digicrashpoke - the place for...

2010-01-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

What a week. I'm disgusted.

Please.

On a side note, my craze for romantic period pieces have been overtaken by classical period. Probably much to the disgust of Lumpy.

Rescue Operation

2010-01-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

Rescue Operation needed. I should have seen this coming.

Promos!

2009-09-26T03:58:00.000-07:00

100% 0% 0%
100% 30% 0%
100% 5% 0%
100% 0% 0%
100% 100% 25%

Is there room to be optimistic?

IMO results

2009-07-19T14:03:00.001-07:00

WHAT.... I miss bronze by exactly 1 mark after all that epic screw up. Screw up + screw up in missing medal. And it's not just 1 mark. My percentile is exactly 50.00% and there is an odd number of people this year. Medals are given to strictly no more than 50% of the people. What...............................................

I'm now the highest scoring HM and the highest ranked percentile contestant without a medal and the guy with the most partials (tied with Mr Lu).

IMO Review

2009-07-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Fate. Luck. Destiny.

It's time to give a detailed review of what happened and put a rest to this matter forever (except for the fact that I have to do an official reflection which WILL be terribly painful to think about now).

Firstly, I should NOT have studied so much in the past two weeks. Everything I did was totally useless and I'm very very sure that my problem solving strategies beforehand would suffice and do a better job. I use to be doing this kind of problems only where no techniques is needed. Why shouldn't I study and why qns require no technique?

Q1 is a fail number theory qn which tests only on trivial divisibility properties and reasoning/logical thinking skills. Being a Q1, it is a qn which clearly is meant for at least 90% of the contestants to be able to nail. Given this time is not geom some more, at least 95% will be able to nail it. I was somewhat expecting number theory to thus come out again on day 2, since number theory on day 1 only is retarded and totally screwed up. I was 99% sure that is number theory comes out as any qn (other than Q6), I'll be able to do it; cause I have been doing every number theory qn in every quiz (quite fast also) except 1 qn which happened to be Q6. But alas, day 2 has no number theory and Q1 was the only number theory, thereby wasting my strong ability in number theory, wasting Q1 (at least put number theory as another qn and let me nail Q1), and wasting all my time studying on order, primitive roots, FLT, triplets, and many many other things when divisibility logic is tested only. Side remark to show how this is a wast oe number theory. Ivan and I finish this almost immediately we see the qn. Ryan took 2 hours cause number theory is not his strength. So he wins immediately cause his weakness came out as Q1 and surely can do given enough time.

I must have sidetrack too much. Q2 is a geom qn. Actually when I look at the paper on day 1, I was relieved that it is quite favourable to me. Though it is not exactly A-G-N (in which case, Q1 can nail, Q2 geom is do-able, Q3 number theory is can win; so full marks) but it turned out to be N-G-A. Fine, nail Q1 as always, Q2 geom is can do. then just scrap as much things as possible for Q3. Well, I completely fail Q2geom. Turn out that it IS COMPLETELY DO-ABLE. Non-Lim Jeck ppl in the team did it. I see absolutely no reason why I couldn't other than the fact that I fail. Miserably. My geom always fail in actual competitions (think IWYMIC, SMO 2008 open, NTST 2009, SMO 2009 open, IMO 2009). It works during practices and quizzes that don't really matter like SIMO Camp quiz. (fail is defined as not being able to do an extremely do-able geom qn whicvh at least 1 other non-lim jeck did not by extreme luck). It's like a pair of similar triangles (for which I am train to spot) and then ratios become Power of a point (which is SUPER SUPER INITUITIVE once you get the similar triangles). Either way, if you don't get the similar triangles (ARGH, I did label the similar angles and never suspect that they were similar and went off-track to other pairs which aren't similar), if you think ofpower of a point (like Ivan did) and wrote down the side ratios (which I will always do unlike Ivan), you will end up with the sinilar triangles did to show, which is very easy to chase. Therefore, completely fail. Like mad. My only other strong topic threw away, when it is Q2 and meant to benefit me. And the qn turns out to be easy for Q2 so everyone else benefitted from a Q2 Geom. Well, there's still another geom in day 2, but let's see what happens....

Q3 Algebra was meant to be throw away, so I didn't expected much, but after common difference, I had some random idea but to be honest none of them were that close to the final part so nvm about that. It's bad luck to get an algebra as Q3 cause it's auto throw away. Not geom nor nbumber theory. Oh well, such scenerios are exactly rare (50% chance of combi or algebra as Q3), but at least come out ineqaulities instead right? I did the 100 inequ qns to praactice and no inequalities came out. 0 of them. But this qn was quite interesting and so I'm okay with failing it (cause only Jia Han did it anyway).

Having failed day 1 (definitely can do Q1 and Q2 which was the only favourable thing about the paper, but I threw Q2 away), burnt a number theory qn, burnt Q1 and getting only 7, and hearing many others with minimum 14 (except Ivan - but he is special case cause I thought day 2 will be Q4 Geom, Q5 nt, Q6 combi; or Q4 geom, Q5 combi, Q6 nt; first one he can get 7-7-0 (mostlikely me too), second one he can get all (me gg with 7-0-0). And his algebra is his 2nd strongest so no fears if NT becomes algebra). To even get bronze, I need to nail Q4 tmr and get partials. This I thought was okay. If Q4 fail, just do the number theory qn. Sure make one. But no...

Open day 2. WHAT. WHAT. The most unfavourable combination in the whole wide world. Combi, my weakest topic (but it's expected to come out), is chuck as Q6 so gg immediately. Functional equations, my weakest sub-topic is Q5 and so almost immediately gg, but may have hope. Q4 is geom, which was expected for geom to come out, but geom being Q4 waste Q4 as possibly combi or functional instead. But no need for greediness. Just get geom Q4 and do Q5 as much as possible. Did I mention that there was no number theory? That's right. My number theory only came out as Q1. GG like mad. Fine, Ivan has 2 algebra qns while I have 2 goem qns, so we are only slightly disadvantaged compared to those where number theory is not their strength (or even worse, number theory is their weakness). But look at what happen to the other geom qn...

Q4. Completely fail. Due to many other problems that I have done b4, and probably the team too, trigo whack and angle bisector theorem was the first approach many of us thought of. I do, and thought I solve in 30min; so I was happy; until I write the solution to discover that I make a careless mistake and the eqn was suppose to become 0=0. WHAT. Fine, try to do somemore, fail. (Actually Trigo turn out to be one of the offical solutions but my geom lies in synthetic which is most of the geom qns, rather than whacking - that's the point of geom; whacking is algebra). Well, there is a synthetic solution involving dropping a china perpendicular, but opps. I drop all the wrong lines. Synthetic fails. Coord geom. Right method (cause I re-did after exam to get the full solution worth 7 marks) but during the thing, I kept carelessing until I didn't get the answer. As with coord goem, method correct, careless somewhere = gg with 0 marks. wth. My spent alot of time trying to find my mistake and correcting, but nothing seem to work (when my mistake is actually just inverting a fraction by accident). So I gg immediately. Burn time, burn Q4, burn geom, burn energy, burn 7 marks, and I tell you, I feel really really sui to make such a mistake. Really. I needed that 7 marks to get my bronze. Making that mistake makes the situation completely hopeless. While Ryan and Ivan and Lim Jeck succeeded in their approach to nail chance for sivler, I fail in the exactly same approach and lost everything. When I needed it the most. Why. WHY. Study so much to fail at this kind of simple things that requires no studying and I can do like 2 months ago.

Q5 functional equations. Okay, I did 20+ qns for practice, let's see how far I can go this time. Solution break down is as follows:
1) show f(1)=1
2) show f(f(x))=x
3) Establish bijective
4) Use the Jia-Han's finite-infinite bijection contradiction method.
I telll you what. I can easily get 7 (or at least 3 - 1 mark each for the above steps except step 4), if I progressed a little more for each step. For step 1, it's suppose to be like this:
"Consider f(1)-1>0. Then f repeats in cycles of f(1)-1. Then take a to be infinitely large then you win."
Here's what I did:
"Consider w=f(1)-1>0. Then f repeats in cycles of w. Then stone. Then realise every w value is capped at 2w+1 (ie n(f(1)-1) < 2w+1) or something like that. Then try to make a infinitely large. But realise you may not get the w^th value for your other two turnsa if you randomly take 'a'. And you can't gurantee a construction for a. So I stone again. Note that if I apply the infinitely large thing earlier, I would have gotten it. AND. I didn't write down that f repeats in cycles of w. WHAT.
Step 2 was okay. I just assumed f(1)=1 first and continue (Cause I'm confident that f(1) is 1.)
Step 3. OMG. from f(f(x))=x. Clearly bijective. finish. Last week I did like 20+ functional and at leaast 10 of them ended with f(f(x))=x somewhere. I asked Ivan if it is almost surjective some more. He said yes. Then I also always manage to show injective somehow, never realise, but at least I always think of showing injective. Thsi time double fail. Didn't think of plus fail to recall that I even ask Ivan that. What..
Step 4, had idea, but lacking steps from step 1 and 3, it is clearly hard to finish this step; like the prerequisite steps are missing so even if idea it is expected to fail.

Q6 combi. Well, nothing much to say. But I had correct idea and starting step in 1min as stated earlier on, and it is actually quite do-able? So maybe if I hadn't fail in Q4 (ie succeed in coord geom in 1st try without careless), I would have gotten Q6? And maybe more of Q5?

Overall day 2 was a failure. I fail day 1 not because it is unfavourable (though it is not favourable either), but because of my stupidity in not getting the geom qn wheen it is obvious. When I want to not fail in day 2, it gives me such a paper. No choice but to nail Q4 but turn out my ALGEBRA fails (note, not the goem part).

Well, this is the end. Unless I get to go CWMO but Mr Teo said previously that I have to give chance to those not going IMO, so what..... Fine. Basically I gg and should have:
1) studied less
2) do more school work (now my school work is screwed)
3) Just went for CTs and count my GP which I heard was A
4) slack more last week
5) Don't bother doing any maths last week. NOTHING I LEARNT was even the tiniest bit useful. Number theory wasd the most retarded... It's pissing that someone took 2 hours but eventually get it cause it's q1 then goes on to own more than me. Well, that's life...

IMO Day 2

2009-07-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

T.T this marks the end of IMO 2009. I careless Q4 and my marks drop from 7 to 0. My Q5 fail so badly that I was blind. Q6 seems do-able (haven't tried yet) but I didn't have time to try. Got the right method and starting steps in 1min though ><

In case you can't tell, I did 0 qns today when Q4 should have been ay least 7 + scrap partials for Q5. That implies a secure bronze if I didn't fail. Actually, today the paper was SUPER unfavourable to me: combi and functrional eqns, my most weak topic. No number theory. Geom was opps became algebra (sorry synthetic solution involves china line so most natural is trigo) So even if I want to pick up from my failure yesterday, I can't (except for Q4, which puts in a risky bronze position; better than nothing). By right, should have not shi bai yesterday in the first place. ><

Well, this shall be the last time I shall screw up so badly at IMO. Why last? I wonder. There's always Japan 2010 (note: IMO 2010 is not in Japan)

Btw, since day 1 is quite easy and day 2 has do-able qns, most ppl in s'pore did 3 qns... ><

IMO Day 1

2009-07-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

Massive Shi Bai.

Today's questions were actually VERY easy. Everyone in the team did at least 2 qns (Daniel had solutions to all 3) except for Ivan, who had high partials for q2 to make up.

Here's why I shi bai like mad. Q1 NUMBER THEORY. A waste for qn 1. My number theory advantage is gone. The question is stupid and is a real waste of number theory. Q2 Geometry. Suppose to be good for me cause Q2 geom is just right to secure a moderate qn and put me ahead of others. But I fail to see anything cause my approach is wrong. In the end, my best subject kena wasted away massively. Q3 algebra but it's actually super easy.

Getting 7 may not be so shi bai by many standards, but since the paper is so easy, the cut off for gold will be like 40 marks, silver 41, gold 42. -.- I now even have problem getting a bronze. Definitely minimum score for 95% of the participants is like 7, cause Q1 is EASY. And a waste of number theory (I repeat) A waste of number theory. Q2 and 3 is VERY DO-ABLE so at least 70% of the participants have 14.

WHAT..... And having severe diarrhoea. They eat like cheeze every meal so I'm getting owned.

If don't believe my failness, check mathlinks. Click the forum to q1,2,3. See ppl complain that qns are too easy.

Stock-keeping

2009-07-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Okay:
Etude No. 3 "Tristesse" (composer clear)

Mediocre:
Impromptu Op. 90 Np. 2 (guess who?)

Reconstruction required:
Edtude No. 5 "Black Key" (must I say who?)

Work in progress (learning):
Un Sospiro (composer obvious)

Reviving and severe reconstruction required:
Fantasie Impromptu (composer obvious)

Wishlist:
Liebestraum No. 3 (guess by who?)
Prelude in G-minor (harder to guess but can still guess =P quite famous prelude in G minor!)
Sonata in G major No. 10 Op.14/2 (this one is harder to guess but look at the title)

OMG more than 75% of the pieces are by Chopin and Liszt. And alomost everything is romantic ><

IMO mugging

2009-07-07T05:39:00.002-07:00

No time left!! ><

SMO Open

2009-07-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

Today has been a failed day.

I need to reflect.

Today, I did a grand total of 1 question at SMO after attending 1 month of IMO training. And I am going to fly off to Germany to take a paper which is possibly 100 times harder.

I know tears cannot reverse the situation, but I just can't help but cry on the train today. Never mind about comparing with others. 1 question is far from even getting a spot in nat team.

