My new blog is over here: Five Past Four

I’ll keep this short, since my posts tend to be too long. The facts, then:

• I passed IB and got the Diploma

• I got enough points for my first choice university

That’s it! Isn’t it so satisfying to know you haven’t wasted two years of your life?

In reality, life after IB is kind of…purposeless. Ok, that’s pretty predictable. All those quotes about life being empty without stress are, sadly enough, true. I spent a week or two in a happy daze, mindlessly Youtubing every day and sleeping like I’d never be able to again. And then-

And then, the nightmare. 10 days after the end of my exams, I dreamt about them. I hadn’t been deliberately thinking or not thinking about my failures, but I dreamt about them all the same. It was…pretty bad. 32 points overall, with 555 for English, German, and Philosophy. I was horrified. Completely and utterly horrified.

There were comments next to the scores (unrealistics, yes), and the one for English talked about how great it was that I got to love the drama texts. I remember thinking, or at least dreaming, “IS THAT NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!?” Overreaction? Probably. But hey, it was a dream. And I’m melodramatic these days.

I woke up and it was still vaguely dark outside, so I checked the alarm clock. It was mocking me. You know what the time was? 5:55. I really wish I was making this up, but it’s true – fact is stranger than fiction – or however the saying goes. I was so freaked out from the nightmare that I didn’t even see the irony till today. It’s been a month.

That was probably the most significant thing that happened post-exams. Apart from the amazing Taiwan gradtrip (blogged by my friend Wendy here – I’m way too lazy to write anything about it), of course. Apart from that, I’ve been glued to my laptop for the past month or so. I’ve started reading for leisure again, except, more often than not, I find myself analysing (not intentionally!) what I read, so I’m forced to stop. It comes and goes.

I’ve been feeling masochistic lately. During dinner tonight, I found myself missing the bone-deep exhaustion that used to hit me at approximately that time. Usually I’d find that my eyelids were drooping in the middle of chewing some rice, or looking down at my bowl, or something like that. I was really surprised to notice that the feeling wasn’t there. How can you possibly miss that kind of feeling?!? I really don’t know.

All this is probably going to change in a week or so’s time. Why? You guessed it – IB results are coming out. 7th July, 4 in the morning, Hong Kong time. I’m thinking that I’ll stay up to watch the World Cup semi-final (it starts at 2:30AM here) to try and take my mind off my impending doom, check my results afterwards, then go cry in a corner.

Depending on what I get, I’ll start studying again the week after. I really am that much of a masochist. The truly saddening thing? The following exchange happened between my first and second week of exams:

My friend R and I were at the library, doing hardcore revision. On the way back from lunch…

Me: Ok, I know this sounds really sad, but I think I’m going to come back here during the summer holidays to study for uni.
R: SAME!!!

She seemed so happy about it too. What have we become?

The way I see it, my exams fall into three main categories: acceptable, not bad, and not good. Alternatively, I could call them ‘I didn’t get owned’, ‘I don’t think I failed’, and ‘I screwed up’. It goes something like this:

Acceptable / I Didn’t Get Owned

• HL Philosophy Paper 2
• SL English Paper 2
• HL Chemistry Paper 1
• HL Chemistry Paper 3

Not Bad / I Don’t Think I Failed

• SL English Paper 1
• HL Philosophy Paper 1
• HL Philosophy Paper 3
• SL German Paper 2

Not Good / I Screwed Up

• SL Maths Paper 1
• SL Maths Paper 2
• HL Physics Paper 1
• HL Physics Paper 2
• HL Physics Paper 3
• HL Chemistry Paper 2
• SL German Paper 1

Yeah, there are way too many in the third category. If I was being brutally honest, I’d say that actually, most of the fifteen papers should be in that category. Or maybe that’s the pessimist in me speaking, because I think the pessimist murdered the optimist a long time ago. I didn’t know she was homicidal too. Um – excuse my metaphors.

I wish I could be all objective about this and go do some detailed exam analysis, but really – what would the point be? Mental torment. More loss of sleep. Etc ad infinitum. Agonising over every little (or not-so-little, really) mistake would be an even bigger mistake on my part, so I won’t. It doesn’t change anything, anyway.

I’m very complacent these days. Maybe it’s not such a good thing, but I’m tired of caring about grades. So – forget it all. I’m going to go listen to K-pop. It’s escapism, did you know? Say what you want about it not having integrity, not being true, being manufactured, because – yes, pop music is exactly that. Maybe I should talk about this in a separate post, because I could go on and on… It really depends on how you look at it, though, since the facts don’t change, however much you’d like them to.

