Yesterday was the official last day of lessons for me. From now onwards, it's Prelims, followed by revision lectures and private consultations, then... A Levels.

I'm scared...
And sad.

I'm probably one of the weirdos who can memorise my entire timetable, including the venues for each lesson, but now that there aren't any, I guess my mind will have to let this memory go... And as the Chinese saying goes, 天下无不散之宴席 (tian1 xia4 wu2 bu4 san4 zhi1 yan4 xi2). I guess all this became more real as I realised my class will soon disband as we go our separate ways after graduation. We had a mini class picnic after our last lesson. Besides the fact that poor communication led to so many people bringing bread and cheese, I was really glad for the opportunity for us to come together and bond as a class, especially since we're so used to staying in our cliques...and... maybe our civics tutor never promoted anything about class spirit. It's not entirely her fault, because she's known us only for 8 months, but she never opened up to us, and many of us never made the effort to get to know her better too, so as a result, the distance is pretty great. On a happier note, playing games yesterday was pretty fun. We played 2 games, the first being some running-in-pairs game, which was quite funny because some pairs that consisted of a guy and girl were sabotaged such that they had to do interesting/ mushy forfeits. Good thing I wasn't one of these pairs=) The 2nd was musical chairs. haha...This time, I decided to be smarter and volunteered to be the one in charge of the music, such that I wasn't subjected to any forfeits. Anyway, somehow, the girls were a lot better at the game than the guys...haha... must be the screaming that scared the guys off the seats:)

Right now, I'm studying for GP! Honestly, I usually don't because it's hard to do so, and no one really knows how studying is supposed to help when it's just...language. So I'm reading some of the articles my school has given us...some model essays as well as searching the web for good quotes. Newspapers also have to come into the picture, to build up general knowledge for GP and Econs. Sometimes I wished I liked GP more, so maybe I wouldn't get bored while studying for it... But personally, when it comes to writing essays, I usually can't write what I want to say since GP isn't about giving your personal opinion based on your experiences or beliefs. It's about choosing a standpoint that allows you to argue with well-known examples and information. Since it's formal writing, it's highly impersonal and should not be emotive, which makes writing even more difficult. I have no problems with things like Project Work, especially the "Insights and Reflections" part, since that's about what I want to say and what I truly mean. GP teachers are fascinating and brilliant. They're able to come up with strong arguments for both the general standpoints (agree or disagree) and can bring these ideas across fluently and effortlessly...But they don't actually believe or subscribe to one of the viewpoints. Sometimes when I write my essay, I choose the side that is easier to argue for. I write the essay for the sake of handing in work, or for an exam, not because I really have something to say about the issue. That's why I don't really like GP. I wish there were more general topics, or there was a segment in either of the GP papers in which we can really say what we want to, rather than having the burden of appearing knowledgeable and well-read by quoting "significant" examples an sayings or having to write what is "acceptable". Okay, that's a significant amount of rambling... As a side note, everything said here is my individual opinion. Just in case...

As for the other subjects I'm studying, at least I enjoy those more=) After all, they are my core subjects. If I rank them according to level of interest, it would be 1. Biology (fascinating subject! but the most difficult, in my opinion, to do well in) 2. Mathematics (I still don't know how much of the content I will apply to my life in the future, but I like performing the calculations) 3. Chemistry (would have been no. 2 if not for the existence of physical Chem..haha... I'm really bad at that still. I like organic and inorganic Chem!) 4. Economics (I don't dislike it, but somehow a lot of the concepts fly out after each exam, and I can't really grasp macroeconomics well yet, so I can't say I like it a lot either.) My aim: try and understand everything well enough by Prelims to at least pass, then for A Levels, that's when my results must peak, I guess.

After all, as the most famous saying from teachers since the start of IP goes (used when they think we're not doing well enough or... they feel like it) ....
"This will be the 1st national exam for most of you after PSLE. Don't forget that you only have a PSLE cert!"

My opinion: In order to preserve the sanity of students in the future, cut down the number of IP students. As the number of IP students increase, this "scare" will become closer to actually being realised... Not every IP student will get a place in university.