Let us examine what happened. Q1. Massive failure. Took 1 hour to reduce to suffices to show two triangles are similar. Throw away cause diagram shows not likely to be similar. Official solution says approach correct, similar is simple angle chasing. I submitted no partials. Q2. I took 1 hour. Another example of failure. Q3. Fail completely. Q4. 45 min to realise the x2+x4 part. Massively fail for x1,x3. Found solution after test. Q5. Got relatively prime in 1s. Thought of CRT in 1s. Then discarded question without trying.

WHY DIDN'T I BELIEVE IN MYSELF?
A failed person, who didn't even believe in his working and thinking. Q5 is solvable. WHY DIDN'T IN BELIEVE IN MY NMBER THEORY? WHY DIDN'T I BELIEVE IN MY GEOM DERIVATION? If I don't believe in my geom and number theory, what else can I believe in?

Some say the paper is more favourable to Ivan and thus not favourable to me. It is hence expected that Ivan gets full while I perform poorly. But it is always possible to have a paper favourable to both. And that is the case today. There is no combi qns. How more favourable do you want? There is no functional eqn questions. How more favourable do you want? The presumably hardest qn which Jia Han and Ivan did last was a geom question, my strength. How much more favourable do you want? Q5, the supposedly ranked as hardest by the setters, is a number theory question, and it is using CRT and mod, my strongest topic in my 2nd strongest field. HOW MUCH MORE FAVOURABLE DO YOU WANT THE PAPER TO BE?

I don't know. I am tired. If this is considered to be not favourable, I can go eat dung. Even if the paper is not favourable, SO WHAT? Do you expect papers to be always favourable to you? Do you think you are suppose to go IMO and gamble for a favourable paper?

Horrible problem solving strategies, which has reduced Ivan to emotionness during SIMO camp quiz has now reduced me to tears.

This has been the worse experience in my life.

I don't know. I really don't know. Is it because of the training which has burnt out my brain? Is it because of self pressure? No. Jia Han and Ivan and many others were completely in the same situation. Jia Han in particular was stuck at q1 and only started q2-5 after 2 hours. He would be under greater pressure than me given that this is his last year. I really don't know what happened. I just couldnt do the questions. Not becauseI didn't know the theorem or approach. But because I was being stubborn at the wrong approaches, wrong questions, and threw away right questions to try and methods to use. But what exactly is the problem here? In a competition, you only have 4.5 hours to make your choices as to which approach to use. Isn't the risk and gamble necessary? But I don't want to repeat this ever again. Not at IMO and return with a 0. A ZERO. After all these hard work, mugging every day, reading maths stuff during breakfast and dinner, I get ZERO. Due to unknown reasons. I don't know. I really don't know what to do.

Should I continue mugging, given that I am still super noob? Or should I just stop and rest? OR is it more like a reduction in waste of effort, because I will just get owned when the questions are obvious and I can solve them within 5 mins after the time ends? And during that special time slot of 9-1.30, I just get owned?

There is no second chance. My place is nat team is screwed. This is the only shot I have, and the end of my maths "career" will depend on what happens next week. Will I fail once again like today, later to come out disappointed and regretful, self-angry and depressed, confused and dejected?

This year's smo has been very favourable. CRT is a can do (look at quiz this entire past week). Geom is a can do. No combi. No function. Inequ is solvable in 5min. Q3 is a recurrence and I didn't even try solving the recurrence.

This smo is favourable. Jiawei says it is comparable to the easier questions of imo. It is favourable easier imo question which alot of ppl leverage on to get alot of qns done. But I threw it away. Completely.

What else do you want when the favourable comes and you just... I don't know. Just don't know what you are doing and wind away 4.5 hours and believe each of your right approach is wrong? An unfavourable paper where you just die and sleep? When the stars line up for you, no combi, no f(x), easy inequ, hard geom, number theory spam, you do not capitalise on it. Then you prepare for what?

I sound like I'm more angry than sad. But trust me, I just couldn't explain the why-I-am-sad part. It is just... tears and more tears. I am okay now. The tears have left a mark on my face and I shall remember this very day, where I completely learn that I am noob. How will I perform next Wednesday and Thursday?

I wonder.

SIMO Camp 2009!

2009-06-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

07 - As senior team
08 - As national team
09 - As IMO team

This year witnesses massive changes to SIMO camp.
1) Venue of stay became at NUSH
2) No gigantic field where everyone ran after the soccer ball (though there's a much smaller semi D and only 20 max each time were playing)
3) No free access to a common open space with pool table
4) Had to plan for activities as an IMO member

However negative these may sound, they are actually highly positive (:
1) Toilet is like 2m away from your bed =)
2) Better soccer this year, and also more cards!
3) Massive hanging out at music room =) Less pool also led to more music! Yay for solo recitals!!

It's quite funny that our favourite hang out spot became the music room, and there was massive amount of performances <3 And yes, it is not everyday that you get a recital (plus free!) from someone who is like of international competition standard (who totally pwn me in black key while "sight-reading" it xD)

Sadly due to my lagginess, I manage to learn less new names this year =( and yes, I'm pretty sad about it. Last year, on the last day, I manage to complete learning the remaining like 5 names that I didn't know (both nat and senior included). Aww... this year I think I still have like 10 names thereabouts unknown. Day 1 and Day 2 nights were wasted~!

Haha I think there's no need to recite events, cause probably first time SIMO-campers will do that =P that's a tradition. But this year I massively improved for quiz. First day of quiz was crap, then second day massive ownage, so total 7-0-0-7-7-1 = PASS. yay. Lim Jeck topped the quiz :O how unexpected. Okay I got higher than Ivan. SUPER unexpected. Actually not really, cause if the quiz was unfavourable to him, it's good for me (: (note that we have opposite strengths in maths)

Talking about quiz, Zhang Aidi is totally ownage. Here are the scores for qn 2: 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-7-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0. Guess who scored the 7 marks for qn 2? Z.h.a.n.g. A.i.d.i. No wonder the sun revolves around the Earth and the Earth revolves around the moon and the moon revolves around Zhang Aidi! *bow* (I think I bowed a total of 100 times exactly during the camp. Or at least if my counting does not fail me =))

Aiyo now suffering from camp withdrawal symptoms again. I think will get worse when I read more blog posts haha. Why this year like less cameras?

Training resumes tomorrow again! Yay. Anyway, if you're from SIMO and you see this post, please try to come for trainings! It's at S14 the same place, 9am-5pm! Tues and Fri mornings are quiz, so those days can come afternoons instead. Btw, if you want to come only once a week, try to congregate on same day, like maybe Monday (:

Haha, to end off this super short blog post, I shall post some interesting happenings. (:

"Peace and prosperity, sit down!" - Gabriel, when under attack by Ivan
"Peace or prosperity! You get no peace and I shall prosper!" - Ivan, in response to Gabriel
"You shi bai" - Ivan, to Gabriel
"We shall construct China Point Cp here" - Lim Jeck
"Alpha cube!" - Lim Jeck
*Mario theme song on any possible instrument including drum* - Lim Jeck
"this is the trailer... for more, come to music room tonight!" - the entreprenuer Jiawei

Haha right now I only feel like doing maths, piano and randomly bounce around. Good thing I have full time IMO training (: I realise that even if my piano sucks, I actually still love it <3

shall update if I recall more =)

<3 SIMO "batch" of 2009!

Rach 3 2nd Movement

2009-06-02T03:09:00.000-07:00

Simply beautiful; Simply genius:

Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3, 2nd mvt
Source
If you are interested, I suggest you continue hearing into movement 3 also. Okay hear the entire concerto. Simply brilliant.

Random yet again

2009-05-29T19:59:00.001-07:00

Haiz. After class party, I emo again this morning. I can't imagine how our class will be like a few years from now, where everyone will be like all over the world (eg. China, India, Vietnam, Singapore....); it will be very hard to come back together again as a class, especially when we begin to settle down in our own home, (hopefully) making ourselves useful to the society. Haha maybe we can come together to start some imba world project o_O

It feels great to have this diversity now at least, and it certainly proves the notion that harmony is possible in such a diverse ~~world~~class.

Well, I've stop emoing cause it's obvious that parting and moving on is part of life and the best we, or at least I, can do now is to treasure this short period of time together.

And now as cool refreshing breeze from the window 1m in front of me gently brush my face, it feels really great at the same time to know that I have super nice classmates who are really supportive of each other and make sure that my chinese doesn't rot to infinity =)

I'll not be seeing my class for 8.5 weeks, followed by another 1.5 weeks after 2 days of meeting but I know that well be emotionally still with each other despite literally being at opposite ends of the globe right?

SIMO Camp

2009-05-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

Random facts to thaw my blog:

1) I'm actually severely looking forward to SIMO camp. More so than last year. No idea why
2) I just drank coffee for first time in a few months.
3) I recently took out black key etude and play again after being able to decently play it last month. 1 month is enough to degrade your piece into trash.
4) Un sospiro is VERY HARD. From page 4 (of my score) onwards.
5) I owe Aidi $100 for borrowing her intelligence for IMO selection. She's charging me more for IMO. What a loan shark.
6) I recently won $1 from Edmund Chay cause he made a bet for which I will obviously win.
7) Sometimes I'm thankful of what I do not have.
8) I reach school at 6.30am last thurs and fri. Hopefully will be the same for this week.
9) I sometimes wonder if people are pist at me. I think I'm better off if you tell me in the face so I know I'm pissing you off.
10) I have yet to download Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (in E minor) and Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto into my phone despite that wish about 6 months ago.
11) The last song I listened to is Rach 3 1st movement.
12) The only book on my table now is a thick purple book that is about 750 pages long. No prize for guessing the title. (Hint: It's a 6th edition book.) (Obvious hint: Author is John Sloman)

As you can tell, I am feeling super random, which is always the case when I suffer from lack of sleep.

Interesting thing is that music made up the mode of the random facts above.

And there's exactly 12 comments. Sounds like 12 questions for a certain paper...

More meaningful post and posts of more substance coming your way (but not today or anytime soon).

IMO Selection

2009-05-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

Didn't sleep well last night. Still can't get over the fact that I'll probably miss cut-off by a fraction of a question; and it's not even half a question; probably 2/7 of a question. Geometry has severely failed me when I added it to confirm my spot in the team, and I can't understand why I didn't manage to proof the 3 key steps despite guessing them correctly, and in the correct order. I still can't now. I guess it's the confidence. I think at that point in time, I was partially like "heck, this question can't be done" and same for qn6. But actually it can. Sometimes it's hard to believe how I manage to do qn 2, 3 and 4 when my inequ is weak, and I can't believe that I manage to come up with such proofs for qns 3 and 4. Or is necessity the mother of invention and I have fail to experience the extreme need for qn 5 to be done? I think it's the former. The strong belief that qn 4 can be done (as it is the first qn for day 2) has led to continuous and sustained effort to disect qn 4 for 1.5 hours. And it's serious effort. That probably led to the result. On the contrary, I know that at that point of time, I was quite bo chap with qn 5 cause I thought this is like a kill-everyone question.

I think the mind and confidence is a very powerful tool when it comes to maths proving questions. SMO senior 2008 is a good example. I felt the severe need to do qn 4 and I know I could do it and viola. 4 questions done.

After 1 weekend+1week of preparation and half a weekend takign the test, homework (PW in particular) is crashing down on me. And the harsh fact is that I'll probably have to start preparing for Kazakhstan or Japan, and I can forget about Germany because of 2 marks, because of a question involving circles and parallelograms, because of a lack of effort to submit solutions to salvage partial marks; because of my poor attitude in problem solving for qns 5 and 6. I think it's the latter.

IMO Selection

2009-05-02T03:46:00.001-07:00

OMGZZZ. Yesterday did all 3 qns, damn happy, today gg and did only 1. Now I'm screwed. Either tie-break for 6th place or get owned and end up like 7th-10th. And I could have salvage partial marks like mad cause I didn't write why n=7 fails for qn 6 and I didn't write why H is orthocentre of triangle AQR for qn5. Rather, I wrote and erase thinking that it's useless. Sadly, that's the first step in the official solution. Gah now keep fingers cross but unlikely I'll get in. =( just cause I messed up 1 day. OMGZ. I totally wasted my efforts on day 1.

Solving Inequalities

2009-04-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a 4-step approach to solving almost every inequality.

1) Homogenise
2) Substitute
3) Clear denominators
4) Follows from Schur/Muirhead.

Here's an example:

And another one:

And yet another one:

(The above examples are the most safe-for-consumption examples in the package. The next example goes up to 336 SUM_sym)

Sadly, this ~~insane~~imba method is banned in IMO.

TST Coming!

2009-04-18T04:56:00.000-07:00

IMO TST is on 1st and 2nd May! 6 questions in 9 hours!
Someone teach me inversion! Not the inversion used in music, or the umbrella flip of nitrogen chiral centres (it's called inversion right...) but inversive geometry. Time to spam geom again, and learn more non-synthetic methods *ahem*cheatmethods (more like)*ahem*

Chem

2009-03-26T04:19:00.000-07:00

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious."
~ Albert Schweitzer

"The more we learn, the less we know"
~ (not sure who)

My chem is killing me now. There is too much that I do not know and cannot comprehend. Perhaps it is a good phenomenon cause it shwos that I'm questioning like some mad thing until I discover that I actually know nothing. Question further and I crumble.

I think chem RA is fantastic cause it's killing me. And I'm choosing not to stay numb and resist the damage. I'm choosing to go all out and get owned completely upside down. Maybe after respawning, I become one step closer to being a Fong.

End of Term 1

2009-03-12T03:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was such a good day! Today just totally stinks. I thought it was a great way to end term 1, until today, then my morale just totally become deflated for various reasons. Don't know just felt it that way, but I won't elaborate why I feel extremely sian-ed today, and probably troubled as well.

