Last Day of Classes

Yesterday was the last day of classes! Maybe there will never be a scenario in which we will actually have to sit in a room with 20 other students and listen to one teacher again, especially if we're going into one-on-one supervisions next year (hopefully). But still, yesterday was a bit of a non-starter, because it was so short, and because quite a few people were not in school.

But was determined to make it worth it, so brought the guitar to school. After all, what is a guy to do between the end of school at 10am and the start of Hist S at 2pm? Mmm thank God for my guitar, it's become the primary stress relief method nowadays. Cheap, readily available, and devoid of guilt. Managed to play Light in Your Eyes for Chern's singing pleasure, but it doesn't sound as good without piano accompaniment. Ah well. I like playing Stairway to Heaven! Such a melodic line for the verses. I leave the pro guitar solos to someone else...

Two worries yesterday. First was a real mess with the somethingood hours...had to straighten things out, and avert several political incidents with people getting "insufficient" hours. In all fairness I don't condone any more changes in hours, especially additions of hours, because most of the requests for addition so far have been largely unjustifiable. Yes, we have help friends out and all that, but if you want to quibble over such a trivial thing as CIP hours (not even the CIP itself), then clearly you don't deserve it: no sense of charity. And anyway, here's a situation in which we can actually enhance equity. And finally, the greatest reason, because it'd be such a bother - one change will become the reason for more changes down the line.

Another one was for Lit S. A bit bizarre, because the approach given by Mr. Evans and Mr. McConnell don't seem compatible with what Mr. Purvis has been telling us. For them the approach seems to be not so text-based, and you talk about the historiography of the novel (i.e. put it in its historical context and evaluate whether it is typical of the literary interests of the time), and you talk about narrative theories (stream-of-consciousness, pseudo-psychological mumbo-jumbo), and basically get all theoretical. Now that sounds like what Grace (the VJ one, not the 13A one) has been telling me is the right way to do things, and I've been telling her that it must be text based first and foremost. Well...like for Econs, now's a really bad time to tell us that our style has been wrong all this time. But like for Econs too, maybe this conflict can be resolved, in that the essay should start from textual analysis and then use that as a foundation to delve into theoretical philosophical tracts. At least I hope it's not an entirely incompatible approach with what we've been doing.

Actually I think this prelims has been very lucky for me. My screwed up lit papers happened to coincide with what the teachers expected, I think...only the PCs and the Frost essay turned out as expected. And I'm thinking that if Purvis had read my Lit S books, or if my S essays had not been marked by him, then I wouldn't have the results I have now. The trouble is that I haven't convinced myself that it's not a fluke, that I can reproduce that kind of performance in November. At this point in time, though, I think that is the healthier position to take. Now is time to guard against letting it get to my head. After all, usually I find that I'm actually stupider than I think I am.

Ah well, so that was yesterday. Nothing much to report really, except that I wanted to make a note of the end of formal classes. A week that is remarkable only in its overall dreariness I think, though to be fair there have been bright enough instances provided by helpful and open people. I shan't reflect on the class now...don't think I'll be able to do it justice at the moment. But I do feel a tad sad, because our time is coming to an end - regardless of everything else, endings always tend to invoke moroseness in me.

* * * * *

Today's FIREfly Seminar was more or less a waste of time. Didn't tell us anything particularly interesting, or even new. I don't find myself fancying working in any of those agencies besides STB actually, because of the heavier economic leaning of the others. I'd much rather work with people than with numbers, and it strikes me that it is a bad idea to let economists and engineers determine Singapore's tourism skyline. I seriously think I can do better than "Uniquely Singapore"...

But on the bright side, I like how these things have the way of turning into impromptu reunions. As may be expected, there were quite a few HC people there, and even met JC (incidentallly I must put a stop to the spreading of that issue...it's getting way out of proportion). It was good to see Joel again...feels like talking to a kindred spirit. I still wish we were in the same class, or at least the same school. But ah well...that guy is going places, and if things work out then we'll at least be in the same country next year. I wonder if I'll be able to crash Oxford like I crash HC now =P

Poor Pui Man, though, had to tolerate hours of my whispering asides to her in the talks. They were really too pointless for words. The most vexing thing was that they were wasting valuable time, time that could have been spent studying or playing Civ III =P So I found myself outside the auditorium, allegedly on a toilet trip, and eventually she, Joel, JC and Lucas had joined me, and we were holding a sort of shadow conference about prelims and scholarships and whatnot. Rather amusing now that I think of it...I wonder whose bright idea it was to make us sit in an LT for 3 hours straight with no breaks. And I wonder why no more people actually entertained idea of staying outside the LT. It wasn't as if there was something to miss on the inside...

pondered by phoenican @ 8.10.05