity, entering eternal grace, or eternal judgement.

I know Christ is true, and His promises are true, because I always see them unfolding, and coming alive, in my own life and in the life of others. But I shudder yet when it comes to the question on whether I am ready or not, when He comes, or even when my own time on earth comes, should it come before the time He comes again. True, I have already accepted Him as my personal Savior. But have I lived my life in the way that it says and proclaims that I am saved by Him? What have I been focusing on?

Just a reminder to self today to focus on things that really matter now, and looking beyond temporary joys and sorrows - and to make life really count, in the Lord. He's been knocking on my heart these days and I've only to find courage to surrender, and respond.

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.