Well, but bad things aside, yesterday was kool. I was thinking of eating maybe I would just like to eat ice-cream, and maybe I would just like to eat strawberry flavour, and maybe Sundae. Then someone just treated me to exactly what I wished for without me even doing anything (I was just sitting down while my friend when to buy her own food)! Thanks Whimsy! =D And yeah, I know you "can't perform in Esplanade anymore" but you shouldn't whine until the results are out. You never know if everyone messees up the auditions mroe than you =) Next time you must whine more cause it's really funny!

But anyway, I failed my econs essay which was kind of expected cause I totally didn't discuss so my marks got cap, or so it claimed on my script. Even if it's uncap, I bet I will still do worse than pro Whimsy:
Barry: So how was econs? What question was it?
Whimsy: The econs was like discuss the most effective polilcies to move the ppc frontier outwards.
Barry: Omg that's the econs essay which I failed
Whimsy: Really? You must talk about monetary policy fiscal policy and supplied side policy.

I'm like totally omgomgomgomg. So I continued
Barry: I am pretty sure you will get full marks cause no one in my class and your class will write like that.
Whimsy: I AM sure the whole class wrote like that. Just a matter got write disadvantage (true, which is why I got cap) and write with understanding.

BUT OMGGGGG. An entire class writing on "monetary policy fiscal policy and supplied side policy" when our entire class is like "R&D, increase workforce, upgrade workers".

APMO wasn't too bad considering the number of qns Ivan and Jia Han did (omg only 2 complete!), but I was wondering why I was so lag in solving qn 4, and also how I didn't get qn 1 or 2. -.- I think at this rate, I will remain as some pathetic maths person. Well, all the stupid geom qn fault. Set until so hard I bet no one in the auditorium (other than the IMO trainers and maybe Jia Han but he didn't do it) had the slightest idea how to approach it.

Oh and today I just had the most interesting chem test in my life. Go ask Lumpy about it. =)

Yay

2009-03-07T06:16:00.000-08:00

Yay. We have qualified for finals of SMPF (Singapore Maths Project Festival). This time I'll make sure I won't forget my script =D

APMO (Asia-Pacific Maths Olympiad) is on next Tues at NUS High. Check out my kool schedule on that day:
9-1.30 APMO (Reporting straight to NUS High so not going to school for any lessons! ezxcept maybe Ivan who suggested enquired if he is supposed to attend morning assembly -.-)
1.30-3.30 Lunch + travel back to RI (really RI as in RI(sec))
3.30-5.30 Conduct RI Sci Club session on Equilibria!! =D
5.30-7.00 Piano Ensemble in RJ
7.00-9.00 Uni Admission Talk.

Kool. Back to back from 3.30-9, and just enough time to travel from NUS High back to school with lunch. Wait... where's my dinner time? O_o

Ah. I just remembered that going for SMPF finals means missing another session of SIMO! >< SIMO wasn't too good these few weeks (or maybe months), with average number of questions solved (by myself) per week being 1. ONE. yay. Even the return of geometry has failed to save me =)) like that gonna gg for APMO!

Random

2009-03-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

YAY! I found my orange pencil. =) I found it about 5m from where I thought I lost it. And I found it 7 days later xD Don't ask how/why.

Piano!

2009-03-01T02:02:00.001-08:00

Hmm... I guessed I haven't been practicing piano for a while (other than some sight-reading yesterday, but I guess that's not really counted). So maybe I'll make it a point to practice every monday in school after PE+lunch, before Maths O. =D hopefully I'll keep to my "point".

Thermal Physics (II) notes

2009-02-28T06:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I just have to rant about this.

I took out my thermal physics (II) notes enthusiastically and wanting to finsih it before I sleep tonight. I was enthu until I saw: "W is work done ON the system". Then I rapidly flipped through all the pages and realised that everything's the opposite (even positive area is now defined as negative value). Then I got pist and gave up even reading 1 page.

Of all the textbooks I have read so far, which have warned me of the existence of some remote texts (which I never have came across until today) which defines W as work done ON system instead of BY system. Little do I expect one of the texts to be my JC notes. Now I'm gg-ed cause this means that for all my CTs, tests, tutorials, promo, I have to switch my way of thinking around and write their working and use their definition which is quite pissing cause you sum a (mathematically, using definition of integration) positive area and you consider that as a negative value?!

and it's not just 1 formula that's switched. It's like >5 and they are already at my fingertips. Now I have to rederive them and re-remember?! sorry, I like college physics more cause it covered more in-depth stuff and I don't wish to reprogramme my memory for the higher-level formulae. I shall see if I can not use RJ's definition.

sorry for the rant. I'm still quite pist. =X

Pencil...

2009-02-24T03:42:00.000-08:00

NOOOO!!!!!!!! I lost my favourite pencil =( =( =(((((((
Anyway, if anyone had seen my orange pencil, please return it to me! It means alot to me!!! Thanks!
Meanwhile, *sniffle*

Random thoughts again

2009-02-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Great thanks to various ppl (Aw Jin included) who have expressed great concerns for me =) really appreciated it and am really touched. I was just feeling abit down and emo-ing that day, but don't worry too much about me now!

I so hate myself for being sad that day... so much for my msn display pic >< sorry for making you ppl worry

Thoughts

2009-02-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry for how I was behaving or feeling approximately an hour or 1.5 hours ago. But I was really feeling really... sad mixed with anger and confusion. Perhaps the best word is still emo though that word is very vague and hence not a good descriptor. However, if you were thinking that I was angry with anyone at all (or the group), believe me for once that I wasn't. Wasn't angry at all.

I realised that planning and thinking takes time. Coordination takes more. I hope you realise that too.

And I have realised that sometimes it is necessary to say "no".

It is not that I am angry with anyone, or disliking what's happening now. I love all of you and I still very much do, and I am very much willing to commit some of my time and energy to maintain this.

It is not that I'm blaming you for not understanding me; in fact I think some of you do understand me alot better than most friends whom I have had so far. I think some of yuu have become ppl whom I can share my heart to heart with. I have many other hopes, dreams and commitments outside this circle. I hope to be 1 of the 4 ppl on the plane going for IChO. I hope to be 1 of the 6 going for IMO. These are just some of my biggest wishes. There are many many more ranging from AMC to simply spending time with my family or brother.

Of course, one of my wish is for me to continue to have you as my friends, but I need you to understand that I cannot devote all my time to one thing. My dreams do not just fall from the sky (Selection process is highly competitive). I get really disturbed when people say that I'm "unhappening", "not bothered", "boring" or "unsociable" when I do care so much about maintaining the friendships.

I have been under great amount of stress these few days as I believe we all are; sleeping late and stuff. And I haven't even TOUCH the piano for 1s. I'm in piano ensemble. Haven't touch the piano for a week. I figure that I need to priortise. I need to work on more important things. Focus on my other dreams as well. It is not to say that ppl are less important than dreams. I'm just hoping that you will understand my position and forgive me if I'm not like crazily committed. Because I realised that I cannot afford too hang out till LATE AT NIGHT with competitions coming up and stuff piling and you know your olympiads gonna suffer if you have to give up mugging time. I can afford to hang out late at night OTHER TIME. But not when I need the time. I hope you can uinderstand me and forgive me for the wet blanket today.

So I apologise again. Not only did I need to spend my last few hours tonight working on my SMPF project (no, hecking care is not an option. As much as you may claim that getting kicked out of Maths ra the worse that can happen and life goes no, the fact is maths ra DOES MATTER TO ME (recall my dreams) and I also have to be accountable to my teammates); but I also have to finish many other things which are invisible to you, while preparing for AMC. I believe everyone's equally busy, so I believe you can understand my position. Moreover, I hold my dreams very dearly to me.

I'm very sorry if you cannot seem to respect my priorities and dreams. I just hope that you can understand me and forgive me whenever I am unable to perform up to your expectations.

P.S. If you don't understand this entire post, then ignore it. If you understand some part of it but feel that I'm talking ridicolous harsh and blaming you for no reason, then I'm not referring to you - just take in those parts which you agree and can comprehend.

P.P.S. For those who don't get why I'm posting this. I needed to sort out my thoughts clearly. I needed to say out what was in my heart. I hope you seriously don't mind (especially those affected by this).

P.P.P.S. No, this is not any indication of anything/future phenomenon. It's just what I feel deep down in my heart that I should say.

BW10!! O_O

2009-02-18T04:27:00.000-08:00

I love BW10! Woots!

What a short and sweet post. =)

Orientation!

2009-02-08T03:32:00.001-08:00

These 5 days have been the most amazing days of my life thus far. Unlike Tiffany and Nicole who at least have some handphone camera pictures to share, I'm one of the unfortunate people in my OG who are now left with no photos.

Why? Our photos are stolen. Along with the camera. And a handphone, and several important identification stuff.

But it doesn't matter, because what the theif has failed to steal were our friendship, our bonds, our memories. And these are all that matters.

Yes, BW10, I believe no one will be able to make us forget how we played and cheered as a team in station games; how we have shouted "PENG!!!!" like mad thanks to a silver ball.

No one can make us forget how Sagar tried acting the word "pen-elope" at J8 for charades.

No one can make us forget how we ran like mad for Amazing Race; how happy we were when the bottle was passed from Juan's neck to mine; how much pain we "suffered" by standing on the stone pathway barefooted.

No one can make us forget how drunk Shimin was from H2O at Dhoby and behave so crazily that she insisted on calling my phone Elaine and my food Jeremy.

No one can make us forget how we own MT with chopsticks.

No one can make us forget how we struggled with the dance at J8 with the public looking at us with amused eyes; how we were debating over $2 VS healthier biscuits at the supermarket; how our high-tea turned to low-tea to dinner.

No one can make us forget how hilarious the "Barry cheer" created by Shimin was.

No one can make us forget the Kitchen Department and Waiter Boy at Take 5.

No one can make us forget how much fun we had dressing up to look totally emo (EMOticons!!).

And of course, no one can make us forget how we felt that night when Shimin lost her camera; how angry we were; how painful we felt. Shimin, I must admit that I'm totally impressed at how calmly you remained because if I were you, I would have cried like some mad thing.

The list goes on, but the most important is that that no one can make us forget each other, the times we spent together thus far, and all the kool shots we had together - they will forever stay in our hearts.

Andrew Derwin Conan Reshmi Elaine Shimin Tiffany Nicole Sagar Shal Yogesh LiMei Kenneth YingZhe Justin Dabby YiShyuan GuanYu ZhaoKai Juan Me Hiok Kevin LiTying
I love you all BW10! Stay strong and stay together guys!

Lastly, let's remember our cheer:
O'Tiero! O_O! O'Tiero! O_O! O'Tiero! O_O! YEAH!

And yes Shimin, I'll remember that you have booked me for Prom night! XD

random

2009-01-31T02:49:00.000-08:00

hmm... I just realised APMO may be held on the 10th of March this year. And 10th of March is Term 1 Week 10 Tuesday! (ie there's school). It so happened that the March hols seem pushed 1 week backwards out of place which is why APMO falls on school term day this year.

"Every year, APMO is be held in the afternoon of the second Monday of March for participating countries in the North and South Americas, and in the morning of the second Tuesday of March for participating countries on the Western Pacific and in Asia." --http://www.kms.or.kr/competitions/apmo/aboutAPMO.asp

Anyway, my black key etude performance level has a cyclic behaviour. For a few days, it is quite decent, then it is of rotting standard for a few days. Currently, it is in the rotting-standard phase.

JIP

2009-01-30T05:08:00.001-08:00

Okay, so JIP has ended, and today (which can be considered one of my luckiest days in RJ thus far for several reasons which I shall not elaborate here) I attended one of the more interesting modules in JIP (at least in my sense) - Maths elective: intro to knot theory. It turned out that there's actually alot that can be studied abotu knots, and it is totally not easy at all to come up with a vigorous/systematic way to tell if two knots are the same or different. Even telling if a knot can be untangled to form an unknot is already a big issue. So far ingenious methods such as converting a knot to polynomial (really intelligent method I must say) have only succeeded to a certain extent as there are some cases which still cannot be resolved. So it's essentially an open field! Try googling "knot theory" if you want to find out more =)

oh I also learnt something about a healthy DNA strand being able to untie itself if you artifically tie it into a knot. quite kool.

HK Drama!

2009-01-15T04:47:00.000-08:00

Watch "Under the Canopy of Love"! It's cao romantic and nice :D I'm not so spoiler-ed to watch everything in one shot, so I've only watched until the 8th episode thus far =) but it's nice yeah!

RJ Open House!

2009-01-14T04:58:00.000-08:00

On the lighter note, today was RJC Open House! (Raffles 360!) At first I doubt that I spend the entire duration of 10am-4pm at the Open House, but it turned out that I left only at 3.55pm! On my way home, I met Tony, ErDong, Brian and Zhiyi, who asked why I spent so long at the open house. Well, I don't really have an idea.

One of the reasons may be because I spent quite abit of time at the Watermelon Steps looking at the performances. I realised that I really cannot take rock or jazz (or anything in between) and I can only ta-han classical music. To even describe the experience as ta-han is highly inaccurate, as it is more of a positive feeling (perhaps "enjoy" would be a better word) than that of a forced feeling. But anyway, none is as epic as Lumpy, who appeared at the stairs with a book on one of Puccini's composition. The best part was, the symphonic band later performed a piece, which Lumpy could identify as Gershwim's Rhapsody No. 2 (or something like that). Lumpy is indeed the true hallmark of a music mugger!

Another reason behind the long hours spent is the fact that I spent 1 hour at block K - and I met several sec 4s (class of 09) there, looking at what the cirriculum of RJ is! :O For example, some guitar ppl abused me at the econs booth.

