Bored in the Face of the Prelims

So that was the last week of school. Mercilessly productive, it passed in a daze, because I wanted it to be over with so we could start with the next phase of the journey towards the A Levels. It still is dreadful, the A's, but after a certain point the tension just becomes bathetic and you'd do anything for the dreaded thing to be over and done with. If it doesn't kill you, the tension will make you stronger, and thus the torture can get boring after a while.

Prelims technically start tomorrow, though we only have the two GP papers and the Lit PC paper to deal with, which is not too heavy. Nevertheless, felt a bit off kilter today, because there wasn't much to do. Started on the quote thematiser for WAVW, and spent the better part of the morning and afternoon going through the first act. Beyond that, the only other thing of note today is my breaking in of the new phone.

It's a K700i, with all sorts of cool functions, the most useful of which is a pretty good digital camera. It's got most of the capabilities of the big digicam that my family has, except that its pictures are much smaller. But I can see it coming in useful =P The only trouble is that there's currently no way to get the pictures out of the phone, since I don't have a connecting cable to the computer, and using the internet is really expensive. And that means that all the fancy internet browsing abilities are also restricted for the moment (for some reason the phone can act as a modem too...). But it does have something entertaining that I can use - a radio. That is by far my favourite thing right now...at least until I find a way to get the photos out of the phone =P

Heh...spent like three hours just tinkering around on that phone, rather than studying useful stuff like Econs or Hist. It was a sort of feverish filling up of time. The truth is that I don't feel particularly bothered that the prelims are upon us. Maybe it's cos we've had it hanging over our heads for so long that we've accepted its inevitability. I think partly it's also because this isn't the first prelims I've gone through, and we all know that it's really not make or break. And probably it's healthier for everyone to put it into perspective and see it as what it essentially is - a dry run that counts for nothing on the actual certificate itself.

In other news then...on Friday afternoon went out with Kats, KHwee, Kath and Andre to lunch at Cafe Cartel. Hehheh, it was hilarious =P It felt good to be able to slip back into the old secondary school mode of doing things. All of us were a bit deranged, I think...it struck me as slightly feverish, the conversation over lunch. Hehheh, it probably had something to do with the heartening sight of a pile of fried meat in front of us with lavish helpings of bread and butter (!) on the side. But somehow or other we ended up reminiscing about the religious experience we had watching Shaolin vs Evil Dead 2. That was muchly fun...and I only realised that I had been practically yelling with laughter when recounting the plot when we walked out and we could breathe normally again. I imagine we must have attracted lots of attention with our loud talking in the restaurant - but you know what the beautiful thing was? We were so caught up in out insular little world that nobody noticed what other people were thinking of our noisy merrymaking =)

And I forgot to write here about that badminton bout we had on Monday. Wiggy, me, Kats and Yiting at the concourse whacking those helpless shuttlecocks all over the place. Very therapeutic...that must be what they mean when they say one has an aerobic high. I have to say that Yiting can sure whack. Took one right in the gut, and was rather surprised by the force behind that thing - even though it was feathery and designed to bleed off energy in flight, it still managed to leave a sting. And after that, I spent most of the game sententiously avoiding the volleys that she sent towards my head every now and then =P But yeah, if one doesn't aim to win (if one doesn't aim at all), badminton is very cathartic. You can hit that shuttlecock as hard as you like and not worry about anyone getting hurt. And you can always hit it straight up if you are still concerned =P At the end of it the feeling of pleased tiredness is rather satisfying. As are the aches and pains the day after...

Oh, and speaking of aches...my having to go back to CMPB on Tuesday morning meant that I had a bit of time on my hands before I had to go back to school for Maths lec. I decided to use that to take a detour while walking back to Redhill station. My intention was to walk around a block on the other side rather than following the bus route (if the bus route is given by the vectors a + b, then I wanted to walk b + a). But of course the workability of that plan depended on the road layout actually being in grid form. Which it wasn't. In the end I had to overshoot the station by a lot before finding a lateral road that brought me back to it.

But all was not lost. It was still a relaxing morning spent wandering down the main roads of Redhill. Discovered that Redhill is very much like Toa Payoh, a mature estate with its own distinct atmosphere, except that it's not as cluttered or built-up or old as Toa Payoh. And to my delight, I actually managed to find a short cut by leaving the main roads and cutting through the HDB blocks. Heh, I figure it must be rather odd for the residents to see this all-white figure walking towards the apartments rather than away from it. Heh, it's rare enough to see someone walking such a distance.

Oh well...nothing more of interest to report, really. Shall go off and finally get down to sending off those shirts to the Taiwanese. I've been promising myself to do that since the National Day week...

Oh! Hehheh seems like the first person to send me a message on the new phone is Yundi from the old OG. And hot on his heels is Soph. If there is a deeper significance behind me even bothering to record this, I'll be eager to find out =P

pondered by phoenican @ 28.8.05