medal tally

so, I got what I was hoping for, which looks quite decent: AABB & A for GP. same as CT2, but different subjects. you win some, you lose some.

maths was a bummer though, a low B for that, cos of not enough prep, bad time management in the pure maths paper and some carelessness all round. before the paper was returned i wasn't feeling too good about it alr, partly cos it didn't feel right even during the paper... even though everyone was like 'whoa rayner sure A lah...' -.- i hate that... psychologically you get your hopes up consciously or unconsciously, and you're also cultivating the mental image of yourself and your pro-dedness, which is bloody screwed up.

B for econs too, cos i fucked up the essays... i've been writing the stuff that mr sowden's been expecting (at the very least, expecting for a 16 or 17, i guess), and getting 13 or 14 for it. and one 11 which i really don't think is crediting the stuff i wrote. for the market failure qn i got some crap about no evaluation, whatever that means, and scraped a bare pass (13/25) even though all 4 varieties of market failure were covered pretty thoroughly. it is very pissing when all along you've been working up to marks like 17s and 18s, and then prelims gives you mixed signals like that. hell i don't know what went wrong. shall see sowden sometime.

good news is mr purvis actually knows my name now LOL and complimented me on my PC for the first lit paper =) cool. after smashing me near-continuously for every paper, that made my week, i think. heh. amazing that both mr p & b could look charitably upon my humble offerings even after reading xy's good stuff.

i guess it was pretty good after all...

feel bad about looking kind of insensitive after the maths came out though, lots of people got smashed really bad and, i don't know, empathy's not my thing. i guess it really riles people, when i sit there kind of stoned when i have a B and people around me are going wtf E or S, and i'm not saying or doing anything to help. thing is, i just don't know how to react... i guess people can be inadequate in lots of different ways?

on a side note

blogger thinks i'm german: its interface reads

Blog anzeigen (in einem neuen Fenster)

whatever that means. blog = blog obviously. anzeigen, anyone?

in = in; einem i guess is 'a' or 'one' - eine kleine nachtmusik lol. neuen is new, Fenster i'm reminded of defenestration - the act of throwing someone out a window. latin fenestra -> german Fenster?

linguistics is pretty cool.

w00t!

so, a chronology of today. i got to sch in driving rain, got to our homeroom and was instantly depressed by the usual combination of sleeping people and our fantastic mood lighting - i.e. lack of lighting. no assembly cos of aforementioned rain, ended up being bored and doing miscellaneous stuff.

spent two hours listening to hopeless banter about soccer and talking cock about uni applications with classmates peck, wally, xy and annliang. then a depressing math lecture where mr tay more or less laughed at our collective ineptitude. and best of all he had to torment us by going through the paper without returning our scripts. wtf.

human geog was sucky too, expected an A, got a B (68) and have to wait for monday to get physical geog but i'm not expecting great things from ms law and her insane marking.

then we got back lit. w00t 2 20-mark essays from mr purvis - never gotten anything like that before. 2 × 18 marks from mr batchelor too! and (sigh) 14.5 for antony and cleopatra, and 14 for faustus... the plays are my weakest texts. but 20 for my filthy dirty sex-ridden essay on gender issues in handmaid's tale and 1984 was frankly beyond my wildest dreams. and his comments really made me feel like i did something right haha. nice for a change. and i was gratified by both the pract crits too... caught xy reading my essay which was an awfully gratifying role reversal ROFL.

and an A for GP which feels good when it's in the bag too... decent marks all round.

so, my scorecard so far is:
Lit - A (expected B)
GP - A (expected A)
Human Geog (1/2 of the total geog marks) - B (expected A)
Phys Geog - ?? (expected A)
Maths - ?? (expected A)
Econs - ?? (expected B/A)

we'll see how it goes tmrw. maths and econs coming back, hopefully they'll be good too.

your humble protagonist has tasted lit nirvana and it feels really good.

back from the piano

playlist:
Chopin - Ballade no. 3 in Ab
Haydn - Fantasia in C
Beethoven - Sonata (the Pathetique, can't rmb no. what)
Franck - Prelude, Chorale et Fugue

a rather incoherent programme, i just picked up whatever suited my mood. no gershwin today, no granados either. too happy. the first two weren't really in keeping with my mood, but the last two are.

i wikipediaed the ballade for fun, it turns out it has some ridiculous programme lol. a soppy love ballade with a happy ending. wtflol

the franck is 20 minutes distilled hate (it's supposed to be lots slower than 20 minutes but i just let rip with the anger). i don't think it has a programme, unlike the chopin. the prelude is kind of like meditations on angst, the chorale is more pensive meditating on how life really sucks bad, and it leads into the fugue which is full-blown fuck-you-world hatred, boiling rage and world-weary angst. the ending is just brilliant... showers of arpeggiated chords and octaves in the bass, like shaking your fist at the world.

no brahms though, couldn't summon up the angst to do brahms as well.

humour

first image ever on this blog: got it from wikipedia

it's strange, i guess, humour. i found this darkly funny at first sight, and still do. however i'm pretty sure that not all of the people i know would respond to it in quite the same way as i did: when I showed it to wally he made no comment at all; adam's first reaction was lolll and some comment about the darwin award haha.

if you didn't find it funny, i find it funny that you didn't find it funny.