Anyway, it turned out that alot of Cat. High ppl did very well this o-levels and obtained 2 points (not sure if the cut of for RJ is 2 or 3) but anyway, congratz! haha. I guess I'll be seeing many of my primary school friends in RJ. One of them contacted me during Open House, and I know several of the ppl who may come to RJ.

Well, I guess my diction and tone must have bore you to death, but if you have read the previous entry, you would probably guess that I must be underdoing the "feel nothing" part of my emotion cycle now. And guess what? You are right.

But then I suddenly remembered of Paul Chew and I wanted to laugh so badly that I need to blog about this. Huiyao and I met someone this morning (and we only spoke briefly), then just as she left, Paul Chew appeared and asked: "Your girlfriend ah? Was that xxxxxx?" -.-
Huiyao and I were like: "No?!"
Paul: "How about xxxxxx?"
At this juncture, Huiyao and I were about to faint. Then Paul suggested Elisa (or it is Elissa) as her name and I realised how much crap Huang Wenjie had been telling everyone since the bio RA have done the Elisa/Elissa practical. For those who have heard the rumour, please! I know no Elisa/Elissa -.- Not even heard of a person by that name. Elisa/Elissa is some immunology machine or technique - basically something that is bio-related.

EDIT: Wenjie says he only told Lumpy about "Elisa/Elissa", so something must have happened. Maybe like 1->2->4->8...

Random

2009-01-14T04:45:00.000-08:00

These few days, I have been feeling rather weird. It is not so much about feeling something per se, cause sometimes I just feel totally nothing, while other times I feel a strong surge of happiness and sadness (and every possible emotions in between) enveloping my entire body.

Some things (note the plural) that have happened recently have made me truly reflect upon myself these past few days.

I do not realy know how to describe it (well, you do know my language command skills - or rather lack there of - especially when this is a highly complicated issue) so maybe you can ask me privately about these things if you are really interested to know but well... I'll see if I'm able to describe them to you. haha.

Emo-ing

2009-01-03T21:48:00.000-08:00

Today I took out many of my old (piano) pieces and played them again, including Bartok's 6 dances in Bulgarian Rhythm no. 6, Fantasie Impromptu, Canon in D for piano, Faure's Barcarolle in A- and so on. The experience was immense. Some of these pieces not only contained powerful emotions, but they also hooked many of my past memories - memories from different times in the past. I think piano pieces do have alot more meaning in them than how they look/sound on the surface - and they sure carry different meanings for different people.

Marriage D'Amour - one of my favourite pieces, and probably one of the pieces which carries the most memories. (I'm pretty sure it carries alot of meaning for chong min and chin hwee too!)

Digimon World 2

2008-12-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

Yes! Today I finished Digimon World 2 for the first time in many years. Right on the dot!

Mini class-outing 2/11

2008-12-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

On tues, I went for a small class outing to YCK CC to play badminton. But before our booking time, and since the courts were occupied, we went to a nearby "basketball court" (it's a half-court only actually) to play basketball while some others first start playing badminton nearby. My basketball is still as bad as ever (only 4 successful shots!). Well quite obviously true when my opponents consist of Ben Yong and Han Qiao. When I stretched my hands up completely, I only reach their head. They just stretch a little to pwn my reaching range.

Luckily my badminton not so bad. Got some hope haha.

And who can forget the (badminton) match of the century!
Shu Kiat - Bo Jian (first to 5)
5-7

And Jing hui remains as an imba, even in badminton AND basketball. He shot successfully from all kind of weird angles and in all weird situations. And he looked like he didn't even need to put in a tiny bit of effort when shooting. His badminton is incredible haha.

(I apologise for bad grammar, once again, as this post was written too hastily)

Holiday

2008-11-20T05:56:00.000-08:00

I had bought Digimon World 2 for so many years (6 to be precise), and I have yet to complete the game. I even completed digimon world 4 last year already -.- well, this is because my ps1 memory card kena reset twice already. Before it reset in sec 1, I was at File Island (like >50% of game already); the second time it was like 25% through. So I started this year again and determine to complete the game (and not make my memory card reset by pulling it out to put in the PS2 only when power is completely off).

Now I'm going to File Island soon. HA. That's only 25% of the holiday gone and >50% of game completed. That's call spam-play.

The End of Secondary life

2008-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

Have been feeling rather sad this few days, and I guess the weather outside now pretty much sums up how I'm feeling or actually makes it worse. I once thought only separation with your partner would be so heart-wretching, but I guess friendship is also a special kind of love, and having to part with 32 other people at once makes your heart-wretching experience even worse. And the feeling is exponential, cause negative feedback does not occur, but positive feedback.

I can't believe how much our entire class have gone through, ranging from the small things such as our CLE lesson where Kenneth will have to "make" us pay attention to the big things such as going against the odds of limited SS notes supply to produce 33 essays containing identical examples.

Most of the really best friends who share the same interest with me come from this class, and I'm sad to say that this is where we have to part, since in the JC section, there are >>1 classes of Maths RA, and civic classes are not entirely RA, so we have limited chance of being together.

But I'm so heartened,, but also saddened, by the fact that most of the people who care for me are actually from this very class. This is the first time I actually felt so included into an entire class, instead of small clicks of people within a class. This has been where I've gotten most of my love from, other than from my family (and certain other individuals???)

No words will be able to sum up how I'm feeling, so perhaps tears and music can help. But since my tears have been wetting my eyes for a few hours already, I'm running short of tears supply, and I shall see what I can do with music. I believe the MEP people will find this line familiar: "Who found that nothing can capture a heart, like a melody can..." just listening to some of the non-Stravinsky kind of pieces really make me feel like crying now, so I guess it's kinda true.

4B, this is where we part. But we shall meet 20 years from now (actually from August) to see me compete Shu Kiat in Rachmaninov piano concerto no. 2 and 25 years from now (I think it's from October) to see Huiyao compete Shu Kiat in Rach piano concerto no. 3. Maybe then, Jinghui will be concert master/principal violinist of some imba orchestra, and we can get him to come and accompany us.

情长纸短，在此搁笔。
Merci Beaucoup 4B! Au revoir!
(sorry, I can speak neither jap nor german)

Post EOY

2008-10-26T06:24:00.001-07:00

After the RA selection tests, I have been rotting at home these few days. Seriously not good. Haha. Don't feel like doing anything except randoming around.
At the start of the day, productivity is still acceptable, but once it approaches night time... just feel like stoning. I can't even write in proper sentences, as evident from thsi post (written at 9.35pm).

Horton

2008-10-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching the movie Horton on DVD. It's basically about an elephant and a speck (haha shall not spoiler) It's really a very good movie, and the ending is quite touching. Haven't seen a good movie for a long time. Go watch it if you can!

Anyway, all the best to the people who are in Chiang mai now!

SPhO

2008-10-21T06:08:00.001-07:00

SPhO is simpler than expected. I went there with the mentality that I will fail (hello, it's a physics olympiad for JC students, and not all can join), and convince myself to try and get at least a positive score. Guess what. I can actually pass!!! Yay. Actually almost all RI sec 4 people can get 18 marks already.

For example, question 1 is *faints*. Given a particle passes a starting point O with initial speed u, and its acceleration at time t after passing point O is given by a(t) = kt^2, where k is a constant, prove that the displacement at time t is given by x(t) = 1/12 kt^4 + ut. [6m]
This is a maths RP question in EOY. Please. Integrate twice and remember to solve for constants. The displacement formula is even given, so can check some more. And I believe that we don't get 6 marks just for integrating in the eoy.

Question 2 is our bonus question for the physics EOY LAST YEAR (ie sec 3). Exact same except now boosted to 12 marks.

Lol and the paper is out of 100. So 18 marks secured. Then just whack abit of satellite, then do a basic static electricity qn (just apply 2 formulae), then do an mangetism proving question that requires integration (I'm really proud that I could do this qn!) then pass already! Haha.

But since the paper is really easy, I expect alot of people to do really well, like close to 80 marks and above, so getting 50 is not really good in SPhO, but that's higher than what I expected of myself so yay.

Violin Concerto

2008-10-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Check this out! The violin's on fire!

Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto 3rd mvt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBw96HcVoVY

Perfect example of moto perpetuo.

Tmr mep paper - Rite of Spring!

These are only the 1st part.

MEP EOY

2008-10-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

MEP EOY is hard-core! Please.

I thought there isn't much to mug - after all it's mostly listen and just 12m of essay! (and 8m of background of peice) but alas, that is false. just the 20m alone can die, then the other 80m got alot to learn also! x.x

Anyway, let's learn some french:

The Rite of Spring - Le Sacre du Primtemps
The Augurs of Spring - Les Augures Printaniers
Ritual of Abduction - Jeu du Rapt
Spring Rounds - Rondes Printaneres
Ritual of the Rival Tribes - Juex des Cites Rivales
Procession of the Sage - Cortege du Sage
The Sage (easiest to translate!) - Le Sage
Dance of the Earth - Danse De La Terre

okay... I can vaguely remember that "The Wedding" is translated as Les Noces or something...

Long time haven't mug french. If not these translation need not be memorised; just translate ont he spot lol.

EOYs 4

2008-10-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

everyday new complain. Today, I say natural VS artificial and active VS passive. Then I picked the ans for active VS passive, and poke at option for natural VS artificial and say: this is for natural VS artificial, what are you doing here.

great. and there's no bonus to make up for it. totally rock. but not like there's time to do them if there are anyway.

EOYs 3

2008-10-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

shi. shi3. shi3. I just messed up physics today. Threw away both my 100 and subject prize. Shi3. This is the 4th paper, and the 4th thing I threw away thanks to eoy. You know, majority of the ppl are ponning eoys to get better grade. I couldn't help but agree. Throwing away 4.0s and 100 and another subject prize due to careless is totally not fun. And it's not like 1 or 2 careless only. It's like alot. so much that your bonus ~~(today physics damn stingy 3 marks only. please lah give more lah, not like ppl cannot do)~~ cannot even make up for it.

shi3. I'm sure left and right also cannot differentiate. I think 5 year old kid and do better than you. I'm sure force acts towards the right, I point to left and think it was right for 4 hours. I took me till lunch, and at least 30 mins of redo-ing the qn (after the paper ended) and consultation with many people, before I realise, that <--- is left. NOT RIGHT. shi3. I'm sure <---------- is right. totally wasted that mark, which was meant to test grip rule and hand rule. you know, I at first did <---- then circle wrong ans using <---. Then I check and change to "right" answer using <---. I should have kept it. then double negative become correct.

That wasn't the only mistake. Please, I'm sure do this kind of dumb things. omg.
I'm feeling totally sad over my physics. 4 papers. 4 consecutive messing up. and it's not like I didn't study hard or anything okay. fine, maybe my english is weak, but the rest?! Throw away marks is justified is it? last year I only messed up physics, and in fact I didn't even mess up as badly as this year lah. and least year have 5 bonus marks.

I tell you, I'm going to get damn damn upset if my maths also ends up like this. My life in RI(sec) is not going to end this way. Not going to. It will not.

Geog was some consolation but it is highly dependent on external factors.

~~If I were to continue jagging myself, I might as well not study. no use please. as shown by chem and phy especially. Shouldn't have wasted time studying for them.~~

Please remember what is right. --><--

Post-EOY

2008-10-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

hmm... here's my schedule after EOY (which ends at 10pm 21st Oct Tues not Mon - yes don't suan):

21 Oct 12 noon - Singapore Physics Olympiad
23rd Oct 10am - RJC Maths Ra selection
24th Oct 10am - RJC Chem Ra selection
24th Oct 1 am(?) - RJC Phy Ra selection

Wait, it's suppose to be post-eoy? Doesn't seem so to me. Nvm, at least 25th Oct is SIMO! yay.

EOYs 2

2008-10-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

I AM GETTING SAD AND DEPRESSED. SO DISAPPOINTED WITH MYSELF. TODAY, I MESSED UP CHEM AS WELL, HAVING THROWN AWAY HALF OF MY MARKS BY NOT SEEING THE QUESTION OR READING WORDS WRONGLY. SOMETIMES I WONDER IF IT IS WORTH REVISING SO MUCH. IN THE END, YOU STILL END UP THROWING AWAY UNNECESSARY MARKS AND YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN THE SAME BY JUST 1 ROUND OF REVISION. I DON'T CARE IF YOU SAY YOUR CHEM IS 80% AND TELL ME THAT MY MARKS ARE STILL HIGH, OR YOU SAY LUMPY IS NOT GETTING 105% FOR CHEM BUT 100%. I AM NOT DISAPPOINTED NOT BECAUSE I AM NOT GETTING 100%. I AM DISSAPOINTED OVER MYSELF, FOR NOT PERFORMING TO A RASONABLY SATISFYING STANDARD. IF I CANNOT DO THE PAPERS, FINE. BUT IF I CAN DO, AND I JUST GAVE AWAY MARKS LIKE THIS, I WILL GET VERY UPSET. PLEASE, WAKE UP. YOU HAVE ALREADY THROWN AWAY ENOUGH MARKS IN SS BY READING WRONGLY. THIS TIME MCQ CAN THROW AWAY SO MANY MARKS. SECTION B CAN MISS QUESTIONS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. IN THE END, IT WAS NO WORTHWHILE MUGGING SO MUCH FOR CHEM. COULD HAVE SPEND THE TIME DOING SOMETHING MORE MEANINGFUL BUT NO, YOU THREW MARKS AWAY AFTER HARD REVISION. COME ON. YOU BLAFF YOURSELF THAT THE PAPERS WILL GET BETTER SINCE ENGLISH AND SS ARE OVER, THEN STOP THROWING AWAY MARKS LIKE THAT. YOU HAVE JUST THROWN AWAY ALOT OF THINGS YOU KNOW. NOT ONLY MARKS. BEYOND THAT.

