08/05/05
after madame butterfly yesterday, i was with sara and avonne in cityhall mrt station waiting for the train. a senior who is in rj yr 1 currently, was lamenting about how busy and stressful rj life was, and how much we, as rgs students, got away from by being in rp. the sweeping statements she made, i suppose, to a large extent, reflect on how other thousands of students view the pple in integrated programmes in general. sara, avonne and i simply stood there, flabbergasted and gaped. later, av told me so much was going on in her mind, and when she realised how misunderstood our bunch of pple are, she chose to keep quiet. i think she spoke for three of us since i caught the exact looks on both their faces [i was pretty much sure i had the same look as well] when the senior was talking.

a similar incident happened to me once before, that was after tuition when i went to collect a book from fm's. so we were just talking about the load of work we have to do, his o levels and my general complaints about rp. i distinctly remember him saying, 'aiyah, you people from ip dont have to do so much work wad..'

i suppose there is bound to be biasness here, even as i try as much as possible to be objective. the reason is not soley caused by my wanting to defend my point, additionally, my ignorance of the o level track. [well, how can i be a judge of something i never experienced?]

many other students generally think that without o levels, we the lucky few do a lot less work than them. however, they fail to see the whole other lot of work and expectations we are required to meet, and it is all these other expectations and work that make ip, essentailly, ip. work that justifies the elimination of o levels, that makes this programme different and more enriching [and so the higher management and teachers say] and therefore, more challenging than the o levels track. at this point of time, im not seeing this as an 'elitist' point of view, thinking that ip is the better of the two programmes. all im saying is this: yay, good for us, no o levels, but there's the extra work that must be done to justify that right? to make sure that we are indeed on par with the rest of spore when we finally meet at junior colleges. i have to say that i may or may not be able to survive in the olevel track, with all the rigourous mugging, tests and more tests. the stress level, i imagine, must be extremely high, since it's an all or nothing situation. however, i do not think that the purpose of ip is to serve as a 'safety net' for the ip students. in a sense, it's us who should be more afraid since we really dont exactly know where we stand among the thousands of other students. should we fail to sucessfully get past the whole programme, score a decent enough gpa to enable us to haul our butts to rj, we'll then be very much doomed. at that point of time, the quesion would natuarally be 'where can i really go now?'.

anyway, i digress.

performance tasks after performance tasks. before this week, research studies.cca responsibilities. above that, for almost half of the sec4 cohort, multiply leadership roles and responsiblities- either the prefectorial board, peer support board, students network,or two out of three. [tho muddy the alien is doing pretty well still. kowtows* :D]this, if anything at all, is sufficient to make the sch life of an rgs girl pretty much the only life she has. we are expected to juggle these responsibilities and work load well, and manage our time superbly. it's when the extra stuff becomes the actual and 'by right should be accomplished' stuff that makes ip, in some ways, more challenging than the o levels track. the o level students, when prelims are nearing, actually have study breaks or constant revision with their teachers, minus the whole load of 'extra' stuff which they took up at the beginning of the year. whereas for us, this 'extra' suff is ongoing despite eois, [which the teachers claim not to be important- had the vp to tell us in the middle of eois that it's just tests, not exams; i guessed we were that stressed out. please. dont trick us. how can it be not important if it's counted towards our final gpa???]though we are given a break before finals.

i suppose, at the end of the day, the issue here is not which is harder and more stressful, but the essential understanding that both programmes are so different in nature,therefore no common criteria to measure and gauge the difficulty level.

there's no saying who got the easier way out.


|jav| 10:45 AM|

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02/05/05
yay:D finally found my refuge to do serious mugging

it's 4.15 in the afternoon, haven done any work today

feeling brain dead already. on top of a incredible guilt.

off for some serious chocolate ice cream

ciao~


|jav| 4:14 PM|

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01/05/05
happy birthday to me:D

how cool is this: first thing i did on my birthday is watch meiosis and mitosis animations. doing the uterus and ovarian cycle one now. X) [actually, had forgotten all abt the entire birthday thing till i saw the date on someone's blog.]

today was..fun i guess. ate alone for the very first time in my whole entire life. went for more math in the morning [and saw mrs chew twice within the span of 24 hrs.10 hrs, in fact.], called nad but she said she couldnt make it to study with me. called av and she said the same. so plonged myself outside nc room and did a lil ss. smsed ming. for some strange reason, everyone [ok didnt bother to call/sms anyone else after ming, who was the third person] was rather busy today. sad. was wondering if i should eat out alone or go home.

went anyway. got something from mos and went outside to eat on one of the benches along orchard. nice day outside, something was happening outside taka. [some rugby thing.] blanked out and stared at pple walking past. thought abt what they might be thinking.

i kinda liked it.

so i conclude the only reason why i didnt like eating alone is facing the empty seat at the opposite and having no one to yak to.[ya, i know that's a loser excuse.] but it's not that bad sitting outside and watching pple walk by. talk to yourself if needed.

anyhow, saw my sis and her friends just walking down in front of me. sudden rush of adrenaline brought about by recognition- i dashed in front of her. prolly embarrassed myself to death in the eyes of her friends. well, i must have quirky ways of saying hi.

next, went to jurong east library. desperately needed to do some studying by now. but simply cannot find any available tables and chairs. and when i finally manage to grab hold of one, the security guard chased me away. me and 2 others who were studying.

what's with the ridiculous ban on studying during weekends? then what are the friggin tables for? as you can tell, i was angry/irritated/frustrated beyond words by now because
a) i was rudely interrupted in the middle of mendel's 2nd law of segregation
b) got chased away after all the time spent getting there.
c) the friggin security guard actually waved another adult who was just reading to the table. what the hell. and we were studying. pls tell me what's more impt. [other pple are trying to prepare for olevels yah.]

wrote a note for the suggestion box [trying to calm down and write coherently/resonably when all i wanted to say is f*** ur f***ing regulation] and stormed off. went back home; too tired to try for another decent place. managed to get some studying done on the bus tho. finally.

long weekend stretches ahead. need to get more tons of work done..bleh. cant wait for this time next week, by then i would have watched madame butterfly with the class [plus mrs tan i think.] and enjoyed myself.

alrites, back to work- ciao.


|jav| 2:13 AM|

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