(did you find that funny?)

now for something completely different: i was listening to a bbc 7 comedy show yesterday, the news quiz (it was on listen again but probably not available now), and they were talking about tagging teenage offenders on the wrist so they can be tracked by the police or something. here's a snippet that i found hilarious but i'm sure that out of my best friends only 2 would get it - and i can quite confidently predict which two: adam and jx. *

Linda Smith: Don't you think it's silly? Teenagers: you don't need to tag them, just shove them in front of a Playstation with a bucket of sugar, they're not going to move [audience laughter]

[some comment from the chairman]

Jeremy Hardy: Thing is, I think you generally know what a teenager's wrist is doing in the evening, don't you? [lots of male laughs] And how big a movement can the tracker pick up? [more laughter]

Phil Hammond: At least they're getting some exercise. Twenty minutes, 3 times a week until you draw sweat, that's all you need. [yet more laughs, especially from Jeremy Hardy cracking up]

Jeremy Hardy: You get sweat?! [pretty much continuous laughter from now]

Phil Hammond: Both hands, Jeremy, both hands...

the key to that is understanding what Jeremy Hardy and Phil Hammond were referring to...

i found it funny the first time, then on replaying the clip i was slightly mortified that i got it immediately, and then i found it funny that i was mortified. such is my twisted sense of humour.

* i tested this on one of them, and i was right lol

prelims aftermath

well my last paper was math. so that makes it literally after-math ahaha =D

(sorry. irresistable)

all the topics i spotted for the pure math part of the stats paper yesterday came out, everything went according to plan... generally these last few papers were fine, I'll be not-too-eagerly awaiting their release.

what happened after the paper went more or less according to plan too, for which i'm grateful. just relieved it's over.

this is kind of ridiculous, but now that prelims are over, it seems that i've got absolutely nothing to do (right. go mug for A's, of course. or write my personal statement), and somehow it doesn't feel right. not that i want to start mugging again, or write the personal statement (which is disgustingly like blowing your own horn, ugh), but there's this uneasy feeling of too much time on my hands that's giving me the creeps... must be what retirement feels like.

i feel locked up in a cage with only my mind for company. it's driving itself nuts.

thank goodness for the friends i've got.

prelims progress report 2

I gouged my RH middle finger another 2 times over the last week, same place, at the knuckle, same music, the gaudeamus igitur part... brahms' revenge i guess rofl. didn't bother cleaning off the piano this time though. and i found out about it only after i'd smeared blood over my LH. now its a small ugly festering thing on my knuckle.

whee wasn't that a wonderful way to start?

i have discovered a cool piece though, alt-wien (old vienna) from the triakontameron by godowsky. lovely languid thing, even though its in Gb major and therefore sucked when i sight-read it.

maths blew my mind... demoralising after all the prep that went in there. couldn't do the erratum question, or qn 3, or... i think quite a few others. ran out of time. and then after the paper i spontaneously realised how to do most of the qns i skipped. wtf maths dept switching the terms round in the MI question just for freaking laughs. i swear i can do MI - just not backwards (although that's a pretty feeble protest after the fact!)

human geog was fine, the last DRQ required massive smoking but otherwise nothing unexpected... if physical geog behaves itself something tells me I'm into something good...

imagining other worlds (lit) was a laugh... we all spotted setting partly cos we thought he'd hinted at it quite a lot, and partly cos xy pointed that out haha. when we were checking the pages xy turned round and his face was priceless i swear. lmao if not for the tragedy - setting didn't come out wtfshit... got some qn on "the outsider" and the one i did, about gender issues, which ended up being about love and sex - half of it was off topic. screwit. oh the irony.

just 3 papers left before i can sod all and get pissed or something.

prelims progress report

AABB plx is all i can hope for.

Econs and Lit have so far gone more or less accordingly to plan... I'm predicting Lit will be about 18, 16, 15 for paper 1 - averaging 65% which is fine by me. Econs is a toss-up between A and B, oh well.

Maths and Geog had better behave themselves and bring in the grades... or i'm screwed.

Random Geog L3 Sao Paolo is freaking big (19 million pple) and has one of the highest per capita ownerships of helicopters rofl. "The owners are an elite wealthy class who take advantage of around one hundred helipads and heliports to conveniently avoid heavy traffic" woah. nice.