TOMORROW IS GEOG, I HOPE I GET THE CORRESPONDING AMOUNT OF MARKS FOR MY EFFORT, AND NOT THROW AWAY MARKS BY READING THINGS WRONGLY AGAIN.

BUT JIE LIANG IS RIGHT. TOMORROW MIGHT BE THE VERY LAST GEOG PAPER I WILL EVER HAVE TO TAKE. TOMORROW MIGHT BE THE LAST ESSAY I EVER HAVE TO WRITE. LET'S GIVE IT ALL FOR TOMORROW'S GEOG PAPER.

EOY

2008-10-13T03:26:00.001-07:00

I didn't know that showcase portfolio is a mere pathetic 7.14....% of CA (which means it's like 4.285714% of overall) [disclaimer: mental calculation, so some decimal places might be wrong, but you get the idea]. Like <5% or overall? <7.2% of CA? Good job. My english is not dead, cause that means I need 77% for eoy which is IMPOSSIBLE given that it is compre-major.

Which means, 4.0 is gone. And anyway my SS is hanging on the thread, and it really depends on my venice question.

Sometimes I think I might have just put too much time into geog. sometimes with poor returns like CCT1.

I need help for aid. For rather, I need aid.

Eng and SS EOY

2008-10-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

For Eng, the compre was not as bad as I thought, but still not good. Hope can get 70%.

SS, I might die for 1st essay. Depend if need to say anything about "necessary". I just did evil VS non-evil. Hope 2 qns add up can 65%

Hiatus

2008-09-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

Fine! I shall hereby declare Hiatus as well!

NSC Finals 2008

2008-09-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Good job to Kang, Matthew, Hong En, Chen Tian and Kewei for defending the NSC title for RI! You guys have been promoted up the sci club ranks. Although no one may be able to match the legendary Nigel Fong, but he is Nigel Fong, so what do you expect.

Anyway, I was sitting in the audience stand for the 2nd time in my life (1st time is quarters 2008), and I must say that the feeling of nostalgia is aiyo. remembering all the fun times at outdoor challenge, our lotus effect spray, buzzer training and of course, buzzer rounds! but I believe Cheng Xiang must have felt more!

All of you ah, your buzzer reflex must train more okay! Next year got ACJC and Eureka. Must follow Huiyao like that. That's how he got team 1st for both ACJC and Eureka. I only react fast randomly to some questions, which is not enough. Huiyao reacts fast to all T.T But usually when I react fast and press, I get the ans correct so it's okay XD (selective buzzing?!)

but I know at that time it is super stressful and hard to think, so good job! haha. besides blue stars and insulin, I think you have gotten all the qns which you should at least get =)

Actually the maths qn definitely could be faster. I read, solve, check. "Hello why no one buzzing in?!" then ri got it. Kang VS Fangying, of course Kang wins right, imba Kang?

good job! all the best for IJSO guys!

Meme Quiz

2008-09-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is the Meme quiz.

1. Next to each number, write only the name of the person who fits.
2. Answer one question with one name.
3. Don't tell the questions to anyone who isn't doing the meme.

Hence, you must ask me for the questions! (unless you already have them from someone else)

1. Keng Chee
2. Brian Ho
3. No one. I have thought of this qn many times in fact.
4. Keng Chee XD
5. Huiyao?? (I kena influence by him also cause I sit beside him in class)
6. Ivan (when drunk)
7. Nigel Fong! (Trust in Fong, you won't go wrong), how about Wang Tianyi?
8. Ivan (though he follows me to my door steps for no reason sometimes)
9. Aidi (the pro) - no particular reason, except she is pro
10. Patrick!
11. Theo Kwek. I'd thought Lumpy would put me as the answer to this qn, but he put tkwek instead. So he must have his reasons.
12. I believe you all know who I will put for this qn
13. Nigel Fong. Just check out the cheers he got for the teacher day's quiz!
14. Ben Yong
15. Try Lumpy. But must wear protective eyewear
16. Mark Tay (I wanted to put bojian cause he mastered AOT, but I suppose we all wish to become grown-up so I decided not to...)
17. Lumpy - this is a compliment you know
18. Aidi. no idea why. maybe too pro
19. Jinghui imba
20. Ivan no doubt
21. lumpy
22. emo emo. must be Jerald and Jun Shneg who always (pretends to) cut their wrists
23. CEC Council Chairman!
24. Ivan. (just oppose maths in front of him and see what happens)
25. Ben Yong (obviously). Ppl like Andrew Tham tries but fails hahahaha
26. How am I suppose to do that in the first place? well, I may have ppl on my wishlist (?!?!)
27. Jun Le. Yes. the only successful and faithful one.
28. Nigel Fong. perfect acting skills. Cross reference NSC 2008 finals studio demonstration
29. Of course won't say here right! =) No one will get it on first guess. Most people who knows this person will get it on second guess. (of course, without intentionally changing your first guess with second because you have read the above sentence that your first guess will be wrong)
30. You all have been wonderful!

CWMO

2008-09-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

In view of my fate to not being able to go china western maths olympiad (CWMO) thanks to o-level chinese and poor timing, I feel SIAN.

In view of the amount of things I have not mug and time left to EOY, I feel SIAN.

In view of my lousy piano practical so far and my practical is on thursday, I feel SIANNN.

At least my DMP modules are interesting (especially material science!) - to update soon

And when I am sian, I blog in fragmented sentences and phrases, just like melodies in 20th century classical pieces.

The incident of CWMO VS O-levels (cause return flight is on 4th nov - very risky and no time to study) has triggered me to think about my dreams VS reality. What do I really want out of life. I surely enjoyed the moments with my friends and exploring maths and sci (not exploring in o-level textbook pls. I fell asleep twice reading 3 chapters in a o-level textbook) - more like exploration in terms of say, college physics and random maths qns at least of SMO senior standard.

I want to do these now. There's so much time for these exploration. Yet EOY is coming - there's equally alot to mug. I'm bored of what I've been doing for the past few days. I want to read college physics and do random maths qns and read chem randomly (say at least A-level organic). But can I? I have to force myself to mug?!

This is why I am sian.

Do dreams have to be dashed thanks to reality?

<3 SIMO

EOYs

2008-09-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

I'm freaking dead for english EOY cause it's mainly compre + vocab again. And I have close to 0 idea on how to prepare for it. My compre+vocab is a sure fail combination (I got 9.5/20 for EOY compre+vocab last year, resulting in 56% for EOY overall and thus pulled my english down).
Well, I got 1/5 for vocab in the CCT. so encouraging.

I won't mind a chinese-version of vocab in english. Like they give the word instead and you have to find the word from the passage. So much easier >< that aside, I still have problems with compre qns themselves.

I remember in primary school, vocab+compre (not graphic stimulus or mcq pls, they are much simpler than open-ended) takes up like 20% and close passage another 10or 20% is it? My close also always fail one. So these three sections fail, but the rest (grammar, sentence synthesis, oral, listening etc, not counting compo) I always try to get full marks, so in the end still slightly above 80. Well, now it's really x.x

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Finally

2008-09-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

yay. finally it's over. I'm freaking pissed at this week actually. My impression of everyday in school was either returning test, discussing about physics (erm due to LHC and SJPO) or rushing project (during recess, lunch, after schools or otherwise). My impression of home-time was worse. It involves sleeping half to 1/3 of the usual amount of sleeping time for 5 consecutive days. and today I skipped recess and lunch. Kinda reminds me of OBS except its worse >< cause besides the physical component, there's also the mental

The only thing I wish to talk about was SJPO. I'm quite happy with myself cause I didn't expect myself to do really well (provided that I didn't study a single bit except on that day itself during the last three periods (opps) + lunch) given my tired condition. My max mark is 50/100 which is like pass, but I think my qn2 might be wrong then I lose 8 marks for part (b) and (c). x.x

Anyway, when I saw qn 10, which is like "Stephen Hawking found that the entropy of a black hole is given by..." then I started laughing. Cause SJPO is on like 10th Sept which is the test-run of the beam (though I know firing a beam won't create any danger). During the test at like about 4.30pm, which is the beam-firing time, there was a sudden loud sound over the PA system which really freaked some people out haha.

and I got jag by a sec 3 qn which is REALLY GIVEAWAY! There were 2 give away questions. the second is boiling water, find (a) work done, (b) heat needed, (c) change in internal energy T.T; the first is shining light thourgh semicircle glass block. part (a) draw path with angle for a light shining into block (lame). part (b) find range of alpha which internal reflection does not happen. Well. Alpha was the angle the lens made with the HORIZONTAL. I went to put 0 to critical angle. x.x no wonder the qn was 8 marks. jag people severely.

right now, I'm trying to solve a qn given by Ivan to me on the train:
If gcd (a,b)=1, prove that ab(a+b)=c^n has no positive integer solutions.
I'm trying miserably =)

Random

2008-09-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

In week10, I was the luckiest person around.
1. No third lang prelims
2. No oral defense presentation
3. No chem OBA
4. which means I only have chinese prelims, maths CCT and phy quiz. But maths and phy are certainly much mroe managable and requires less mugging than things like bio and geog.

Which means I could slack more than everyone else.

But now everyone is like "YAY. I have nothing omg yay." (maybe except CLE poster) but I realised I'm not the most jag person around =)
1. Maths RA project
2. Geog project
3. MEP Essay
3.14 RE semi
4. and of course, CLE poster and chinese project presentation.

But no one else in class have all of number 1-3. most ppl have number 4 only ;( haha. but at least there is a 1 week break to do this XD

Olympics

2008-08-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

1) I don't get it
2) I don't get it
3) I don't get it.
4) Why is everyone so obssessed over olympics
5) I mean talking about it is okay
6) But ppl like Lum Jian Yang mentions the words Michael or Phelps on an average of once every 4.34 words. Others mentioned Gymnatics or any swimming terminology on an average of once every 2.7 sentences.
7) Data collected on 15 Aug 2008
8) The percentage of blogs whose recent posts contains olympics info is 95% (only Aidi's so far out of those I went)

Of course, data was selectively tabulated. ie. I picked which sentences and blogs were to be countedin statistics =)

Random

2008-08-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

Just finished the WHOLE chain of testimonial writings just now, so I feeling an extreme sense of satisfaction and relief from the need to write testimonials continuously for hours (thanks to piling up effect across many CCAs + main one). I realise I might need to write for RIPB tomorrow (cause there's a special briefing for sec 4 prefects tmr). oh well.

Anyway, today we had a physics relief teacher who is totally kool! Because she looks totally like Annie Zeng. Sorry, seems like I'm going around and telling the whole world about this, but many ppl had agreed spontaneously and some even shared this view before I realised (I stoned and was like... this face looks familiar...).

Ms Kek, hope you are alright. :) Do rest well. 4B is looking forward to your return!

MEP EOY 2007

2008-08-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

I should have known that the MEP EOY last year was copied. First the CCT was questions 1 and 2 of O-level paper 2003. So I borrowed all O-level papers from 2002 to 2006. Memorise. Then questions 1 and 2 seem non0familiar.

BUT. I was flipping through the 2003 O-Level paper again. Question 3. WAIT. IDENTICAL. *faints*

Why I never thought that the paper could have been continuously copied >< DIAOZ. I LOST 3 MARKS IN QN 3. That's 3/5 of the marks I lost. sian.

Let's do some analysis

2008-08-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

Definition
Type - describe the nature of factor
Net movement - briefly summarise if there has been a gain or loss
Other remarks - well... other remarks

1) Money
Type: Valuable, countable
Net movement: Loss
Other remarks: I don't even need to start counting much before a loss occur already. Further counting leads to more misery so I stopped the moment I know I lost money, which is only after 3 calculations

2) Knowledge
Type: Invaluable
Net movement: Gain
Other remarks: Well, of course gaining knowledge is good. but wasn't exactly put to good use. Yet.

3) Skills
Same as above, though gain is rather little

4) Time
Type: VERY invaluable, psudeo countable
Net movement: Severe loss
Other remakrs: Severe die; leads to scrumbling for time to the extent of 1) Sacrifice of family outing this weekend to be alone at home rushing; 2) Even someone offer celebration, I also reject

Time is the most impt. Very impt. doom

Haydn Piano sonatas

2008-08-02T04:14:00.001-07:00

Haydn piano sonatas never fail to give you the feeling of nostalgia after listening to them (especially the CD set I have which says Sonata No. 48 to No. 52 or Hob. XVI: 35-39). By the time it reaches the G major one, you seriously feel this amazing feeling of amazingness.

<3 Haydn piano sonatas!

2008-07-30T01:56:00.000-07:00

I try to be optimistic. But what I get is more deception.

I cannot stand it anymore. This will stop TODAY. Officially.

Pist. At everything.

On a side note, after guitar practice have been suspended, in these 3 weeks, I only get to go home earlier once every week only. What greatness. Why not shift guitar to now and I get to skip (either guitar or event) 2 times per week. no diff. And somemore I get to go home earlier sometimes if I choose guitar.
Great.

2008-07-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

This feeling of emptiness. It’s haunting me more than before; it’s getting stronger each day. I cannot take this any further. If this continues, I’ll probably be able to write the emotional intensity of Mahler’s 9th Symphony.

I kept deceiving myself that this is only a one-off thing, it will get better. But things never did. In fact, it got worse and worse, and it has been happening for so long already. 6 weeks.

Please, stop this. Get out of this trap. Continuing this trap only leads to doom. Dejection, regret, sadness. But how do these help? They only make matters worse. Yet, all is hopeless.

