Boyle's Law

Boyle's Law: The pressure of any gas at a constant temperature is always inversely proportional to its volume, that is, increase the pressure and the volume would decrease, and vice versa.

I think this should be adapted to be one of Murphy's Law.

Isn't life just like this? Take examinations for instance, the more pressure you give yourself, the less marks you will score. The less pressurise you are, the better grades you will receive, ironically.

I spent 3 whole days on 3 topics for my H1 Geography and in the end I only obtained a disappointing 'B' grade, falling short of my desired 'A' by nearly 10 percentage points.

I spent 1 entire week on my Chemistry revision and I even got Raffles' Junior College notes to aid me to my truimph. Unfortunately, things did not work out my way and I fell short of my expected 'B' grade by TWO WHOLE GRADES.

Revision for Chinese Literature was pretty last minute but yet instead
of facing the music of not putting in enough effort, Lady Luck smiled at me. I got a surprising 80/100 for my Paper 1 and a pretty decent 37.5 for Paper 2, considering that I only did 50 marks worth of questions in Paper 2, and I only spent about 1 hour studying the segment on Act One of a play, "Tea House", and answered only one part of the 20-mark question, and I still can achieve 8/20 for this segment.

Not many are like Kay Siong who reaps what he sows.

Miracles do happen. So do accidents.

When both happen at the same time, you would just be totally blinded from the pleasant surprises that miracles has brought to you and pick on all the disappointment and misery that accidents had caused.

I would be happier should my grades for Chinese Literature and Chemistry exchanged places, to reflect better the amount of effort that I'd put in for each subject. Not that I am not appreciative of my "supernormal" grade I'd received for my C. Lit, i just want things to be fair and square.

But alas, life is never fair.

Academics aside, Boyle's Law can also be applied when I am coordinating the different cheering events that were going on simultaneously last Wednesday.

I know that there are two cheerings for two finals going on on that day, albeit in fact there are three finals; I know how much importance and value the student population and alumni had placed in and perceived these competitions to be; I also know that this would be my last cheering event for the year 2006.

So, I tried to give it my best.

I really did.

But apparently the more effort I put in, the less desirable the outcome would be.

I would not blame those who flamed my tagboard with such nasty comments. Although I know very well that my performance for cheering is subjective, it certainly still hurts to read such comments after you know that you had put in all your effort to give the best cheering.

And I would not proclaim that my coordination for the cheerings and the cheering itself on that day were flawless. I know that my cheering and coordination for the cheering events that day have lots of room for improvement. I am equally disappointed with myself, just like how some are with me, for putting up a not up-to-standard performance on the two most important sporting events of the year, so to say, and also on the last cheering events for the year.

Boyle's Law once again, the more effort you put in, the less desirable results you would get.

As for those crticisms, I just have to treat such negative remarks as a learning experience and I just have to learn to live and deal with them.

Criticisms are, and will always be, inevitable in our life. Why bother let them affect your mood?

And many thanks to those who stood up for me and expressed their confidence in me. To Yen Shan, Clarence, Yue Kai, Kai Herng, Yan Min, Songhua, Kia Hui, Marcus and "none", I really appreciate your support and encouragment and I would strive to work even harder to give the best cheering for every future sporting events!

自相残杀

本是同根生，相煎何太急？

何苦自相残杀？何不相辅相成？

还真莫名其妙！

Laksa

I just found my new ambition.

I want to replace R&B Food Hut in Hwa Chong's canteen and sell laksa.

Better laksa than the current R&B Food Hut.

It's gonna be 10000000000000000 times better.

I had a wonderful time preparing laksa for guests during College Day.

Grab some rice noodles. Add in a slice of a hard-boiled egg. Add in two if I grabbed too little noodles. Then add in some bean sprouts. And top it off with a few slices of fish cake. Pass the bowl of ingredients to my partner who would then scope some gravy from a pot and pour them into the bowl to make laksa.

Repeat the process.

Repeat it for n times for 1 1/2 hours.

You'd get satisfaction and enjoyment instead of boredom and mundane existence.

Especially so if you are pissed with standing spastically in the two-line formation that begins from where the guest-of-honour's car would be and leads all the way into the auditorium.

Spastic request from our beloved principal.

And copying Kia Hui's differentiation notes didnt help much either. It's the topic that sucks, by the way, not the person or her notes.

Luckily I can always count upon preparing and serving the guests laksa. It's something I can embrace when I am feeling moody and extremely irritated.

Never mind about the large volume of sweat that I perspired all of a sudden, probably due to the adrenaline rush as there was a long line of guests forming and yet I could only complete one bowl of laksa every 20 to 30 seconds, preparing laksa is still fun.

Your sudden release of large volume of sweat only makes your job more challenging as you are constantly trying to figure how to prepare laksa while avoiding your sweat to drip onto the ingredients or into the bowl at the same time.

And you still have to withstand the stinging sensation should the sweat cheekily decides to trickle into your eye.

It's just pure fun and satisfaction. Now I feel like I am ready to open a laksa stall.

Many thanks to Shuo Nan who was my beloved partner who poured in the gravy into each bowl of laksa ingredients I had prepared. Not forgetting Heng Jie who "ran" the stall with me.

And we decided to name the stall "Heng & Heng Laksa".

Cool, huh?