Another random Geog L3 Dharavi (Asia's largest slum) in Mumbai is home to a million people and has a GDP of about $650 million. O.o

ah well...

veni vidi victus: I came, I saw, and was conquered -.- sums up my state of mind now.

something stupid

i grazed my RH index and middle fingers on the piano yesterday. at the knuckles. too enthu playing academic festival overture - the gaudeamus igitur part lol. played it about 3 times before i realised that there was blood on the keys.

anyway the last night of the proms is just over and i've got to record it off the bbc listen again links sometime next week. just when its prelims hrmph.

econs essays tmrw: 3 essays × 45 mins = 2hrs 15 mins of living hell and RH endurance. oh well...

nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for

- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale,
pg. 89 (Heinemann edition) - The Ceremony

zomg wasted morning

can't believe i've wasted a couple of hours on random blogsurfing. this is how it went

writersblog 
--> adam (full of jazz and angst - sometimes both: "fuck your pansy smooth jazz rubbish" lol)
--> cher (cos link to 13A pple, but not updated anymore -.-)  & sophie (O.o is all i can say) & eli (cos she's usually funny and caffeine-sodden which i fully empathise with) 
--> smoot & aditi & els (she has more references to God than the average sample from the Bible which is slightly freaky?)
--> happynooblet

there it stopped cos its freaking screwedup and funny and i started on the archives when my conscience popped by and twapped me on the head. damnit. INTEGRATION & VECTORS PLX

sigh. back to life.

and my first proper post in years...

... not like a "boohoo i'm ending this blog plz" or "he-hey i'm starting this shit again" post...

The BBC Proms are back - were back a couple of months ago actually... and this season is brilliant (it always is, really).

Just heard the Leipzig Gewandhaus with a fantastic concert... Beethoven Violin Concerto and Brahms 4th. Brilliant pieces by two of the greatest composers ever. Ok and there was Coriolan but that wasn't quite as brilliant. Good nevertheless. The concerto was magical, pretty good vln work there. I'm no violinist myself so I'll refrain from commenting... just that I think it was great playing. The orchestra had lovely sound, really musical accents in the right places that just managed to bring out the best of the Brahms. This is Brahms' dramatic best... shaking his fist at the puny crumbling rotting world.

And then my respect for Riccardo Chailly × 10 when he intro-ed the encore. Priceless kokstering!:

And now everybody's expecting a Hungarian Dance [audience laughs] A music full of songs of young students: the fantastic Academic Festival Overture [appreciative applause]

And then he launched the orchestra straight into the most hair-raising exciting reading of the Overture i've ever heard. It's usually played around crotchet=72 but (and I checked) they took it at around 100 - what... 50% faster?! That's a hell lot of adrenaline. And for the sedate parts they actually managed brilliant tempo changes that, although sudden, made perfect sense... different songs, different mood, that sort of thing. One hell of a musical joy-ride rofl.

If you're into classical music you really should check it out before the week's out and they take the listen again link off. It's fabulous playing, literally unbelievable...

But I really should go off & sleep now. Or my revision tmrw will be screwed.

why start now...

... just when I'm hating it all?

I've been thinking of restarting this blog, for quite some time now. Held back because I think it'll be a blight on the literary landscape of this sodden Earth. Besides who wants to read the miserable rantings of a bitter misanthrope? And one who regularly insults his readers too...

you out there, behind your computer screen... why?

All the same, life isn't that bad... just prelims in a couple of days, and... A levels in Nov... 10 sets of tree fibre and ink determining what shape my life's going to take. After all, if life didn't regularly set out to kill me, it wouldn't be worth living, would it?

- aha and I've already started screwing around with your brains O.o -

Over the last two years I've experienced a lot of stuff, seen loads of people, changed my mind about a whole lot of things. A lot of the old stuff I wrote, for instance, is thoroughly embarrassing now... very cringeworthy. (Somehow Ivan Lim dug my old posts up for I don’t know what reason and read them... I’m glad it gave you a few laughs lol. Maybe that pushed me to restart this thing.)

I’ve also managed, in spite of some of my classmates’ best efforts, to retain and refine my worldview. I used to be plagued by doubts, not really the ‘does God exist’ kind (my mind’s pretty much made up on that one already) but stuff like... how does an atheist avoid becoming a nihilist? After all - when you’ve stopped believing in the divine, what else is there? Well, there is humanism - believing in the innate worth of humanity; but how do you reconcile THAT with misanthropy - hating human society/humanity in general?

Here’s my worldview, then, for what it’s worth. I’m an atheist, and a humanist. Not an extremist atheist, I don’t give a damn what you believe in, honestly. Humanity, for me, is scum on the face on the earth (that’s the misanthropy bit), but when push comes to shove we can do great things - and that’s why life’s worth all its dreary disgusting misery. When I want life affirmation I listen to a recording of Beethoven’s 9th, Sibelius’ 5th or Nielsen’s 4th. (I mean their symphonies) Fabulous fabulous stuff.

But I didn’t set up this blog to evangelise lol. I guess what I’m going to do here over the next few... days, weeks... months... dare I say tempt fate and say years? is give voice to the voices in my head... Anything from misanthropic rants about b--- - I mean people - on the MRT to exam angst to raving about random music, concerts, whatever. Singing a song of my life.

Just hope it’ll be worth sixpence.