★01-05 Nov Ending

Instead of studying for Higher chinese Os which is about a day from now, I am writing this up! To be honest I still don’t feel prepared for the two test papers at all but I doubt there is anything I can do to increase 我的华文程度 anymore.

1 Nov Today was the last session for my Chinese tuition, after two years of having to go down every Sunday afternoon. Endings always feel so awkward.

Today I also sent an email to a taobao shopping agent to order some items from various taobao shops. I’m buying stuff from 3 types: one sells stockings, one sells shoes and the other sells bags/wallets. The total cost of everything so far is more than $100 but I did order a lot of items! <: I expect shipping to be a bitch, however. How I envy people living in China for their cheap 国内 shipping!

2 Nov I stopped taking the school bus to school, so my dad drove me there. I got to wake up one hour later than before! There was a talk about Higher Chinese in JC held and after that I had to go for a  Critical Thinking test. The test was meant for random selected individuals and well, I got to be the lucky one.

Turns out Sarong was selected too and after the test we had lunch at Subway. I suggested walking to Orchard since I hadn’t done that in a long while and the sky seemed cloudy and perfect for walking. It rained heavily while we were making our way there however. #@$#% We had umbrellas but it was storming so everything was wet anyway. Sarong took her shoes and socks off in subway, it was a little gross xD

After that we walked around Far East and ION, then she went home and I went back to school since my father was going to fetch me back too. I actually arranged for him to fetch me so that I would only go home at 6pm, spending the rest of the time studying in school (Although it didn’t quite work out that way, eh)

3 Nov There was a RJ matriculation talk, telling us about the various subjects and the options and paths that we could choose. Honestly I still am not 100% sure of what I would like to study in JC, I only know that I want to take Art and well, Math (since it’s compulsory) I wanted to take Econs at first but after some warnings I’m having second thoughts. However I feel that I shouldn’t let those warnings influence my decision. I should just take whatever I want to take and stick through it! (but what I really want to take is what polytechnics offer)

4 Nov Last session of Chinese. Laoshi bought lots of chocolate snacks from us and it made me feel really bad. My Chinese class is rather, well, silent and some people blatantly sleep through it. He doesn’t even get mad when people sleep, he just asks if they’ve been up late doing homework (obviously not sometimes)

There was another talk after Chinese and this time it was regarding Arts Fest. Arts Fest is being pushed into our faces, I swear. It’s Arts Fest this, Arts Fest that and amongst a lot of students it’s starting to give off a negative vibe. It’ll be an awesome two days but I think I’m rather sick of hearing its name being repeated every single day for now. I look forward to RGS Nite but I really don’t want to hear it being mentioned all the time prior to that, especially when it’s spelt “Nite”.  Might as well make it “Nyte”, haha.

Lots of people are working hard for Arts Fest and it’s really obvious, seeing from how the people involved in it in my class are always not around or from the artists bent over the huuuuuuge pieces of work draped over the canteen floor.

5 Nov Infocomm farewell was today. There was pizza. 10 boxes of them, thanks to a misunderstanding amongst the lovely juniors. 10 boxes, however, appeared to be just nice as everything was polished within minutes and the boxes were then later stacked up to form a leaning tower of pizza. Later the tower became the setting for a Romeo and Juliet act and Romeo (Pepsi bottle) and Juliet (Coke bottle) were then thrown in the trash after some frantic photo-taking.

I hadn’t been appearing for sessions this year due to service learning clashes and H1N1, so I hadn’t seen much of the people in the club. Most of the juniors got along very well (could even be too well) and it made me a little envious. I mean, I know some of us in the sec 4 batch pretty well but there are very few who are regulars (heck I’m not actually a regular, considering) and there was only one person in the batch that was a year our senior. Which makes me wonder, if I were born a year later/earlier and was part of a different batch, a different group of people, would I be very different?

Anyway there were a bunch of games played and they were fun. It made me forget about the pile of Chinese worksheets I left on my desk. Infocomm used to be pretty dead but now it is lively and has lots of members. Next year, they will be the ones setting up the booth for CCA orientation. They will draw the stickers. I hope they turn out well.

★27-31 Oct Halloween event and end of Options

The remaining days of October pass as November and the Chinese O levels inch closer and closer.

27 October, Tuesday

Had lunch with TG at Fish and Co! Their portions are really huge, none of us finished it.

28 October, Wednesday

During our last session of Lit options, we watched Departures. The movie was really sweet and I teared up a couple of times, it was so touching.

