Blogworthy
The concept of "blogworthy", however clear to me months back, is becoming increasingly strange to me now. I used to be a crazier blogger than I am now, and I almost always blog everything, vividly too, even the mundanest things nobody probably cares about. But I dunno, maybe I'm becoming a lazy blogger or I'm just so busy with other stuff, that even when there's something seriously blogworthy, nah, I take my time to blog it, if I even blog it at all.
The examination results came out the other day, and it was supposed to be a, well, momentous event for every single student of NUS. The examination results are the final grades for the modules we've taken for the entire b.l.o.o.d.y semester, and the announcement of which is met with bated breath, sleeplessness, and, for weirder ones like me, chest pains. As to why it took me two days before I blogged it, err.. I'm busy. Seriously, my flight's on Tuesday and I haven't packed yet. And mind you, this is super packing, since I not only have to pack for the trip, but also pack my entire room and distribute it, in the form of boxes and suitcase and hampers, to my kind Pinoy seniors. And of course there are the intensive choir practices, and my perennial problem of insufficient funds!
Anyway, back to grades. I was at the printing room near the Central Library right after lunch with Karen and sister Pau, and as much as I didn't want to check it with Karen around (I feared I would go hysterical as much as she did the previous day when she checked her grades with me), I did it anyway since I had an experiment to participate in at 1:30PM and prolonging the agony wouldn't do me any good.
Mustering enough courage to turn on the PC and log in the intranet, the grades finally flashed before me. I had a quick quick (two seconds tops) glimpse of the grades as I read them top to bottom, and was, for half a split second pleased with my grades. Quite happily pleased, really. AND THEN I came to the last figure (or alphabetical character) at the end of the short list.
WALAU. I closed the window, logged off and was off to flee the area as quick as possible. Karen had this "Well?" look as we made our way out of the printing room, and I could only tell her the grades were disastrous.
I'm not sure if I'm comfy posting my grades up here, because seriously, people have vastly different ideas of "disastrous" or in Tagalog, masagwa grades, and I'm not in the best of moods to indulge in another bout of inferiority complex. Sigh. I really have to step up the mugging next semester, so that B+ becomes less acceptable than I presently think, and I'll begin to think it's already masagwa. Let's go for A's baby!
But for now, I'll be content with what I have, since well, there isn't anything else much to do anyway.
Then again, on a cheerful note, my grades were quite okay. In my quick glimpse of my grades, I saw a grade I'd always wanted. Hehe, finally my first A! That much I can say, really. :D (Next aim: A+!) I thought I'd hit two of them actually, but the other was an A-, but come on, that's not bad at all! I was too freaked out by that one other grade that I didn't even see which module I got an A for. I just knew, though, that my A and A- came from my Arts modules, which I enjoyed. Which of my two Arts modules, the Intro to Literary Studies or the Evaluating Academic Arguments module got me which I didn't know for sure.
I was willing to bet my A came from the Arguments module, since I thought I did better there than my Literature module. Besides, sometimes in Lit, you either hit what the professors want or miss it, and with the unpredictability of it all, it's quite a matter of chance. Besides, even if I got an A for the second big essay, I only got a B for the first, so bagging an A was unlikely.
But lo and behold, my A actually came from the Literature module! Haha thank you thank you Dr Susan Ang and Dr Yeo Wei Wei! Although I was mildly surprised and disappointed I only got an A- for my Arguments module, this was eclipsed by the ridiculously good news. I mean, remember that time when I barely studied for my first Lit test (fell asleep studying halfway) and woke up late and had to literally run to the LT for the 8:40AM test, when I had to struggle with my very slow reading rate, when I had to switch from one essay question to the other, two days before essay submission and was still typing the essay an hour before the 5PM deadline. And I was in a class of Arts majors too! Happiness.
As for Calculus, not bad at all! It was highly decent in my standards, considering that Calculus and I aren't exactly the best of friends. But thankfully my intensive number scribbling preparations paid off. And cool, even my supposedly big mistake module, Molecular Genetics, turned out better than I expected. I thought I'd drown in the sea of labwork and readingwork amongst the battalion of Life Science majors, but I think I didn't quite stick out as the odd one in there. Thankfully I managed to score somehow. It's not stellar, but it's acceptable to me.
As for that last module, remember when I said failure was highly probable in a post sometime ago? Well, I didn't fail, but I feel as if I did just that. Again, proof that with exams making 50%-70% of the grade, when you know you just screwed them up, you might as well light a candle and make preparations for the mourning rites.
My CAP (Cumulative Average Point) dropped by 0.1, but sigh, just accept lah and must mug harder next sem! :D Cheer up Jose!
* * *
It took me awfully long to complete the experiment I took part in at the School of Computing. It was a project by a graduating/graduate student aimed at studying online searching (googling) behavior, and if what documents a search engine produces are actually understood by the user. 12 bucks earned per volunteer.
Sixty documents we had to read and evaluate, and halfway through, my eyes were already sore, and I was developing a headache. Haha I sometimes think I should have let go of this reading style I employ when I read literary texts, which is something like an excruciatingly slow and thorough close reading (no wonder I got an A for my Lit module! :P). There was a test afterwards, and I scored 80%, and that qualified me for the raffle!
I suddenly realized that I was the last to finish the experiment among the group of 20, and I was the reason a group of 4 or so Vietnamese (I could tell from their accent and language) guys were waiting. They were in for the raffle too, and we each picked a number from a bag, highest number wins. I couldn't figure out if the number I had was 18 or 81, depending on which way you look at it, but it didn't matter since the rest had single-digit numbers. And tada! Instant 50 bucks! Woohooo. $62 for an experiment.. not bad at all.
I'm still broke though, and as much as I need the cash from Dad's Visa, I couldn't quite get as much money as I need for the Czech trip since apparently I've used the card too much already. Whoops. But anyway, money is coming up end of June/early July, thanks to the kind folks at the SG Ministry of Foreign Affairs! But for now I'll have to think of creative ways to earn money since KLM Dutch Airlines require that I pay an additional $108 on top of the original $133 travel surcharge for my flight rebooking. Oh yeah, it's confirmed. I'll be coming back to Singapore on the 15th. I hope the trip turns out to be as fruitful as we all hope it to be.
Thank God for long blog entries.
Music of the Moment: Michelle Branch's Breathe
Currently feeling poor.