Totally hopeless. Don’t even think on the positive side for any moment. Because that is merely deceiving yourself.

Come on.

CHAOS prep

2008-07-18T03:36:00.000-07:00

today went to Aaron's house to do something about CHAOS, but since Aaron's house has pool table, Risk II and so on, going to his house and do work is simply a euphemism for playing. So you probably guessed what we have done...

Anyway, was going to edit MEP essay, I re-read he teacher's comments:
"I do not think giving a blow-by-blow account of the music is the way to go."

And Charm was commenting how I gave a "blow-by blow account" of Lab Race.

Amazing.

Apcg week

2008-07-16T23:22:00.001-07:00

haiz... have been slacking too much this week already. I don't believe you need 2 days to do a chem portfolio right?!

Anyway, been spending 1 hour a day (yes, I know some ppl will say that's short) learning this piece Tristesse by Chopin. For someone n00b like me, this is piece very hard to handle. First, I haven't even gotten pass 1.5 pages. Second, I've been trying to bring out the melody, but without pro skills unlike Aidi, I am failing miserably (btw, Tristesse means sad, but no pun was inteded here). Thirdly, don't even talk about phrasing or dynamics when notes are stilll being played wrongly =)

A recording can be found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu4ui1rNr9o&feature=related
the recording is totally heavenly.

btw, 1.5 pages is 1.53min on the recording. As you can probably hear, 1.53 onwards is about 31415926 times harder than the starting part.

oh yes, and for those who still think we totally messed up Bajo La Palmera for our small group in guitar concert - sorry, we did not play a single wrong note, contrary to your belief. And for those who now believe that we didn't play anything wrong, good. For those who still believe otherwise, try listening to Rite of Spring and tell many "wrong notes" you think you hear. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgHMpYsv0_0)

Okay okay, stop slacking... :)

NUS Amazing Lab Race 2008

2008-07-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

Today is Amazing Lab Race! I tell you, this is probably one of the most fun competitions you can probably enter =P (And btw I saw Eli who told me that there were only 9 ppl left in her class due to this, which was qutie amusing).

Basically the rules are as follows:

- 5 compulsory tasks at 5 venues (amazing race style) - 100 marks each

- Start at EA at 1pm, report back to EA by 4pm (or there will be penalty!)

Bonus marks:

- Bonus task (finding the lion soft toy and return it to EA; first team to do so get 25pts, other teams 0)

- Bonus questions (a list of 25 trivia qns on NUS Engineering faculty, 2 marks each)

- Speed (first team to return gets 20marks, second team gets 15, 12, 10....)

Yup, so off we go! But not exactly. We looked at the trivia questions T.T they were exactly the same as last year's (recycled!) That's why they didn't allow past participants to go again. Of course some things can be done on the spot, but thanks to our Trivia mugger Huang Wenjie (who memorised things like mission statement and what achievements the faculty had ETC - imba), we managed to get 24/25 in the end.

Anyway, back on topic. Our 1st station (due to lucky drawing of Nigel Fong, out route begins at EA) is directly above us. We had to build a table using only bamboo sticks and strings. Very fun and creative. Haha Jie liang hhappened to do thsi for NPCC before, so we followed his creative design, but didn't really work out due to shortage of time; table was completed but cannot really stand...

Our 2nd station was studying fluid flow. Basically there was this cooool machine with red fluid flowing through it, and we are suppose to take some readings, then use all the imba formulae they provided, draw graoh find gradient ETC to calculate this coefficient. Wenjie and the n00ber I took readings while we left the imbas to do the calculations =)

The 3rd stations ah. haiyo. We are supposed to make crystal in a supersaturated sodium acetate solution. At first Nigel briefly shoke the flask and crystals were forming, then the lab tech gave us another flask. Then we stupidly heated the thing up, then add sodium acetate, was about to cool it, when crystals already start forming. OH YA! SUPERSATURATED. Just add more can crystallised liao -.- -.- -.- No wonder shaking the flask works - dust dissolved and so level of impurities increased. lol. that was quite fast

4th station - on the way back found the lion! And there are like 10+ lions left there, so we though we quite fast, ran back *phail* another team submitted liao. so we continued to 4th task.

Basically we have this cool robot. There's a video which teach us how the robot works. Then we have to place the robot outside on a path. The robot has a CCTV like thingy attached to it, so we can see what is in front of it. So from the room, we have to control the robot about this maze thing, knockdown checkpoints to read codes, piece the codes together and form a message (which was E=mc^2). Meanwhile (taken by Dan and I), there were 5 qns to ans (20 marks each :O)

1. What is the min number of wheels needed

2. Advantage of having more wheels =?

3. Are wheels placed symmetrically to centre of robot?

4. Calculate speed of the various wheels for the robot to move this direction while rotating at this speed.

5. Given wheels speed, calculate direction, speed of robot + roatating speed.

Basically my mind was quite lost, so Daniel started by owning qn 4 with vectors (which I knew to apply but was stoning). Then he was owning qn 5 with vectors when he had to solve a 3 variable simultaneous eqns, with crazy coefficients like 0.02846284 and root3/2. So he chucked it at me. I knew this willt ake forever to solve, BUT...

If you hack your calculator enough, there are some models that can allow you to solve this EASILY. all you need, is to convert to some matrix mode then choose the 3-v matrix mode which is like (3x3 matrix)(x,y,z)=(a,b,c) where abc are knowns and you want to find xyz. so fill up the matrix and the calc hack xyz for you!

Heh but my new calc doesn't have this -.- so I was like asking everyone to take out their cal and I recognise Jie Liang's to be a model which has this function (sorry I hack alot types of calc). For a moment I forgot how to use it, but eventually found the mode. =) Viola solved! Then I work through the rest of the mmaths to get the ans.

5th station. most imba. Part I - watch this content packed powerpoint, which changes slides like every 3s. Then go out, ans a set of 10 qns. If wrong, they collect the paper back, go in and look again. Repeat until all correct -.- which was VERY HARD. and you dont get to knwo which qns you got wrong =X

By the time we got correct, it was 3.50pm already. Left 10 minutes and EA is like the opposite end of Engineering faculty. Alot of teams which were stuck here decided to head back, but we continued to task II - the person showed us this fan, which can convert wind into EM waves to be picked up by sensors in the room (totally cool!). State all energy conversions.

Task III - given numbers 3, 5, 8. Convert them to binary (Nigel stoned, so I took over him). Then, input this data onto the fan (which Nigel also failed miserably and so I took over him desperately - hello like 3.56pm liao). Make sure these numbers are picked up. succeeded. RUN BACK TO EA!

I didnt know all our watches were fast, cause when we reached back, it's 3.57pm. So we continued to do trivia qns first, thinking alot of teams have already submitted, so there is no point going for speed bonus, but we were wrong. at 3.59, a gigantic group of teams rushed in and submitted. -.- so we joined the end of the queue to prevent further daamage. Anyway 3.59 liao.

So it was pretty fun, and we think we serious worked very well throughout the tasks, and we were able to utilise each other's strengths.

So the end result?

Actually we were pretty lucky that things pretty much went our way and I happened to know how to do the simul eqns.

Eureka and NSC

2008-07-14T03:50:00.000-07:00

hello :) Under the request of frac and Mengshi, I shall post.

First, let's talk about the story of Eureka, which is not the story of the person running down the street ya, but the story of a sci comp organised by RJC last wednesday.

The prelim was quite murderous. You are given a almost full prac (which you usually have like 50mins to do in school) but you have you do it in 10 mins. Then when you are like totally freaked out and tired, they immediately give you another subject (ours was phy, then maths, then chem then bio) and 10 mins of crazy rushing starts AGAIN. Here's a quote on how we have done:

"Physics, too extra, screw up. Maths, draw snake add leg, screw up. Chem, taste poison, die. Bio, see flower, screw up."

No lah. Actually for phy, tjeng remembered formula wrongly; for maths, tjeng write random things at side for fun then write a sign wrongly and kena owned by marker; for chem QA but no NaCl, no NH3 and no CH3COOH = no chemicals obtainable by smell/touch + no cation/anion test -.- so... taste for HCl! But sorry Ba(NO3)2 is corrosive. opps never knew so my tongue... for bio, erm no comments.

But it turns out that by some stroke of luck, we got into the finals. Usually, individual round involves only 1 team answering at one time. But this time they want all teams to answer, but I didn't know (either they make it not clear, or I deaf); but I didnt answer the first qn which was REALLY OBVIOUS. I was so pist. But luckily only I got the maths qn correct (sort of balanced back) but I wrong the correct answer for chem, then I changed it last minute to get WRONG! amazing.

They buzzer round, and play battleship as bonus. Basically if you buzz in and get correct, you get to shoot from your ships. but the catch is this: there are 4 territories, and you don't know which territory your ship is in (aka you may blast your own ship). You will only know your territory when one of your ship sink, then 1 ship icon will disappear from your school name. Thankfully, there was one time where we sank 3 ships in 3 diff territories, and the remaining one is not us, so of course we just keep blasting there lah! XD

I uber failed. But luckily managed ot buzz in for last qn rather quickly and redeem myself from ober fail to phail (pronounced as "fail"). I figured that if I didn't get that, the net gain of our opponent can be 14, in which case we lose. =/
Well, Mr Tang very smart. For a bio qn, I remembered the answer is option 2. So I pointed and say this. He buzz, I want to take mic and answer, he speak into it and say 1. WIN. I was like -.-;;
But anyway, we still got it in the end. Phew. But must work harder cause next time might not be so lucky!

Anyway, yesterday went to watch NSC. Good job to the NSC team this year! Yeah. But can buzz faster lor! -.- huiyao and I were saying that if we were there, we either spoil the buzzer, or we make 10 more questions appear haha. But I think I will stone like I did in Eureka (except for last qn) :)

Wednesday is NUS AMAZING LAB RACE!

Random question

2008-06-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

We define a new sequence pi-sequence (not sure if this already exist)

We let P_1 be a random positive integer. For i>1, we define P_i as follows:
The string P_(i-1) occurs at position P_i of pi, after the decimal place.

For example, if P_1=35, P_2=9 because 3.141592635 means that 35 appears at the 9th place for the first time. And P_3=5, P_4=4, P_5=2, P_6=7, P_7=13 P_8=110 and so on.

Postulate: If P_i is more than 1, then the sequence will be a generally increasing sequence.

Someone wishes to prove/disprove it?

(btw, you may define generally increasing as follows:
Suppose you have a sufficiently large k. Then for two positive integers m and n, where m is sufficiently larger than n, the average of k consecutive terms from pi_m will be larger than those from pi_n)

SIMO CAMP

2008-06-10T19:46:00.001-07:00

To people who are still hopelessly trapped in the SIMO camp mood (like me), here's something for you:

Conjecture 1.3 SIMO mood
Suppose your "holiday" has 28 days. Let n be the day which SIMO camp starts. One is practically productive only on the first n days of the "holiday". :)

Corollary from thm 1.3
The earlier SIMO camp is, the more days your "holiday" will be burnt away. =/

So barry must stop slacking around doing maths all day and stop stoning NOW. and maximum of watching 1 soccer match at 2.45am per week >.<

Distracted

2008-06-08T02:01:00.000-07:00

haiz... I was supposed to be reading on GP and AQ, and while I was absorbed in reading some 2007 A-level comments thing, I suddenly remembered that Lums still has my geog and chem stuff. So I went to his blog to tag on his tagboard. Then I got distracted and went to read ppl's posts on SIMO.

It seems that my conjecture is right:
Conjecture 1.1 SIMO posting
Let a1, a2,..., an be the ppl at SIMO camp. Let bi denote the number of times ai has been to SIMO camp. For all i where bi=1, ai will post about the SIMO in greater detail than other people.

Hmm. That is true at the moment. Went around reading people's blog, and it turned out that the random "magic trick" is still remembered for its "ingenuity" haha.

Oh wellz, the good times at SIMO camp. Now I shall spend the rest of the day stoning as a result of conjecture 1.2

Conjecture 1.2 SIMO thinking time
Let ai represents the i-th day after SIMO camp has ended. If one misses SIMO camp and begins to think about the good times he/she had, let f(i) denote the time he will spend thinking if this occurs on day ai. f(i) is a function with only 1 turning point and it occurs for some value of i, i>30

Okay this is random crap (like the magic). I want my Libestraum!!!

SIMO Camp 2!

2008-06-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

After SIMO camp, I came up with 1 conclusion: Mathematics purifies one's mind, body and soul.

It's perfectly true. I have never experienced this sense of extremely guai1-ness in me for a long time, and it's certainly making me feel very guai4 (no pun intended). I feel that my heart is lost somewhere, like in a blackhole.

Yet, I do not feel extremely sad or anything. It is just a feeling of nostalgia mixed with a remote (pun intended) sense of happiness and the desire to be guai1. It's really really queer.

My second year in SIMO camp, but this time in the national team. The camp is definitely fun, and I have became strangely addicted to maths, looking for opportunities to skip physics things to return to the camp. The camp just gives me a feeling of fun and warmness.

If you prefer, you may let SIMO be a set. While its elements may change, its properties does not. The closeness of mathematics is the universal trait that passes through all of its elements and bind them together.

I won't be writing the events that happened in detail, just give a few things which I found memorable.

I like the maths sessions :) of course. This requires no further elaboration

I like the sports and games! :) haha soccer and basketballlll.

The night times and fun! It's either 1) table-tennis 2) piano 3) pool 4) cards or 5) slacking around.
Which reminds me of the last night at the camp. Keven and I were going crazy over the "International Open section (piano)" because we wanted Aidi to perform for us, and in the end we kept pushing to each other to perform on the piano XD. Then we did magic tricks or "magic tricks" in an attempt to practice for "International Open section (magic competition)". =) Then we had truth or dare which was quite fun lah. Somehow, my "magic" succeeded in making me save for a long stretch of time whee.