29 October, Thursday

After school I went to Plaza Sing with Clarice and Gracia. Clarice wanted to go to the Sembawang there to find this Chinese song CD by some guy. I wonder why its called Sembawang when it’s at Dhoby Ghaut? They have outlets across Singapore too…

We had lunch first though and Gracia introduced me to QQ rice, which I wouldn’t have tried had she not told me about it. It cost me $4.90 for a purple rice ball with 5 ingredients packed in it and a plastic cup of milk tea. It didn’t look like much when I purchased it, but it was actually filling, not to mention tasty. One gripe I have though is that meat or the tastier fillings cost $1 extra each. What the heck? ): We ate out at Istana park across Plaza Sing, which was another suggestion from Gracia.

We did a bit of window shopping as well and I bought a sashimi-notebook! It comes packaged in this foam tray covered with plastic wrap, just like meat in a supermarket. It is adorable and I love it, although I don’t know what to write in it really.

I went back to school with Clarice and met Simin. We both were going to RJ’s A level art exhibition together with some other batchmates and sec 3s woooh. Not enough people were gathered for the trip to book a bus however so we took a cab there in fours (fees covered by school)

Taking art in JC looks…intimidating. The art pieces that were displayed were all on a much higher level than what we do. We also learnt from our seniors that taking art in JC requires lot of time and effort and constant work. I don’t think I would mind the rush, but I’m afraid that I won’t be able to improve, or even get in.

30 October, Friday

Had our last Math and CLE lessons today. During Math some classmates decided to order food and they spent quite a while looking through online pizza selections, only to find out that they did not deliver early in the morning.

In the end we ordered from Old Chang Kee,  which demanded a $8 delivery fee because our order did not exceed $100. The fee was divided by person, which meant that I had to pay $1.60 for a spring roll which would otherwise have cost $1.20. Argh! I was already planning to go to Orchard later where Old Chang Kee would be on the way so it really felt like a waste ):

Although it is rather funny that I can be so fussy about this yet be flippant with money when I spend it online.

31 October, Saturday

Went for a facial with my mum in the afternoon. We normally go to this place that’s situated in Raffles town club since my mum got some kinda package there. We don’t go often however, that time was the first time in months. After that we took a bus back home and dropped by AMK hub on the way where we bought some groceries and food. I love food.

29 November

★23-26 Oct Start of Halloween event

One of the events I look most forward to on poupee is Halloween! Costumes are always released as event items for us to buy and this year with the new jewel system and all, I expected the worse.

23 Oct, Friday- The Halloween event started! I sort of expected it but I hadn’t got my poupee dressed for it yet. The red lolita ensemble kind of goes with the event background I purchased though!

The number of event items are as follows: 33 Ribbon items and 30 Jewel items. It’s almost a 50-50 splitting in the variety of items between in-game currency and cash! What’s worse is that Jewel items had more variety in comparison.

Ribbon items comprised of: 1 Mermaid set with 6 items, 13 pumpkin-themed items, 1 Prince set with 5 items and 9 witch-themed items. It may seem good, but some items weren’t very well drawn. There was also repetition, like how there were 3 types of pumpkins turned into bags. Why do we need so many??

Jewel items comprised of: Alice in Wonderland theme, 8 items, Arabian theme, 8 items, Fairy, 6 items and Little Red Riding Hood, 8 items. No fricking pumpkins.

I’ve only bought 3 Jewel halloween items- a pair of boots from the Red riding hood set, a cat that sits on my poupee’s shoulder and a pocketwatch, both from the Alice in Wonderland set. That alone cost me 470 jewels, which translates to about $4.70 SGD worth since I had the 500 extra jewels. Wtf.

24 Oct, Saturday- Got my poupee dressed up as some pumpkin/maid hybrid.The event items are the dress, boots and broom. They’re the better-looking pumpking-themed items in this event imo.

I spent most of the day finishing my options projects. Next week’s the last week for options and all the graded assignments/projects were due. Since I have all 3 options on Monday all my groups thought that it would be due by then.

25 Oct, Sunday- Event items used are: Hat, choker and earrings. The boots are jewel items purchased to match this outfit.

26 Oct, Monday- Wearing all three jewel event items today! Pretty hot isn’t it? Originally I didn’t have the cat and the pocketwatch on, it was added later after I had purchased them.

★18-22 Oct

18 Oct, Sunday- I bought jewels for the first time! The only jewel items I’ve bought so far are- two pairs of boots and one apple. I plan to buy only items/accessories I can wear often to make full use of my money… There isn’t much point in spending $1USD on a dress that my poupee will probably wear once or twice a month at maximum.

It just struck me though, I spent $15 SGD of real money on virtual flash items. Oh my god, the lure of poupeegirl. Damn Kath and her jewel system.