Ahem. Anyway. The point is, escapism is good. In this context.

To any IB students still suffering out there – add oil! The end is in sight!

Well, hopefully. If it’s not, I feel sorry for you.

I’m so happy I feel like I could fly. Seriously. On the way home I was scared that at any moment I’d float up into the air – but that was before I remembered all this stuff about physi- NO MORE, OK? Ok.

I feel somewhat deranged, but that’s ok too.

—————-
Now playing: Super Junior 슈퍼주니어 – 미인아 (BONAMANA)
via FoxyTunes

• Tuesday: English SL Paper 1, Philosophy HL Paper 1
• Wednesday: Philosophy Paper 2 and 3, Maths SL Paper 1
• Thursday (today): Maths Paper 2

Oh man. I’ve told myself to stop even thinking about the papers I’ve done, because it’s really not doing me any good at the moment.

I think I’m one of the people in my whole year who finish (finishes? My brain is really fried at the moment) exams the fastest. My last exam’s next week, Friday – German SL paper 1 and 2. And then I’ll be free. Forever. Well, depending on whether I get into uni.

At this rate, I probably won’t. According to my ridiculously exaggerated calculations, I’m going to have to score really, really well in next week’s exams if I want to get into UCL, my first choice uni. And I’m still going to have to score well if I want to get into my second choice. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Isn’t everything like that?

My definition of scoring “really, really well” (see what I’ve been reduced to? Quoting myself. Ugh) is 7s on every paper. Of course, that kind of thing doesn’t happen unless you’re some kind of genius. Or unless you’ve been revising like mad for the past 2 years. Which I clearly have not been.

This leaves cramming as the only viable option. (Also – IAs, EE, and TOK – please pay off!) I’ve been getting up at 3 every day for the past 3 mornings to cram, and it’s not working as well as it used to – maybe cramming like this only works for unit tests and such? I don’t think there’s anything else I can do, though. Cram, and sleep. But those are sort of mutually exclusive.

I procrastinated for so long before this paragraph that I forgot what I was about to write. Procrastination, sleep deprivation, and brain friedness.

Neighbours, if you keep drilling and hammering and carrying out construction work in general, I might just have to move to the library. Seriously, it sounds like they’re knocking down walls.

Dear Yin Tung,

• The KGV chapter isn’t over yet. There are still exams. There is still the graduation ceremony. There is still prom.
• Exams are in 16 (or less, really) days.
• Stop even switching the computer on.
• Back your stuff up every week. Or even every day.
• Revising doesn’t make you any less smart. (It’s a ridiculous belief I can’t believe I still have.)
• There’s plenty of time after exams.
• Sitting in front of the computer all day isn’t healthy. And it doesn’t do your grades any favours. So don’t.
• Cut the caffeine. Seriously.
• Go running once in a while.
• Blog about the cupcakes. After exams, probably. Now isn’t a good idea.

—————-
Now playing: DBSK 東方神起 – Shelter (ft. Jaejoong, Yoochun)
via FoxyTunes

16 EFFING DAYS.

What frustrates me the most? That I don’t learn my lesson. My computers crash all the time – I have a pretty bad track record with them, for some reason I can’t explain. I’ll try to figure it out before the next crash, but…

Just – ARGH. That is all.

Let’s see if being computer/internet-deprived helps my revision, even if it is only for 3-5 days. As they say, “good thing, bad thing, who knows?”

My revision progress so far is…good? Not good? I have no idea anymore.

Higher Level

• Chemistry: notes done. Ironically enough, this is the subject I’m least worried about. Ironic, because this was my worst subject at the start of year 12.
• Physics: notes done. But I don’t remember a thing. Paper 1 is an issue, paper 2 is worse, and paper 3 is completely outside my ability at the moment. It’s like whenever I see the word ‘Physics’, I lose all ability to do maths. I understand maths on its own, at least. Until I have to do it in Physics. I can’t derive (not talking about differentiation here) anything to save my life, and more than 2 variables together seriously makes my head hurt these days.
• Philosophy: nowhere near started. I have notes on core, options, and text. Paper 3 really worries me, though. My class hasn’t even done a timed one yet. I know I suck at thinking under pressure, and am slow at thinking in general anyway.

