these days

These days are not working as I had hoped. So comes the need for the hiatus again.


How challenging it is for me to put my head down & focus.


Hard work will take its toll, if any hard work is put in at all.


Can I promise myself not to falter these days? It worries me when I do other things.

Oh, I pledge to be alive and motivated! Where is my determination?

Can I say I dislike the mood of this post......its all thoughts into words

Shall resume posting when I allow myself to. that is after exams! :DD

last week of lessons

went to school 7.30-10am today. english appt with mcgrath and chem lesson. went fine. sort of sleepy now...some things that have happened lately:
Dad cut his finger while trying to make dinner for us, 3 stitches, stitched quite badly too - last thursday
family friends from the church we used to go to in singapore came here on business trip, going to stay for 3 years.
friday lunchtime - part of the year 12 grade was involved in a water fight. mr gorman and jones gave lectures to them after that.
friday lunch - cheesecake with alcorn and my(townend's) instep year12s
biology lesson after lunch - chocolate freddo cake from dr. guppy
drank mum's chicken soup today. im surprised one chicken only came out to less than half a bowl of soup. and she cooked it yesterday morning-night. really concentrated stuff.
every week when i go to church someone will ask me when my exams are...this week im saying 'one more week'. makes me realize a hell lot of things. or maybe not.
i wish my chemistry papers would just do themselves.
i sound like a dead fish right now. audrey's blog is more interesting.
some pictures to brighten the mood!

coronation drive jam in thunderstorm on the way home last week

Ms. Alcorn "fighting" with Kevin during instep. watch the stunned year 10s sitting and looking. (ross later used a year 10 as a weapon against her) N.B. this was totally for the fun of it, a non-contact stand-off.

Everyone was being sad and nostalgic on the last full day of class on friday. this was taken on 'the bridge', the out of nowhere path to the lift.

biology frog cake

biology class! spot the 1 and only guy. the other guy in our class wasnt there that day.

wheeeee

wake up

i woke up at 8am though i slept at 1.30 last night. super tired now...10.26am and ive only been reading my english notes, havent started writing my commentary. I just want to crawl back in bed....

short post :D

Regarding yesterday's post: Loggie cleared up the little confusion from award's night yesterday. Mrs Edwards and Mr Grant actually got the mentor awards while Mrs West and Mr Baker were meant to get the teaching awards. I was thinking, Mrs Edwards doesn't teach students...haha
Well, now its Mrs West's second year getting this award! She is really a professional teacher, very straightforward, funny, organised. I actually voted for Ms Alcorn, the English teacher this year. Last year I voted for Mrs West seeing her tireless efforts to get us ready for our anticipated business exams. The psychology teacher Dr. Daly also received this award last year (2 receipients to this award). She prepared psychology students for their anticipated exams, but unfortunately she is no longer teaching since the end of last year.

My brother and I received our honours prog candidate awards today(: He also acheived a high distinction in the australian maths competitions.
Yesterday was my brother's FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY! I forgot to mention because we actually celebrated the previous day. Dad baked a fabulous mango cake (new creation) and we celebrated his birthday while a family friend just happened to be at our place. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Audrey was asking me: am I attached? No, haha. The guy who was in quite a few of my formal photos, is my "study buddy", along with the girl in the big pink dress. and no, I really am not in a relationship. That was kind of a funny comment, although I was feeling like "WHAT??!" when I read it :D
I strive to be highly motivated, at least for tonight and tomorrow. Study leave tomorrow again, means no school (has been this way for all wednesdays since this term). wheee

Awards Night 08

you know, I've changed my mind about this staying away from blogger thing. I do have lots of things to talk about all the time, and I'd say I prefer blogging to facebook or msn for now.

