Spent

Spent

Yippeeee. After a mugging series which lasted for several late nights and sleepy early mornings, I am now officially spent.

I've been through two of my four exams (my SG Studies module is non-examinable, remember), and I feel I've just managed to swallow up two particularly nasty lumps of academic food. They didn't go down easy, them Linear Algebra and Programming Methodology, but now I'm just enjoying the thought of setting aside my textbooks and notes, returning library books, and effectively freeing up much-needed memory space in my overloaded brain.

Linear Algebra was bah. I studied till I felt almost saturated, but what can I do? Dr Roger Poh, God bless him, is really a nice lecturer, but ineffective. I wasn't surprised that I got my proofs mixed up, because really, aren't vector spaces just. so. freakin. abstract?

Programming was held this afternoon. This time it was open book, and it was plain to see that, as usual, my desk in the exam hall was the most ridden with.. stuff. I opened my book here, searched my bulky folder of lecture notes, placed the exam paper on top, ruffled through my 2 exercise/tutorial notebooks, looked through the folder containing methods and classes from the Java API website, scanned my specially printed summary of useful codes, and finally dug through the entire collection to search for my buried answer sheet. It was a fun experience, actually, and for the first time, I was a bit more confident with my answers. Thanks to my good notes and prepared codes too. Time was short, though. I had a question here and there with half-baked, unfinished answers, but at least, I was able to scribble something for every item, and managed to go through every single question. Later, I realized that I had some incorrect answers here and there, but bah, more than anything, I'm just relieved it's over.

Johni, my Indonesian friend and a Math major, is still disappointed with his linear algebra exam. He came to my room to express his woes and discuss the paper, but as it turned out, I was the one who was made more depressed. I swear, that Johni is a genius, and if he fails this subject, then I might as well be stripped of scholar status and sent back home to the Philippines ASAP, ya?

Adrian, another Indonesian friend, had a pained, almost angry look on his face, when I saw him in the bus stop after the CS1101 exam this afternoon. I semi-waved and semi-smiled to greet him, but he didn't seem to notice. I messaged him through MSN when I reached my room, telling him how things will be okay, and he told me, as expected, he was disappointed with some question in his just-concluded Physics exam. I continued to wish him well, and didn't wait for a reply anymore.

What do you know, a few minutes later, he comes knocking at my door, and lets out some steam. Not directed at me, I tell you. Apparently, he made a careless mistake in some number that was worth some 15 points. He even went to explain the details of this particular number, plus this other 30-point item that stumped him. What can I say about Physics? Haha, what do we say ba, Kor, Ivy? Hehe. My NUS bridging course last year had psyched me up already for crazy academic stuff I had never prepared for in my grade school and high school years, so by now, I sure as hell know better. :)

I hope Adrian's okay though. At least he was slightly comforted by what I said about several people checking an answer script, and that, partial credit will always be given in Physics exams. I didn't make him feel GOOD just yet, but I'm sure he felt a teeny bit better. Sometimes too, we just need to let those monsters out of our head verbally, and we'll feel better. Never mind if the problem isn't remedied just yet. Case in point: this freakin' blog. Hah.

Sigh. Thanks to Ben and Sens and Rashell for the relaxing walk to McDonalds for dinner, and the walk back. Funny, we just went to McDo (McD to locals) to take-away our Big Macs and Filet-o-Fishes. ;)

Hmm.. someone please remind me that 4 days isn't too long. Then it's the glorious Statistics exam. Woooohooo.