Of course, the tiny moments of interesting events, such as:
1) Ivan's quotes, which include "what you want" (never say "2 dollars" in reply to this, or you will get attacked on your head), "what is this", "I am dumb/stupid", "pro lah" in addition to his usual ones
2) Ivan's attacking moments (which includes attacking jun le and pouring drinks on zi yang's head)
3) Someone making paper catch fire
4) Random goals missed and randomness on the field
5) Jun Le's interesting stories :)
6) The talk on game theory
7) Amazing race
8) Mr Teo's appearance (which is always interesting)

And of course, I must say that I won't take any of our jokes of me too personal, cause I know it's all for fun :) And I must say Gabriel Wong either became too pro, or too brave haha

Aidi you owe me a piece! Liszt's Love Dream No. 3. I know you find it n00b or something, but still must play! ><

Of course, thanks to everyone at the camp for making it a really enjoyable camp for me and everyone! SIMO ROX

Chinese CCT

2008-05-06T07:15:00.001-07:00

I wrote words for cloze passage.

There goes my chinese.

Singapore Flyer!

2008-03-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

Singapore Flyer! Here's just a few photos:

Laws of Trig

2008-03-26T02:15:00.000-07:00

Laws of Trigonometry:

Shopping statement
Shopping + Shopping = 2 Shopping Centres

Cash statement
Cash + Cash = 2 Credit Cards

Saving statement
Cash - Cash = 2 must Start Saving

Closing statement
Shopping - Shopping = 2 Closed Shops

APMO

2008-03-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

haha. Ran into Annie yesterday. At first I was mugging astro, then I just know this rgs girl was like walking past in front of me. Later when I was trying to memorise this gigantic list of nearest stars thing, I looked up, then I was like: wait I know this person. XD The rest requires no elaboration.

Anyway, APMO was quite okay. Quite. I was expecting a 0. But qn 1 was geom! =) BUT it was too hard that only Jiahan attempted XDDD And qn 5 was number theory.

If you think qn 5 was the hardest qn, then you are wrong. After 2 hours of geom whacking for qn1 and qn 3, I died. So I just read qn 5 for fun. Then 3s later: OBVIOUSSSSSSSSS It's so lame! I can't believe Weiquan, Leilei, vincent etc. didn't get it. When I explain my simple proof to them, of how stupid the qn was, they were like WTF! It's like proving 1+1=2.

And then I tried qn 4. Not suppose to discuss qn online, so I cannot write the qn here. But my first line is like 0+2x0 = 1. CHAMPION. Almost everyone did the qn, and yet Jiahan and I both wrote 1 for the first line. Could have gotten at least 4 more marks!

(This is not considered discussing qns online right?)

Chinese script

2008-03-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

My chinese script!

勇敢地面对失败

老师、诸位同学：
早上好！今天，我要与大家分享的话题是“勇敢地面对失败”。在这个竞争激烈的世界里，失败已是我们司空见惯的事，因为人生之途并非一帆风顺。然而，许多人在面对失败时就会垂头丧气，自暴自弃，或者是畏缩不进。因此，失败就会变成许多人的绊脚石。想一想，当你失败时，你是不是也把自己给藏在失败的阴影里，或者让自己跌进失败的万丈深渊呢？

请问大家有没有曾经想过，其实你是可以从失败的阴影中走出来的、其实你是可以在跌倒后再次地爬起来、其实你是可以再次地举起你的武器，勇敢地与失败奋斗。

“失败乃成功之母”、“没有多次失败，难得一次成功”，这句句耳熟能详的谚语告诉我们失败与成功的亲密关系。唯有了失败，并且从失败中爬起来，一个人才能胜利在握。

爱迪生经过了超过一千次的失败才成功地发明了我们日常生活中不可缺少的电灯泡；诺贝尔曾在发明炸药的过程中炸毁了自己的房子与指头，但他从失败中吸取经验，最终取得成功；孙中山经历了11次的失败革命，终于在辛亥革命成功，推翻了清朝。由此可见，历史上不胜枚举的伟人故事都说明了一个道理：若要成功，得先战胜失败。

那我们应该怎么做才能把失败化为成功呢？每次的失败可是学习的机会。所谓“前事不忘，后事之师”，把失败记下来，以它为鉴，从中分析失败的原因并累积经验，是迈向成功的第一步。只要我们振作起来，以一鼓新的力量去面对挑战，我们便能所向披靡。

总而言之，“懦夫把失败看作沉重的包袱，勇士把失败化为前进的阶梯”，面对失败时，我们不应该向它屈服，并举起白旗，而是再次地找回力量，勇敢地面对失败。因为只有这样，我们才能踏上成功的道路；因为只有这样，我们才能继续地向目标驰骋着；因为只有这样，我们才能在暴风雨后找到绚丽多姿的彩虹！

谢谢大家。

COOL

2008-03-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

This is so cool. haha. found it from someone's (someone=one of the person from NUS who came for our investiture XD) blog.
actual link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsU3B0W3TMs&feature=related

Random talk

2008-02-27T03:24:00.000-08:00

若这份感情分裂了，那还得了？到底是谁对谁错，至今还分不清。但俗语说“忍一时风平浪静，退一步海阔天空”，我的心里一直回旋着道歉的念头。难道说一声“对不起”比登天还要难吗？

～～～～～～～～～～～～～
若有人看上了你，你应该怎么办呢？若你看上了别人，你应该怎么办呢？

～～～～～～～～～～～～～
唉，世界真复杂！没关系，爱惜生命、爱惜自己，人生必定会快乐无比！

Memories...

2008-02-12T05:06:00.001-08:00

记忆是一样美丽但可怕的事。

空中正飘旋着德彪西的曲子。我的眼睛虽然瞪着桌子上的那一叠厚厚的生物笔记，但是脑子却已随着音乐飘浮到远方去了。我不停地翻阅着记忆的存库，脑海不停地四处乱跑，但最终停录在去年的年终假期里。

我还清晰地记得我在飞机启程时那兴奋的心情；那非笔墨能形容的感觉。我回想起我之前所做过的准备工作：那一叠叠从“高中物理”课本所作出的练习、那几公斤重的初级学院生物课本、那复杂又令人爱不释手的化学题目。当然，怎么也忘不了在一起加紧苦练的日子，那时老师的确是付出不少的心血啊！忘不了黄金时刻的每一分一秒！

飞机一降落，我们就遇到了和蔼可亲的导游。我们对台湾的日子实在是流连忘返。那一幕幕景观迷人的旅游胜地以把我的心给偷走了。当然忘不了比赛时那些分秒必争的时刻、那些疲倦无能的时刻与那些比赛后如释重负的感觉！

曲子完美的了结。现在重新开始了贝多芬动听的曲子。我的脑子再继续地往记忆存库里翻、回忆不断地往空中飞翔！

Complain!!

2007-11-12T06:07:00.000-08:00

I want to complain!!
I'm only 20 days away from flying to IJSO, and i'm like going out everyday. How am I suppose to study!! lol jk

Anyway, the maths camp on Sat was reasonably fun. Especially where I discover the way to enjoy minesweeper was to *squish* the mine haha. And of course, my favourite integral! Integrate [(sin^2007 x dx)/(sin^2007 x + cos^2007 x)] from 0 tp pi/2. HAHA I buzz in like 1 second after and said pi/4. lol. and I buzz in for 3 other qns, which I solved respectively after 3s, 10s, 45s. Not bad. I like my fast response for the first 3 qns. But of course, I still need to improve myself.

Okay g2g mug for ijso. haha

These few days...

2007-11-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

6/11
NSW prize presentation! woah. Okay I seriously didn't expect that I was the only double medal winner. >< this is because in 2005, there were 3. But this year, when I open up the programme booklet, I almost fainted. Yes. Anyway, I finally had a good look at Sheng Siong and know how he knows like.

7/11
Our annual maths camp! Firstly, a few lessons learnt which we want to tell next year's planning committee!

Amazing Race/Treasure Hunt - Plan something that cannot be solved by asking the guard. Or you will end up having all the groups asking the guard and then every group getting full marks. XD

War games - The time where flags become mutated into bits of paper, and where pulling of socks out of the back of ppl becomes pulling of hairs and shoes. So war games are highly dangerous and not recommended unless desperate for activity.

Vertical Training - Kill more ppl with geometry questions. I was marking the geometry questions, and the scorings are as follows (max of 7 for proof, max of 10 for presentation):
7, 10
0, 0
0, 0
0, 1
I llike this. Therefore, this shows yet again that geometry is important.
And when you want to present, make sure you know how to proof every single thing you use in your proof. Like AM-GM inequalitiy. And don't ever write AM-GM equality

Oral quiz - read carefully before buzzing in! hahaha. And remember that prime factorisation of 1 does not exist, and there ARE 50 questioons in the oral quiz ><

Prize presentation - at first we wanted to make the groups use their points and auction for their prrizes, but since we were running late.. oh well, you asll can steal this idea. XD

8/11
I went to Snow City! Ya I know you may be laughing at me, but oh well, it is fun! And cold. haha.

Alot of things

2007-11-03T05:48:00.000-07:00

Alot of exciting things has happened these few days. Firstly, on Wed, Chem RA went out to eat. It was a wonderful time, especially when we start talking. "talking". Thank you Mr Ong for the wonderful chem lessons this year!

On Thurs, it was RE congress, and Dr David Butler and Dr David Foo was here! I talked to Dr Butler for a while haha.

Friday, there was a symposium by Nobel Laurate and other speakers, and it was really interesting. And of course, besides seeing Elaine, there was this really random person whom we (= HY, Vincent, Jie Liang, Lumpy and I) never see before, but she said alot of really funny things, like:

Her *points to me*: "Hey, you look familiar. What's your name? You look gay."
*everyone laughs. Me confused*

... later
Her: "YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? (to others) What type of person does he like?"
HY: "We are getting into a very dangerous subject"
(that's cause you know who is sitting in front of me)

Her: "Are you all sec 3?"
Vincent: "*points to himself* I'm sec 3, *to HY* he's sec 2, *to jie liang* he's sec 1, *to me* he's P6"
Her: "You are all sec 3 right?"

100 times later...
Her: "Are you all sec 3?!"
I have no comments.

and she made many funny comments about Lumpy, such as "Why is his blog called motheory-love.blogspot.com!", and the kool thing is, we didn't even mentioned his name at all, and she knows so much details.

But of course, the best pun ever in human history
vincent picks up phone: Good afternoon sir
Jie Liang: Is that Daniel
Me: Wee/Oui
Jie Liang: Do you mean 'Wee' as in Mr Mark Wee, or 'Oui' as in Yes in French, cause they both sounds the same?
I stoned for 1 split second.

And of course, the infinite sequece of jinx-ing.
A&B: *says the same thing at the same time*
A&B again: jinx
A&B again: jinx
A&B yet again: jinx
...100 times later...
A&B: *together* I'm tired of saying jinx
A&B: JINXXXX
...

sorry, just too much lame things recently.

Like todays nat team training. 5 qns. I solved qn 5 the moment I got it, but missing 1 step which I finally derived 1 hour later. This is followed by solving qn 4. Now I solved qn 3. I'm still stuck at qn 1 and 2. Wonderful.

RON

2007-10-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

today is a good day. I FINALLY managed to fixed up the RON on my brother's comp. If he and I wants to LAN, we must update our versions to the same version, so since my version is the latest one, he needs to upgrade his. But after downloading the patch on his comp, RON will always mess up so I tried to troubleshoot for cao long. But finally I solved it TODAY. YAY. So I played with my brother the moment I fixed it. He got pwned. Cause while defeating the computer players, I have been bulding up my defence like mad. That's like 30+ defending fortress and 30+ defending towers at the side he would attack from. After that, I build 20 of those stuff that will kill planes. So when he tried to attack me... you can imagine that getting beaten by buildings is not very fun.

Anyway, read about nervous system. yeah.

Moderation

2007-10-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

I created a post venting my anger on how moderation has caused my to suffer multiple sudden defeats and lost of prizes. And how moderation does not help me AT ALL, yet helps everyone else so much, that it becomes a harm to me.

But noting that the post is typed when I'm too angry, it might not be suitable if I put it up. So it shall remain in my saved posts for like very long.

If you want to read it, just look for me. I'll rant out everything for you.

Alot of stuff to say

2007-10-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I watched Secret. It is VERY NICE! Not being emo, but the ending is really touching. And of course, piano rox (too bad Lumpy).

Today nat team training was weird. The maths stuff was interesting, but the atmosphere was abit like intriguing. I clocked a consecutive period of 15 mins where there was no sound at all. Like amazing. That never occured before ever in SIMO trainings.

And to remind myself, here's a list of stuff to do:
RIPMWC questions (collating)
Camp Proposal (finish it)
Learn Electricity (urgent)
IJSO Physics Prac report
Read hong lou meng
Chinese homework
Commonwealth Essay
Practice my concert pieces

Anythhing else???

Results

2007-10-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

YAY. Okay, I'm quite happy with my results in general, but english needs improving. Since 58% make me scrape 3.6 exactly after adding in my CA. phew. but the rest were nice. like really, NICE.

Anyway, yesterday I read through the first topic on electricity in Physics Insight, and today 1st topic of Organic Chem in the Introduction to Advance Chemistry book. For both days, after which, I went to sleep. at 8. but today I woke up again cause erm, no reason. Perhaps, the best way to waste time is to sleep. yeah.

At this rate, I need to find something better to do.

BORED!

2007-10-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

I'm boreddddddd. Almost to death. All I'm doing whole day, is either maths or maths camp. and games doesn't seem to be very fun. So I shall end up doing nothing.

