Merry [Insert Holiday Choice Here]!

Hey! Last night in KL for this year; heading back to Singapore tomorrow afternoon. Lots of packing: Singapore would be followed by Bangkok, Pattaya and pure, unadulterated torture. I cross international borders *way* too often.

Grades doesn’t matter, grades doesn’t matter

I think if I tell myself that enough, I would start believing in it. This term? A bloodbath in comparison with the last, which was already pretty horrid. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Update: When I say I regret coming to Singapore, here’s what I meant: my original plan was to repeat STPM (the tough, Malaysian equivalent of A-Levels), where I was pretty damn sure I would do better–I didn’t work hard the first time through, I know I can work hard. Heck, I’ve been working my ass off for the past 1.5 years, of course I can work hard.

And as a failsafe, I would do an London External degree. I would repeat my SAT and do SAT II, which I know I would have done very well. But just in case, I would have a respectable degree to fall back on. Good plan. But I fell for the first university that accepted me. I knew myself very well, but I still doubted myself and decided not to blow up what seemed like a great opportunity.
I could have avoided all the suffering I been through in the past one and a half years had I stuck to my guns. Besides, better results in STPM and SATs may have gotten be another offer at SMU as well – so it wouldn’t be so much of the one bird in the hand, two birds in the bush situation.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? RIGHT?!?

There’s this small mind game I like to play – if you could travel back in time to one spot in your life where you can tell yourself to make a better decision, where would it be. I would say, this would be the one. I didn’t feel as much regret compared to all the *bleep*ed up mess I’ve done earlier.

Gosh

One day I’ll laugh about this, but it still hurts.

Am I turning Singaporean?

I think, just non-Malaysian. When I moved out, the things that kept me firmly Malaysian was 1) the food, 2) the friends and 3) the huge capacity Malaysia has if it takes the right reforms. Focus in on (2): I’ve noticed that my close friends in KL have moved to become old friends, while I gain really close friends in Singapore.

It’s quite sad, but it is impossible for me to pick off from where you left.

And as I grow older and more pessimistic, while Malaysia has so much untapped potential that could easily make Malaysia by far one of Asia’s most important economies, I don’t think that would ever happen anytime soon. Coupled with the fact that I face persistent discrimination back home, my roots seem to be shriveling up.

So the only thing that seems to keep me Malaysian is the food. God help Malaysia should I decide to move to somewhere with better food – like Thailand or Mexico. It seems strange my entire national identity seems to be based around food though. But alas, the food is that bad in Singapore.

Luck

So on my RMSS (Research Methods of Social Science) midterms, I was sick. But being a dickhead I am, I decided not to take an MC and instead do the damn test. Which was fine except that I didn’t transfer my MCQ answers to the answer script. Now, I would have realized that had I gone for the midterm exam paper viewing, if it did not clash with two different classes I had. Of course, I found out during the finals when the prof made a passing remark that I should make sure I fill in all the MCQ answers.

But by then, apparently it is too late. Her TA’s argued passionately that it would be plain unfair if they mark from the answers written down in the question paper (which was attached to the answer script and had to be handed in), but I don’t really see the unfairness of it. The whole purpose of a test is to judge how much you learn, not how well you do tests.

And the whole purpose of an answer script is to aid the examiner marking the scripts. If it is impossible for the examiner to know what answer I gave for the questions – that’s one thing. But if she knows I know the answer but still refuses to acknowledge it, it clearly shows how pointless the test was as a marker of how much I’ve learned.

So, alas, I got a B in that course. I would have gotten a higher grade if not for the midterms. Considering this prof doesn’t curve, it means I did pretty damn well for the rest of the components, which just makes it all the worse.

In other grading news, I got a B+ for Democracy. Considering how badly I screwed up my first term paper (he had two term papers) and midterm, it was above and beyond what I thought I would get. Which meant I kicked ass in my finals and second term paper. So I’m pretty happy with that one. It offset-ted RMSS unhappiness. Like RMSS, he doesn’t seem to grade on a curve either.

So it was not bad for my first essay-intensive course.

But the ship has sailed for skipping Economics or SMU or shit like that. Looks like Lagrandians would be my new best friend for the next two-and-a-half years.

I’m bored

Meh… Facebook is quite boring post-exams.

Update: Actually, this is all part of my theory of why education is essentially an evil concept. You spend half or more of the year studying, and then when you’re off, you are at lost of what to do. Suddenly, you don’t need to study. Or pretend to be studying. Or avoid studying. Those little diversions from studying tend to lose steam when you’re, well, doing it 18 hours a day.

Update II: Except when you finally realize a deeper meaning in life. That’s just before school starts. Evil, I tell you. Evil.