Competition...

I am so tempted. I want to win those three books by Robin Hobb and the figurine. Well, here goes nothing. http://bit.ly/guIWCJ

JC life and relevant math equations

I have discovered that in JC, I'm stuDYING. In fact, I *gasps* read a book perhaps only once a fortnight.

Oh the horror!

However, that have not stopped/distracted me from being the same old lame wacky/unique/narcissistic me. I have evidence to back up my claim.

For instance, here are some newly formulated Math equations:

JC = No life

and

time you are released from school = (no. of subjects taken)/k (where k is a constant)

Put it into words, and it will be the time which you are released from school is inversely proportional to the number of subjects taken. Lovely isn't it? Let me report to you my findings that support that particular formula.

In Secondary 1 and 2, I the subjects that I took were English, Math, Science, Geography, History, English Literature, Higher Chinese, Appreciation of Chinese Culture, Home Econs, Design and Technology, Chinese calligraphy/painting, Charisma (in layman terms, that's civics and moral education), PE, English Drama (Sec 1), Chinese Drama (Sec 1), Project Work (Sec 2), Art, and Music.

Those subjects without "(Sec 1)/(Sec 2)" next to them are subjects that were taken for both years. That is an average of 16.5 subjects. And guess what? I was released at 1.30pm almost everyday.

In Secondary 3 and 4, I took English, A and E Math, Higher Chinese, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Social Studies, Elective Geography, Charisma, Creative Arts (Sec 3), and PE. That is an average of 11.5 subjects, a difference of 5 subjects compared to Sec 1 and 2, and I was released at 2.45pm almost everyday.

In JC, I'm taking, GP, PW, Biology, Chemistry, Math, English Literature and Civics tutorials. Only 7 subjects, yet I'm released at 3.45pm almost everyday.

In conclusion, life sucks as you get older.

To my dearest sister...

Just grow up! Crying won't solve anything. So what if you have tonnes of homework? You can't get them done by locking yourself up in the bathroom and crying your eyes out. You can't get them done by pinning the blame on me too. What? It's my fault??? That's the first I've heard of it. What does the speed of you doing your homework has got to do with me?

Absolutely nothing.

Pur-lease... There's no point in crying. Never heard of the saying "There's no point in crying over spilt milk"? It's not my problem that you're oh-so-sensitive, so fragile and would shatter the moment I breathe on you. Besides, you don't have to get new school shoes urgently. What's wrong with your old ones eh? We bought our school shoes at the same time, and mine is still serviceable. Yes, I admit it's scruffy and no longer pristine white, but hey, they're still wearable. So what if they're not the fashionable type of shoes everyone in your school wear? Just face it. Changing your shoes to fit in with the popular group doesn't automatically entitle you to a membership card to join them. My shoes are definitely not the height of fashion and are too big and bulky to look good even when it was new and yet I still wear them. I don't fit in with my nerdy get-up (I'm the nerdy-nerd, not the fashion-nerd), I'm different, but the difference between me and you is that frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I don't know about you, but I go to school to study, not take part in a fashion show.

Tears won't solve anything. You think if you cry, someone will be there to comfort you and give you a helping hand? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, let me tell you this. The world is not so kind. Show any sign of weakness and it will consume you. Your tears did nothing but to make the entire family unhappy and annoyed. Mum and dad are blaming me for your unhappiness. Well, not my problem, I did try to help. Last night, you complained to me that you couldn't do the math questions and you rejected my offer to help you. Too bad, too sad, not my fault and none of my business. And as for my words that hurt your delicate heart, they are nothing but the painful truth. If you can't cope, if you can't complete your homework, you should not go out. Because when you start to drown and go under, who would get blamed? Not you, not Yilin, but me. Solely on the basis that we share a room and me being the smartest in the family. That is enough for mummy and daddy dearest to command me to take good care of you, by spoon-feeding you with all the answers and preferably doing all the homework for you. There's such a big difference between you and me. When I get lots of work, I grit my teeth and set upon completing it. There's no whining, and definitely no crying. I may curse and swear, but by jove, I still get everything done by the deadline. All I can say is this. "If you have so much homework, why did you watch more than three hours of crappy Taiwanese variety shows on Friday night?". Sorry to disappoint you my dear parents, but I won't help her. She's on her own. Call me heartless or unfeeling, I don't really care. So just stand back and watch your darling, the baby of the family, stand on her own two feet for the first time. I suppose your heart aches to see the apple of your eye suffer but if you didn't shelter her from birth, this won't have happened. She's a flower grown in a greenhouse who is finally transplanted outside to brave the elements. She may survive, she may not. I don't care either way. Besides, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. A word of advice for poor-little-thing-who-is-constantly-bullied-by second-sister-who-is-an-evil-tyrant. Be strong, or you will never be able to survive in the outside world.