19 Oct, Monday- It was a school holiday as Deepavali was on Saturday. Muni and I again headed to Sarah’s house to play! We started on Guitar Hero first, went out for lunch, then played Rock Band. Sarong’s drumset was screwing up however, much to Muni’s horror. She doesn’t like the  guitar much. As for me I’m okay with both guitar and microphone, if I know the song. I recorded myself once using my handphone and I sounded horrible but oh well :D

20 Oct, Tuesday- After school my SS Options class went to GV Vivocity to watch a documentary film, Food Inc. It had been screened rather long ago, so I think the theatre and film were specially booked for us.  The ticket cost us $7.50, which totally isn’t cheap!

Sarong brought chachos which I hogged but I lost the appetite to eat it after watching the part of the film where some horrible truths about the corn industry were unveiled. We learnt plenty of terrible facts from this film and I doubt these problems can really be solved if we don’t stop being greedy and lazy. I am not the one purchasing the groceries at home and do not have much say over what we get to eat.

After the film we went to check out the National Geographic store. It is a store with a wonderful concept and full of cool items but some are just way too exorbitantly priced. The proceeds goes towards their funding and research, but $150 for a polo is kind of uh…

There were photographic prints and posters there and we spent some time looking at those. I also noticed that the shop had some Livingstone plushies! These stuffed toy stones are just so adorable! I want some but the company that produces that doesn’t appear to have a branch in Singapore.

21 Oct, Wednesday- As part of our bio Options module, the class went to Bollywood Veggies for a field trip. I had been there previously once as part of a farm tour organised for family members during my dad’s alumni gathering in his university. It had been quite a while though so I remembered little.

The nice guide who showed us around was an RGS alumnus. She had been working there after she retired. She said that she was still good friends with her friends from RG and hoped that we would be able to do the same. I certainly hope so too!

We were shown around the farm and got to see/smell/touch/taste the various plants that it had to offer. Some uh, lucky students also got to bring home some fruits to plant/eat!

At the end of the tour we went inside the bistro and feasted on banana bread. It tastes so so so good, especially when warm! We were also served iced milo which was wonderful but considering the location we were in, I think I would have preferred the fig tea. I checked their website- for tours, adults get fig tea, kids get milo. Darn.

22 Oct, Thursday Princess time!

★14-17 Oct

14 Oct WednesdayI got my Biology paper back. It was… terrible. I barely passed, having scored 4/11 for my Mendelian genetics  question. I had 4.0 for Biology for my midyears, and for end of years’ it’s 2.4. Awesome.

For Lit options we discussed the techniques used in Cinema Paradiso (which we watched the previous lesson) to give it its narrative form. Near the end of the lesson, we started on Thelma and Louise. The movie that made  Brad Pitt big. I’m tempted to look it up on Wikipedia but I don’t want to spoil myself like I did with Psycho, another movie we watched for options.

We went on a field trip to a farm for Bio options. The farm makes use of hydroponics to produce a portion of its output. We were given a tour around the place, but the rain made it less fun. Puddles of water all over the place ):

Our guide also showed us the various species of herbs that they grew in the farm and let us touch/smell/even taste some of them. There were many herbs that were edible and there was one that tasted particularly sweet! It was cool.

15 Oct Thursday History. I was so darned nervous when waiting for my results, having majorly screwed up the paper. In the end though, I didn’t fail! I did miserably for the essay but I didn’t fail!

Geography- I was hoping I would do well for the paper, but I didn’t get the score I wanted. I won’t be getting 4.0 for this subject overall like I was praying I would, sigh.

16 Oct Friday Math, Chem and SAP results. I totally did not do well in both Math papers, making stupid careless or ignorant mistakes here, there, everywhere. Kind of makes me wish I had a time machine. I passed at least, contrasting last year’s paper where I didn’t.

For chem, I didn’t do so well for my practical paper which was to be expected to some extent. For the end of year paper, I scraped 4.0! That means it’ll make my chem GPA of 2.4 in the mid years not so sucky. (Notice how it is directly opposite to bio? Freaky)

For SAP I got full marks for the final paper (as did some others) so I probably will get a 4.0 for that :) It is also probably the only subject I’ll get 4.0 in.

I realise I sound so calculative, noting down and measuring my performance. lol.

17 Oct Saturday Nothing much to say, I vegetated in front of the computer as usual. I drew something but I won’t bother showing that yet. I went to my maternal grandparents’ flat in Telok Blangah for dinner, and there was crab! Yay! Crab is nice to eat but also horribly tedious because of its shell.

I also finally succumbed to Katharine’s cruel marketing tactics and bought jewels. She was offering 500 extra jewels to people who had not previously bought jewels to buy them within a time period, and it seemed really worth it. I bought $10 USD’s worth and got 1550 jewels in return instead of normally 1050.