Today I spent 1hour doing differentiation by chain, product and quotient rule. I conclude that things are evil. =)

Maybe I should go and learn
1) Electricity
2) Nervous System (again)
3) Reproduction
4) Hormones
5) Organic Chemistry

And of course, "Geometry, since it is important". Haha, I'm glad the first part of nat team trainings will be devoted to geom, so I won't die, since I can do geom. After terribly beaten by Ivan in the West China MO geom qns, I thankfully manage to redeem my title of "geom pro" (started by Ivan) by solving qn 1-3 in nat team rather quick today. When the senior said, you can begin trying the problems, I was like, at qn 4. But of course, I got stuck thereafter =) nevermind, 3/7 is almost a pass HAHAHAHAHA. passing nat team or SMO round 2 will be good. Passing IMO would be miracle.

AGM

2007-10-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

shi bai. yeah.

at least just now I manage to solve one more qn yay.

Ivan is still stuck at qn 4 of the first paper, and refused to skip until today, so he has done only 3 qns so far. Me done 8. yeah. But soon he would catch up (duh)

Shopping probability

2007-10-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

Every single blog that I went to that mentions shopping, people are seeing people coincidentally. What is the probability that you see 3 people (of course not 1 group got 3 ppl, but 3 separate ppl) whom you know, without pre-planning, all in 1 day, at the same place? Actually, not very high. If you take Singapore's population to be 4.5mil, and you know say x number of people in singapore, and you happen to see y number of ppl that day, this is the probability that you would see ONE person whom you know.

1 - [ (4500000-x)/4500000] ^ y.

So assuming you know 5,000 people (!!) and happen to see (+ notice) 1,000 ppl on that day in the shopping centre (!!!!), this is the probability:

0.671.

Okay that's actually quite high, but err... this calculation is taking into account alot of assumptions that are actually not realistic. Oh well. This calculation must be severely flawed somewhere....

However, if you only know 1000 people (more realistic) and see 500 people after infinite hours of shopping, the probability is:

0.105.

KOOL. Okay, so if any number drops, it shrinks like crazy.

Anyway, the probability of seeing a SPECIFIC person whom you want to see randomly, if you happen to see 1000 people, is: 0.000222. Of course that includes the assumption that people are all moving around the infinite landscape randomly, and without particular reasons.

Yups. But I still believe people are uber lucky to be seeing random people everywhere.

Fine I admit

2007-10-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

Start of emo part

fine, I admit... I have a worst fear. My worst fear, is to lose that friendship. I don't know why. But I do treasure that friendship so much, that I'm so constantly afriad that I would lose it one day.

I know you are a nice person. I don't even know whether you really see me as a friend, or is it that you are very nice, so even though you don't like me, you just treat me like a friend. Maybe you do hate me to the core. Maybe you have been wishing that I get off your back. Maybe it's even more complicated than complex numbers. Please say this is not the case.

I hope that I would be able to continue have this friendship with you.

End of emo part

More boredom

2007-10-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Today, I went back to school for OIP briefing, but turn out that CCALs that are not going don't have to turn up. And no one told us (= Nigel, Ren yan, Daniel and me). So end up wasting at least 2 hours of transport time.

But that was still okay. Anyway, 1/2 my time went to the maths camp, 1/4 to AGM, 1/8 to practicing maths for nat team, and 1/8 to playing. Today, I feel happy that I completely filled up a piece of paper with scribbles after 5 hours of staring at 'elementary number theory'. At first it was abit rusty, but I think the rust sort of something later on. Read alot of kool stuff, like this mathematician whose life span is unknown, but know that his boyhood lasted 1/6 of his life, then beard grew out 1/12 later, married 1/7 later, after 5 years gave birth to son, and his son live 1/2 his life, and he died 4 years after. So that gives:

x/6 + x/12 + x/7 + 5 + x/2 + 4 = x

So basically they still manage to work that out, using maths.

And read alot of interesting things on primes <3

Anyway, after 5 hours, I went to play Crash Twinsanity, and I discovered that my skill have deproved. Tremendously. At least 100000 times. Of course, at night = camp stuff choinging time lor.

At this rate, I'm going to NOT die of boredom. There's Crash Bash and Crash Twinsanity, rise of Nations, and best of all, maths. Of course, need to mug for IJSO, nat team, and plan for campS (sci club also okay!). Probably end up doing more work than non-holiday. yay. but I shall not complain because there are worse people out there than me. At least I enjoy doing these stuff! XD

Random quote

2007-10-15T06:27:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this quote today and I love it:
"Math is like love; a simple idea, but it can get complicated."

Nationaal team

2007-10-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

LOL I think I'm seriously going to die horribly in nat team. I could only do 1/4 of the questions in the first exercise, with HEAVY guidance from peeking at the solution. And at least 3/8 of the questions are hopeless - I don't even understand the solution.

Maybe my life is getting abit boring...

Post-EOY

2007-10-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

LIBERATION!

Yeah right. PARTIAL liberation.

Let's first rate my massive messed up-ness for my EOYs:
(1 being total no messed up, 10 being crazily uberly messed up)
Eng - 8 Like seriously. Just look at my NSW results and you can tell me eng standard.
HCL - 9 Unexpectedly hard. =(
SS - 4 I strongly bellieve I did okay
Maths - 1.5 except for the 1 mark bonus qn (out of 4 possible bonus marks) which no one in the level got.
Phy - 8 can do all qns but careless a total of at least 13 marks already, though reduced to a loss of 8 marks due to bonus questions
Chem - 1 erm, I can't get any higher since I'm still stuck at 84/80
Bio - 3 okay, I lost a total of 6 marks in the first qn, but the rest can do, except for 3 marks of careless.
Geog - 2 I think I did quite well, except that I left 5 mins to do a 7 marks question and had to rush 1.5 pages of answer out in 5 minutes.
MEP - 1 Extract = <3 could do all qns except the chords, because it is some 20th century piece and the key is ambigious. run short of time to do manuscript quoting, so I shortened that part.

Overall: 5 hmmm...

So after the MEP paper, since I was so happy over MEP, I did nothing. okay. So HY, vincent and I went around RJ planning the war games, and we bumped into juan he a few times (haha). And we ran around for 2 hours certain for tiny tiny objects that existed on the walls of RJ. And trust me, some of them are so well hidden that we don't believe we found it. It was fun overall, though tiring hahas. However, there are 20 of them, and we only found 19 after 2 hours.

So went to collect blazer for IJSO and I got uber suanned about my size for 10 minutes straight. That was worst then all the suanning I ever got combined together. Anyway after that, HY and I played Pokemon Sapphire on the way back, and we tried the Battle Tower. The first time, we lost at the last guy (lol). Then I said I shall beat the battle tower once before reaching my stop (which is 6 stops, 7 ppl). It took longer as we progressed on, but thankfully we finished in time lol.

So liberation heh? nah. In my n (non-sleeping) hours from the end of the MEP paper till now, 3n/4 of them went to work. There's philo essay, maths camp proposal, maths club agm, nat team practice blah blah blah. Unfortunately, I do not enjoy doing proposals to the extent of having 17 revisions per proposal *pokes*. But I do enjoy finally solving a question from the stack of China Western MO qns. And it's a geom, so Ivan, there.

Anyway, anyone wanna play Rise of Nations with me? =)

EOY

2007-10-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

YAY 101 posts!

Anyway, the EOYs are really freaky. your GPA now rocks on it, because the weightage is now 40%! As such, my original GPA is completely at risk. Let's check out what happened:

English = X.X
SS= :/ (neutral)
Chinese = X.X
Chem = =))))
Maths = =)))

Okay, maths and chem is almost guranteed 4.0, and the test was relatively managable.
SS need 66% to get 4.0, and I think I got some hope on that
English and Chinese! Eng need 63% for 3.6, but my compre failure rate is also ABOUT 63% this year. yes, excluding the summary, I fail 2/3 of the compre. And there's no summary inside! So now my eng GP is at severe risk of dropping to very low. Chinese need 80% for 4.0 and 55% for 3.6. But I don't know why, I totally freak out during the paper. The can study parts = good, but the rest (which is 70%) = die. Totally don't know what they are asking for in the compre. Or at least where to find the ans.

Haiz. So as the papers go by, they get easier. This has always been the case. I quote myself on mon: "finally a paper (chem) on familiar grounds." Maths was more familiar, tomorrow phy and bio = familiar, geog = fun and MEP = rejoice!

My GPA prediction after EOY will still stand at 3.8 due to eng and chinese "droppage". Let's see what happens after 3 more days. Well, I would rather be playing than calculating this!

Marriage D'Amour! <3 such a nice piece

EOY mugging

2007-09-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

100%, 50%, 0%
100%, 50%, 0%
100%, 25%, 0%
100%, 25%, 0%
100%, 10%, 0%
100%, 50%, 0%
70%, 10%, 0%
100%, 0%, 0%
100%, 0%, 0%

okay. not so bad considering that I went out shopping today HAHAHA. I think people must be thinking that i'm mad. =)

Anyway, aspirin is like errr... Firstly, everyday since sunday, I see the word aspirin, also known as blahblah acid, and blahblah acid, also known as aspirin AT LEAST TWICE A DAY! WAH. today, while doing chem papers and reading the textbook, I never never expect to see 2 qns on aspirin. WOW. TWO QUESTIONS. and then I see it on 3 tagboards. So you get the idea.

DMP

2007-09-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

lol... I realise the left 30s-60s part is the stony part. The faster part was the reaching 1min left part XD

Anyway, yesterday was IJSO test. It was relatively good, considering my scores for phy and chem so far (1 mark gone only! <3) So right now, hope for the best for bio XD

DMP is over! Actually I like my DMP periods XD Linear Algebra is definitely an eyeopener to a new area in matrices, and also really pitched at advance, so I'm very happy with that! I think Permutations and Combinations look very challenging also (from the w/s) so I shall take that next year! XD

Oh. well. My Fantasie Impromptu is still quite dead. Hmmm...

100%, 10%, 0%
100%, 20%, 0%
100%, 25%, 0%
100%, 0%, 0%
100%, 10%, 0%
50%, 0%, 0%
60%, 10%, 0%
100%, 0%, 0%
100%, 0%, 0%

Okay this still doesn't look very encouraging. :(

NSC Finals2

2007-09-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

After 2 days trying to return to reality, I figure that that 105s will probably be stuck inside my head, and so will the endothermic graph. I also died as HY also knew I buzzed before the graph lol. So IJSO test chem section, chem energetics full marks? Must be some special coincidence... I did my chem Ra post on chem energetics

But since I tend to exaggerate, and also everything happened too quickly, you probably can reduce the effect of everything in the previous post by 10000 times.

hehe.

tomorrow IJSO test. the thick 3 textbooks are untouched on my table.

But everything seems to be alright now. I shall just erm... go read college physics NOW. quarks... we lag.

NSC finals!

2007-09-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

AHHH. We actually won.

I admit: we are lucky. RGS really put up a really good fight. It was so close until we seriously just like became desperate. Like the scores were most of the time 1-2 points away only, until the buzzer.

Let's just say that our presentation terribly saved us (for once, we got higher than 8 and then we became the only school to get 12 XD), and we became 1 point ahead and have a eureka card, which makes us quite balanced.

Then since the start of buzzer, it was really a close fight. But first, we shall take a look at what happened during rehearsal. RGS beat us with 58-35. WOW. come on, last year finals only got 57. And it's a 23 points margin. Then we seriously realise that we are in trouble.

So back to the actual buzzer. Even after we used our eureka card, the points are still a difference of 1. and RG hasn't even used theirs. And they were really fast. For questions like the charm quarks, aspirin, smallpox, which we would usually get, they buzz about 1s after the qn appear. And at that time, we just read finish the qn, and figured out that the question could be done. But it was too late. So basically, I figured that at this rate we would lose. Terribly. They are good.

But luckily Vincent and I came up with a stradegy. Did you vincent? but his behavious became similar to what I planned we should be doing. Basically, we just spam buzz. Just press. Especially the qn on the reaction. The moment the graph appeared on OUR screen in front (TV might appear earlier), I press. Then I think. Then Vincent probably did the same for a few questions. Then our points finally rose. Finally, we managed to pull back our scores and overtake them. I mean it was seriously close.

So the last 30 seconds - and RG hasn't used their eureka card. I figured (probably Vincent too), that it is still very VERY dangerous, given RG's very pro buzzing so far. And we failed the maths qns (hehe sorry, didnt answer/buzz/snatched by RG). There were alot of moments where RG could overtake us. But the final question soon came - a maths question asking for a series determined by some complicated equation. Luckily, Vincent temporary forgot the answer and we only got it at the last second, just enough to prevent RG a final chance of overtaking us.

AH. basically, we were quite surprised that we won, because I sincerely thought that the RG team had performed very well today, and we were just lucky with some randomness. But they really answered alot of questions - they probably buzzed in more times than us. But in conclusion, this was really really stressful. Like you won't ever one to feel that amount of stress in 105 seconds. Haha.

So in conclusion, I would like to thank the following people:

The SCGS and RGS team, for really putting up a great fight. I thought you all were really really great.

The teachers, for their lovely advices on training and stredegy etc.

Last year's champions for the advices (XD)

Huiyao for being around most of the time to help

Lumpy and chem training (right XD) and Wenjie for some bio help

Friends who cheered us on!

People who took part in buzzer training

People who came down to support us! =)

My parents! For coming down too.

The school's support. Really help! =)

Anyone else whom has helped in one way or another, but has inadventably cannot be inserted into this otherwise never-ending list.

Really close fight, so you should watch NSC on thurs (27/9) and feel the pressure also! XD