荒谬中学

华侨中学（高中部），也就是前华中初级学院的现身，一路来的习惯与作风，就是在每一回的考试过后，把学生的成绩邮寄给家长，好让家长们能监督孩子的学习进展。

但荒谬的是，堂堂一间自认为是“世界级学府”的华侨中学，每个月向学生征收约$200 - $300的学费，竟然强制性的要求学生得自备邮票和信封，好让学校能将学生的成绩放在信封内，邮寄给家长。

要将成绩邮寄给家长，却连信封与邮票都要学生自费，何等荒谬？这种荒唐的事件，若是传开了，一定会成为其他学院的笑柄！

我为我自己是位华中学生而感到汗颜。

Annoying

an·noy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-noi)
v. an·noyed, an·noy·ing, an·noys
v. tr.
To cause slight irritation to (another) by troublesome, often repeated acts.
To harass or disturb by repeated attacks.

v. intr.
To be annoying.

From Dictionary.com

To be made to come back from Judo cheering, after watching only one A' Division Girls' match without watching the A' division Boys' match, just to be in time to rehearse how to stand in formation, and clap, and smile fakely at the Guest of Honour for the upcoming College Day

From Terence Heng.

****************

wtf?

Accurate Prediction

I predicted that Portugal will beat England In the Quarter Finals for World Cup.

And they did

I predicted that Italy will beat Germany in the Semi Finals for World Cup.

And they did.

Then I went on to predict that Italy shall win the World Cup.

And they never disappoint me.

I predicted that I will score 42/95 for my recent Math Block Test.

And I did!!!!

On transport

I gave the TIBS bus a chance this afternoon.

But TIBS has once again disappointed me.

Moral of the story: Never slacken your service at any moment for you never know when will you encounter a passenger who has just had a long tiring day and just came down from a long and tiring bus journey and is made more tired by the glaring sun and the unbearable tropical heat.

A tired and frustrated man who is feeling heaty after dehydration by the bus air-conditioning system and by the humid weather is an angry man.

An angry man who aims to blog about his unpleasant waiting-for-that-damn-bus-to-come-but-it-takes-forever-to-come experience.

In my humble opinion, a peasant like me can only afford to wait at most 3 minutes for a MRT train to pull into a station during peak hours and at most 5 minutes during off-peak hours.

A maximum of 10 minutes of waiting time for buses is tolerable if I just happen to witness the previous bus depart from the bus stop right under my nose. Of course, 7 minutes or even 5 minutes of waiting time (e.g. bus number 74) is very much ideal and appreciated, but unfortunately this privilege is only made available to one bus route, i.e. number 74.

No way am I going to accept ridiculous things like 7 minutes, 8 minutes or even 9 minutes for a MRT train to arrive during off-peak hours or 5 minutes during peak hours.

And no way am I going to accept shit like waiting for 15 minutes for a bus to arrive (e.g. bus number 156 and 852). And the waiting can go up to 20 minutes when unlucky incidents happen, like the bus just happen to leave as I reach the bus-stop.

Yes, I am an impatient bastard. Come and slap me.

No, not that I am a spoilt brat for that matter. I just cannot swallow the fact that the bus fares have been increasing exponentially for n times ever since _______ < insert any lame reason provided by the various bus companies and the present Transport Minister >

Yes I know that I only fork out 45 cents for every single trip I make. But the fact is, I still remain a consumer and I do have the right not to keep my mouth shut.

And it doesn't help when your air-conditioning in your buses do not work on hot days and they work doubly hard instead on freezing-cold rainy days and you claimed that temperatures of the air-con system is maintained through whatever shit to ensure comfort of the passengers.

In short, transport in Singapore suck. No doubt that I do realise how fortunate I am to have a relatively extensive network of transport system in my country and our buses and trains seldom break down, but we should not be complacent. Following all that hype to transform this tiny little island nation into some central hub of this globalised world, I do see an urgent need to first build up Singapore's internal infrastructure.

To start off, increase the frequency of buses! And make sure the air-conditioning work on correct times.

We seriously have a lot to work on before we can proudly boast and proclaim that we have a world-class transport system.

New Chemistry Tutor

I've got a new Chemistry tutor who has got 6 years of teaching experience prior her first year with Hwa Chong.

6 years at Changi Women's Prison.

That pretty much answers why that stern look on her face and in her tone when she speaks to us...

Same sentiments from my classmates. We all feel like we are some despised and discriminated prisoners.

Hot

I hate this weather.

It's making me feel so stuffy and heaty and yet my sweat glands aren't actively secreting sweat so that when sweat evaporates it can bring away latent heat from my body, thereby cooling me down.

Either that or my hypothalamus in my brain is dysfunctioning and hence is unable to detect the change in my body temperature/ change in the surrounding temperature to generate an impulse and transmit it through the motor neurones down to the sweat glands to activate them.

Oooh, I still remember all my O' Level Biology content.

Such weather is somniferous and making me disinterested in everything.

Not even lunch appeals to me anymore.

Damn it! I am hot!

On journaling

Often the hands know
how to solve a riddle that
the mind has wrestled with in vain

-- Carl Jung

Post Block Test Analysis

Considering that my mum spread her fever to me during this week, I would be satisfied if I have gotten 1 grade lower than my predicted grades I gave in my last entry.

Now, after seeing and attempting all the questions in the Block Test, let me predict my grades again

General Paper: C

Average performance. But I heard that many others did not have time to complete their comprehension, maybe this would inflate my scores, a possible B?

H1 Geography:A, or B if I screw up or I intepreted the questions wrongly, but the question seemed pretty direct to me...

Mathematics: E. I would score around 42/95

Chemistry: This is the worrying one, not so much because of the questions. But more so because everyone around me is whining complaining about how tough the paper is. However, I felt that the paper was okay. Dreaming for that A, but more realistic projection would be a B grade

Chinese Literature: A predicted 72/100 for Paper 1. Hope that Paper 1 can pull up my grade for Paer 2 to an overall pass. D is possible.