Tonight was the inaugral Awards Night, officially the 2nd Awards Night ever for my school. I remember last year I had to pull off a piano solo, phew! But it is sad that I've stopped my piano lessons etc. since the end of last year due to all the crazy academic stuff. I actually havent't touched my piano + other instruments for a few months in a row now... :'(
only 2 weeks to go from tomorrow till the start of my finals! Im disappointed at my determination to study this long weekend. I digress...
To summarise the awards: (I speak mainly for the year 12's)
Honours program (those who consistently score very good grades) congrats!
Subject awards:
Both Jake and Keri-Anne swept 5 awards each...mann this is like the oscars! Congrats, congrats. Maths, Physics, Chemistry, German Language B and the honours prog awards for him and English, Spanish Ab Initio, Psychology anticipated, TOK and the honours prog awards for her.
French ab initio - Sarah, French lang B - Rory, German Ab Initio - Nikita, Mandarin Ab Initio - Du, Psychology - Danielle, Business&mngmt - Kevin, Biology - Joanna, CAS - Dilshad, EE - Justin (Biology), Rizwan (English), Josh (Physics). I managed to get the Mandarin Lang B and Business& Mngmt Anticipated subject awards.
Jake was also awarded the ADP Long Tan Leadership and Teamwork Award for the Most Effective Year 12 Leader in 2008. By the way, this is the guy who represented our school and Australia in this year's Physics Olympiad in Vietnam, claiming a silver medal. This was the highest achievement of all the participants from Australia, meaning that he is possibly the best Physics student in aus!! Congrats dude.
The IB all rounder award for year 12 went to Lindon, great job. The guy oozes confidence all the time.
The Spirit of the Academy Award for outstanding service to the Academy went to Tim from year 12. This guy is an awesome classical and jazz piano player. He also sings beautifully.
The QASMT educator award for outstanding contribution to the academy in teaching went to Mrs Edwards and Mr Grant. Mrs Edwards is our school's director of e-learning, I've never had her as a teacher really, so maybe it was the year 10s' votes for her...On the other hand, Mr Grant is a lovely Biology and Chemistry teacher. He's not my teacher for Chemistry but he's taught me the first semester of Bio at the start of last year, and now gives bio tutorials to year 12s once a week after school. He puts lots and lots of effort into prepping these tutorials, and I always feel that the toughest concepts of our course are explained so well through his teaching. Congrats both of you(:
The QASMT educator award for outstanding contribution to the academy through mentoring are Mrs West and Mr Baker. Mrs West was my business&mngmt teacher last year for our anticipated (2 year in 1) course. She was also my supervisor for EE (extended essay) which I did in B&M. She is excellent, excellent, excellent! Im not in her instep group, but she's really good at encouraging, getting students focused. She's also a wonderful role model of responsiblity, being the Director of Studies. Mr Baker takes my maths tutorial class (during school time period). I dont' really know him and the way he teaches since that period is more of supervision than teaching. Im sure the year 10s/11s will know him better because he doesnt teach yr 12 maths/physics.
the educator award (ditto above) for the University level (referring to the University of Queensland, whom our school has a partnership with) went to Dr Bahr and Professor Keniger. Both of them, as I learnt tonight, were the people who set up the EE external tutor program, where UQ students would guide nominated EE students with their essay. I was lucky to have a tutor, and he was able to guide me a great deal.
Finally, the year 12 dux of the school went to Joanna, meaning she had the best grades in year 12. I thought it would've been Jake but turned out to be Joanna.

I'll definitely have to congratulate the above mentioned people in person(:
Probably missed other points there but, thats about it in essence!

To blog:

I have to break the hiatus just once.

Today is just those once-in-a-blue-moon days…

Talk about lately, parents been cooking chicken broth for me and I've been taking ginseng powder in the mornings, they're doing heaps to make sure Im feeling on top! The ginseng's really really good, it keeps me from feeling too tired. I don’t really feel collapsing type tired now, I feel a lot better and can concentrate better in school.

This morning during instep we had assembly instead. Mr Gorman had asked me to speak about my study plan in this session earlier in the week, fortunately or unfortunately, turns out the plan was only for 2 of those group of people dubbed in to 'present'. That didn't bother me really. What bothered me was how the session ended. It was only Mr. Loggie handling our grade. Keri spoke up after the mini presentation that she felt that study plans at this stage was not the issue, and she hoped that the school could plan something more beneficial. She wasn't alone, in fact, I felt the same once Mr Gorman told me I was dubbed to speak about study plans. Someone else (whom I shall not mention the name)thought that was a cue to get everyone out of this 'boring' session by saying something like "I propose everyone should go to morning tea now…hands up for that." And then, Keri and lots of other people started putting their hands up. Evidently this upset Loggie a lot. As our principal, I thought the students had too less respect for him! To cut my little narration short, he carried on by talking about having respect for staff and their unseen efforts in trying to prep us to our best for the final exams, then said something like "I will keep all of you in for morning tea" after someone else provoked. The impatience of the cohort I can understand; their impoliteness, I cannot. He didn't end up keeping us in for the entire morning tea though.