And by the way, stop PMSing every single minute, every single day. I don't have time to deal with your childish tantrums. You're fourteen-going-on-fifteen, so please, just grow up. For the love of god and all things holy, just act your age. Yesterday is a good example. In fact, it's brilliant. From the moment you woke up, you started sulking and complaining about how much your day is spoilt because you had to spend the entire day with me. I was reading the newspaper, so I was definitely non-plussed by her behaviour. What did I d0? Nothing (Duh!)! In fact, I had a marvellous Saturday because you didn't speak to me at all. Thank you for such a priceless gift. I would be so happy if you would do it again.

This post is dedicated to my sister Sin Yee who should be honored since she is the only person in the family to warrant a whole post to herself.

Too Poor...

Boo hoo... I can't afford to go to Raffles JC... The school fees are $335 per month inclusive of the $35 supplementary fees. So I will have to pay $8040 for two years of education... The scholarships offered by MOE are pitiful. The maximum amount of money given is $1000 for a year. That's not even enough to cover the 3 months worth of school fees. Therefore, education is not based solely on merit contrary to what the government says. You have to be rich too to be able to afford the hefty school fees. This results in me going to a government school, which is Victoria JC, which in turn leads to my family not moving to the newly renovated flat we bought in Woodlands, causing a loss in income as we will not be able to earn rental money by letting out our condo as well as a loss of money invested in sprucing up a house that we would only live in during the weekends and at times like this when my father's job is not very stable, every single cent counts. We are practically hemorrhaging money.

Marvellous... Just marvellous...

It sucks to be poor...

Hooray!

7 points! 7 points!!! 5 A1s and 3 A2s!!!

Now all I have to do is to decide between Anderson, Hwa Chong, Raffles, and Victoria for my first choice...

Wheeee!!!

Hooray! No more work! I'm free!!!

The best part about not working is being able to read the day away. The good part is that I can save money as I won't be able to go on a shopping spree in Borders before work or during my lunch/dinner break. Before I even got paid, I spent approximately one-third of my pay. But it was worth it. I am now the proud owner of book one to ten of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Yippee! Ten down, three to go!!!

By tomorrow, it will be twelve down. one to go!!!

Unfortunately, my cabinet stuffed with books to full capacity... So the eleven new books will have to settle for being stuffed into several Borders' bags (to prevent them from becoming dusty) and being placed on the floor. Hope my mum doesn't nag, or worse, just stuff the books forcefully into the cupboard. I will scream in horror and probably throw a fit or burst a blood vessel. Either that, or I will be buried alive in an avalanche of books, each the size of a brick, the next time I open the door of my book cabinet. So if I'm un-contactable for the next few days... Hee hee... you will know what fate has befallen on me.

Alrighty, I've updated my blog, so it's now time to play Plants vs Zombies!

Work...

'O' levels are finally over, and work has began...

Working at Popular is pretty fun even though life in the text books and assessments section can be hectic. I'm doing so much weight lifting almost everyday (those books weigh a ton) I'm developing arm muscles... I have planned to work throughout the holidays till I receive my results, but I have changed my mind. Working leaves me with no time to go out and play with friends, listen to music, use the computer, read books or mangas, or watch anime. I think I will quit by Christmas.

Well, nothing is perfect. There's this girl working in the same department as me and I have to really resist the urge to say "I. Do. Not. Like. You.". First of all, she does not take her work seriously. She will hide in the corner of the room which is not in the view of the camera and use her mobile phone. Mobile phones are not allowed during working hours and although I don't really mind the usage of phones, she uses her phone even when there are customers. Once, I have received two book lists to pack and there were still more people waiting outside, she was fiddling with her phone. "There are customers you know." I said to her nicely, because from where she was sitting, she couldn't see the customers and I thought she was using her phone as she didn't know that more customers have came. "Yes, I know." she replied and she continued to use her phone, not lifting a finger to help. That really pissed me off, but I held my tongue because it wouldn't do to strain the relationship between you and your colleagues. That wasn't the trigger to my dislike to her however. The last straw came yesterday.