Standard Level

• English: not started. Paper 1 isn’t an issue. Paper 2 is, because I can only remember quotes from A Streetcar Named Desire, and can never think of anything decent to say about any of the plays. I feel like I never answer the question properly, because I don’t think it’s possible to do that adequately at all.
• Maths: writing notes today, and realising I don’t remember learning the material. Hell, that applies for all my subjects. The state of my memory really worries me. Maybe it’s the accumulation of sleep debt and stress and various things. I have no idea.
• German: I don’t think it’s possible to revise for German. All I can do is maybe drill vocab into my head and hope for the best. And hope I get the text type right for both papers. Reading comprehension for paper 1 is just really hard sometimes, when I don’t know half the words in the text and don’t know one preposition/conjunction/whatever from the next.

This is seriously pathetic. The revision timetable I drew up near the end of February is working, yes. I’m following it jus fine, yes. But it’s doing nothing to reassure me that I can actually do this. Because I don’t think I can anymore. You know how they say “the number 45 never looked so high until now”, or something like that? Well, for me, the number 30 never looked so high until now. Fine, 36. That’s my minimum. It looks increasingly more impossible by the minute.

Just do it.

Impossible is nothing.

I never heard anything so full of bullshit. But then again, we see and understand things not as they are, but as we are… I really need to spend a day where I don’t think of IB. Or TOK. Maybe I should stop thinking altogether. I’d be happy that way, at least, even though it wouldn’t do me any good.

Or, alternatively, the only music I should listen to is stuff I’ve heard more than a hundred times before – stuff that I can easily filter out of my head. But then, what would be the point of listening to music if I just tune it out anyway? I don’t know. Maybe that’s just a waste of electricity.

On the other hand, if I don’t have music constantly playing (side note: I use headphones, rather than subjecting everyone in my vicinity to, I don’t know, High School Musical like my brother does? [He's not even in high school anymore]. Clarification – I don’t listen to HSM – I have more dignity than that, thank you), then I’m alone with my thoughts. When that happens, I tend to philosphise a bit too much. That’s somewhat dangerous, and I don’t like it much either. It can be…inconvenient, and tends to result in more confusion than revelation. That’s if revelation is the desired end result of philosophy – which is debatable.

All this is probably why my music collection keeps growing and growing. At this precise moment, I have 6427 songs, which, iTunes very helpfully tells me, is approximately 17.8 days’ worth of music – and 42.58GB in size. I guess my music is why I keep running out of hard drive space too.

Sorry for the completely random post.

—————-
Now playing: Blackalicious – Release Pt. 1, 2 and 3
via FoxyTunes

But maybe you’d exaggerate too if you had just counted and realised, there are 37 days until my first IB exam. This is the last 17% of the 37th day. Tomorrow is the 36th, the day after the 35th, and so on… That’s just a little over a month left. I have 2 weeks of term break (hah, ‘break’), 1 final week of school (which I’d like to skive and spend revising at home – not a joke), and 2 weeks of study leave after that.

I’ve finished all my Chemistry HL revision notes – I finished just this afternoon. That’s one thing less to do, I guess. What’s left:

• Physics HL: 2 topics
• Maths SL: 2.5 topics
• English SL: 3 plays
• Philosophy HL: paper 3 preparation (we started about 2 weeks ago in class), On Liberty
• German: past paper practice

That should be about it. I wrote myself a revision timetable back in February, which you can see below. The photo was taken when I’d just drawn up the timetable. It’s a lot messier now, but I won’t show that.

It’s not going as badly as I thought. Today is the rectangle labelled ‘PHY 9.3′, by the way. That’s the fifth box down on the far right. I’m…3 days behind. That’s not actually so bad. I thought I’d be more screwed; I hadn’t actually worked out how much I was behind until now.

I don’t have much pressure from my parents – which is pretty surprising, seeing as I come from a somewhat traditional Asian family. But nope, I guess my parents don’t conform to the stereotype. They tend to say things like, ‘it doesn’t matter if you fail’ (‘考唔到嘪算囉’). But notice that it’s not ‘it doesn’t matter if you fail, as long as you tried your best’ or something along those lines. Odd. I have several theories about this, but it’s probably not wise to actually articulate them.

Self-motivation and self-discipline, then. Both pretty much non-existent. It’s not that revision is boring or hard or whatever – it’s just that there are so many other things to do. Things that require somewhat less brainpower and hand-cramping. Yeah, I’m a terrible (or amazing?) procrastinator.

I guess the only concrete source of motivation will be university. Since I applied to the UK, I’m accepting 2 offers out of 4 – one firm, one insurance, both for Philosophy. The grades:

I can do this, ok? I have to.