When I got to class after morning tea, I immediately typed an email to him, which he still hasn't replied to.

Hi Mr Loggie,

I think that what you mentioned on assembly just then, about the fine line between staff and students, is absolutely correct. I'm rather surprised that almost all students would be thinking of disrespect as acceptable. I think its fine for you to have kept students in at lunch to get that point of respect across, but I did not realise so many students thought it totally unreasonable. Such a concept of respect is most frequently reinforced in schools in Singapore, and having known it as a part of Chinese culture, I am pleased that the school and yourself would be taking on similar concepts. Thank you for your patience with our cohort and I appreciate all efforts which the staff and yourself have undertaken to prepare us for the final exams. On another note, I do agree with Keri-anne about spending time on study plans at this stage. I feel that it may be a little late to be just starting, perhaps staff checking in with students to see if they've been on top of their study plans could be more beneficial. I find that creating a study plan is not the problem, rather the sticking to the plan is more important.

Regards,

Jessica

Mr McGrath did come in and talk to our Maths class about the issue since he saw and spoke students striding unhappily from the lecture theatre to morning tea. Only half the class was there, the others were "rebelling" against the lost morning tea time. Mr McGrath, an english teacher had been working with our principal rather closely this year, and had a lot of opinions about the man. I was surprised that he started talking earnestly about how Loggie was one of the brightest minds around and he had all the long term issues covered which most don't see the immediate effects of...and many other things he said to that same effect. I had never realised that, or looked at Loggie in that perspective. A lot of times, we students are so blinded by 'people relationships'. And then Mr McGrath said that he personally felt Loggie wasn't too fluent in expressing himself well, and with people to people social skills...etc. So that was quite an eye-opener for me too.

And I was rather "unnerved" about the entire incident, if that's the right word for it, until after lunch.

I had my Chemistry practice paper 3 from may 2008 timezone1, at the end of the day, it went all right. The paper 2 yesterday was horrendous though. I had a stiff neck yesterday and had to take 3 practice exams yesterday! The 2.25 hours in the lecture theatre was bad!! Yesterday I turned up to biology tutorial after school, and it was only me and Mr Grant. Thank you so much for the tutorials on these particularly complex concepts (e.g. aerobic cellular respiration yesterday)! Then there was parent-teacher interviews….hmm I've sidetracked to yesterday's events.

I received an email from this brilliant artist and animator, Pascal Campion, and oh I'm overjoyed at the compliments and kind words. Really touching, noone's ever said anything like that before! Do check out his blog, www.pascalcampion.blogspot.com, it’s the most inspiring blog ever!

Just a while ago, watching the satellite tv: Taiwanese news channel (my mum watches this everyday, being very concerned about her home country). Taiwan's first richest man, Wang Yong Qing (92 yrs old), passed away yesterday in New York. I think it was something like phlegm stuck in his throat in his sleep, I don’t know the other details. I just watched the news report, picturing his younger brother (I think its Wang Yong Zhen, 87 yrs old) with puffy eyes and bursting out in tears as the coffin passed him at the funeral. It was really emotional to see brothers live to such an old age and having such a strong bond. Wang Yong Qing is this really smart guy, very efficient in business, knows where and how to save costs and monitor staff etc. which made him so successful. I think he's 4th richest in Taiwan to date. Its just … shocking to think that a couple of days ago there was a documentary on him, and mum was telling his story briefly to me…and today……

And the stock markets just crashing and crashing everywhere in the world. My extended family and my own family have been affected by the terrible economic crisis, as have many many other people worldwide. I pray that they will remain positive through hard times, and not give up!

After unloading my thoughts for the day, I think I should be able to continue with Chemistry practice papers.