There was only her and I helping out because one of the staff was having dinner while the other was outside in the assessment books section. As the stocks were running low, she went to replenish the stocks. We arrange books in the order textbook A and B followed by activity book A and B. That makes up one set. Normally, when we replenish the stocks, we will estimate how many sets we need. But she didn't do it. Brainlessly, she brought in over ten sets and proceeded to stack them up, resulting in a pile over two metres tall. It is common sense that we should not pile the books to high as firstly the books may collapse, and secondly, it will be difficult to take the books. All this while, I was being swamped with book lists. I had seven book lists to pack and I still had to field stupid questions from dumb customers. When I asked for help, she said "Oh no, I'm busy.". For god's sake... The books can wait, the customers can't. The customers will be the ones complaining and grousing of slow service, not the books. Besides, even though the stocks are running low, they are not that low. It can still last until closing time. It's not as though all the customers will be requesting for My Pals Are Here Math textbook and workbook 4A and 4B. And afterwards, I got chided by my senior for not picking up the phone. According to the senior, the counter had paged for someone from the textbook department but since no one came, she called, but no one picked up the phone. Hellooooo... Use your brains. How can I pay attention to the soft voice from the intercom (it's soft because we are in the very corner of Popular) while I have to answer questions, collect book lists, pack books, go through the book lists and go running all over Popular to find the assessment books the customers are asking for? Why was it all my fault anyway? The other girl was outside, she could hear the intercom clearly, but she did not go, and yet, all the blame still falls to me. And the senior was watching me and the other girl from the CCTV in the office and the senior said that the other girl was being very hardworking, packing the books while I was just standing at the counter doing nothing. Hell... She is being hardworking doing unimportant stuff. Can't I catch a breather after attending to the needs of perhaps ten or more customers single-handedly? Furthermore, when I started work, I was told not to pick up the phone because the customers will be angrier if we picked up the phone and couldn't answer their question compared to not picking up the phone. And regarding the very high slanting tower of Pisa of Primary Four Math books, since it was her first time arranging the books, I dismissed her stupidity. I thought that she would learn from that, but noooooo... She proceeded to stack up the Primary Five books till they are as tall as the Primary Four books. After that, she took a step back, surveyed her work, and started to laugh at the tower of books.

The worse thing was that when she stacked the books, she didn't stack them nicely. We are supposed to stack them up neatly so that there will be no corners sticking out to prevent ourselves from receiving paper cuts. The senior didn't say anything, yet I could recall at my second day of work, my first time stacking books, the every same senior had scolded me and another girl doing the stacking for not aligning the books nicely. I guess it's because the girl really knows how to boot-lick people. I know that I work the hardest among all the part timers in the textbook department. I always come to work early, spend only 20 minutes of my one hour lunch break to return to help out even though I won't be paid for the extra work done, I never used my mobile phone during work hours, I started work straight after 'O' levels, not even taking a day to party first. And some silly, up-start, giggly girl who is still wet behind the ears comes along and receive all the praise. One factor was that the senior didn't like me as she realized that I'm much smarter than her during one of our bantering sessions. I let slip some information that I thought everyone knew since my mother was telling me about it since I was in Primary 1, and when she didn't understand, I explained it to her. Well, all her friendliness towards me vanished from that very instant. The only good thing about yesterday was that the senior and giggly girl was scolded by a high ranking auntie working in Popular for laughing very loudly. As I was serving the customers at the counter then, I was naturally not included in the scolding as it was apparent that I was not laughing my head off like a loon. I felt a certain vindictive pleasure when they were chided.

Actually, I won't have grown to dislike the girl, but it so happened that before the 'last straw' incident, somethings have occurred which caused my unhappiness towards the girl to build up and bloom into dislike. I was due to report for work at 2.45, so when I went to work, it was the senior and another colleague's turn to go for lunch. The senior then asked me to continue what she had been doing which was arranging the chinese books. I agreed and off she went. When I was arranging the books to form complete sets, I realized that certain books could not be found, so complete sets could not be formed. Hence, I asked the girl do I continue to form incomplete sets with the remaining books as I thought that the senior may have told her where were the rest of the books kept. Well, she continued to arrange her books, ignoring my question. Even after I asked her the questions a couple of times more, with a decent interval in between each question so that it will not be irritating, she remained silent. How very infuriating! And since she was working near the counter, in full view of the customers (as well as the camera, the pretentious bitch), the customers will try to ask her for help or to pack their book lists. She remained mute, and I had to run out from inside the room to assist the customers. Look, I'm packing books too and I'm further away. Can't you be helpful for just once? That scenario replayed itself many times, hence, when the senior came back, I'm not done with packing the books she asked me to pack. The senior wasn't happy naturally, and it further lowered her opinion of me. After that incident along with the not-picking-up-the-phone incident, when ever I was serving the customers, the senior will talk behind my back along with her. No, I'm not overly suspicious. It's obvious, from how they will hold whispered conversations that begins and stops abruptly when I leave or enter the room to get textbooks.

Well, I don't give a tinker's toot to what they think of me. It's not like I will ever return to work there again. Unlike some people, I'm smart and have a bright future ahead of me. When December comes rolling round, it's adieu forever.