RESOLUTION AT LAST

JESSICA IS AWAY ON HIATUS TILL THE END OF 18 NOV 2008.
WISHING ALL IB NOVEMBER CANDIDATES THE BEST OF LUCK!
<3 SEE ALL OF YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE :D
THIS APPLIES FOR JESSICA'S MESSENGER & FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS AS WELL.

how much longer?

I want to stop mugging :(
damp, grey weather = lazing around mode
to auds: go vegan? I'd never be able to pull that off, thats like eating forests. I can't deal without a bit of meat or egg or cheese.
I want to go shopping. its the weather for it, stuck in a shopping centre I'd never notice.
I need to do a hiatus thing for facebook, messenger (thats hasnt been too bad so far), and maybe blog? after all its only...3 plus weeks left...
time to pull out my brain, sit straight, take a deep breath, think of nothing else, and MUG.

the faint-hearted

Here I am once more, splurging my time on confessing that Im out of my wits to continue mugging, that is, if you call slacking a form of mugging.
youtubing bobby mcferrin. opened my eyes to this extraodinary singing talent!!
go youtube now(:

finished pride and prejudice! and wishing for more! still feeling really lost :(
i need to start work.. lets see my overdue items
14 maths papers.........................aka i didnt do any this week
5 bio papers...still ok
6 chem papers..a bit tough
6 english papers probably not going to do
and i havent done any chinese revision!
and im supposed to complete all chapter revision of chem and bio but havent!
and havent consolidated maths formulae!
help!
i should at least finish bio in the afternoon and do maths at night.
poooo, sigghhh

Chess players at Dundas Square, Toronto

Players from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.

653 frames were shot within about an hour and put together to make the video. To watch the HD version check out the vimeo page
Music selected from The Photographer by Philip Glass. (Track: A Gentleman's Honor)

This video's really cool.
sifting through the collection of daily dose of imagery emails, which i received in this period, when either the internet was too slow or inexistent! NOW, i have wireless(:

ok now about my life
2nd week of the holidays now...
my mum had her operation yesterday at Mater private hospital. Their service was excellent and the anaesthetist was super gentle and nice, along with several other nurses. Seems like the cyst in the left ovary she removed yesterday is not cancerous?! hope that the tests on it which follow shows a NEGATIVE result. Now she's taken her post at home in front of the tv, on the couch, with several pillows and quilts. hahaha. she seems a lot happier despite some pain and having to walk slowly and not doing any strenuous activity for a week from yesterday, she said it feels better to know that the dangerous thing is out of the body, whereas before she couldn't sleep owing to the fact that she was about to be in surgery!
ive nearly finished pride and prejudice since i started on sunday. Sunday and Monday were pretty much full days of reading it, and i skipped it yesterday. Up to the part where Bingely has proposed to Jane Bennet. And now Im just waiting for Darcy to do so! What a charming but tempremental guy, if only he was real. Im sort of putting off finishing it, because im always sad at the end of nice novels. It had been such an easy read compared to A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, which, after a few months, I still haven't been able to finish! (still halfway through haha) but TOTC's plot is really good though. P&P is a nice smooth read and super engaging, and i like the absence of bloodshed or gothic elements(: Im glad to be doing higher level English instead of standard level, who dont get to read P&P hahaha. Now i only dread practicing writing essays, cos im too lazy!
I have been super lazy with chem, bio is still acceptable, although ive skipped all the graph qns in the papers so far haha...will have to do them soon, maths is getting there..a little behind my planned schedule, english is just reading so far..and taking notes of the books proves to be rather exciting, as my interpretation get further and further and more dreamlike ahhaa, and mandarin should be fine but i need to look through the stack of booklets Richards threw to us for the holidays.
5 more days left! Im a little sad that this holiday will be all overs soon as school time will be more hectic, what with my inability to concentrate in school therefore school time is like taking up the hours i could spend productively (and sometimes not) at home. And when school reopens its 1 month to my exams!!!!!!!
i have been fiddling with my newborn wireless since last night and have downloaded a stash of the professional photos from the formal. maybe i'll send an invite thing from the online page for auds and xinyun and more to see!