Break? Not really.

School just reopened on Monday for the second half of this semester. While most of my friends went on trips during the 2 weeks break, I was stuck in my hostel room most of the time, flipping through books, reading notes and clicking on my mouse.

I'm the only unlucky one, among all the people I know in ANU, to have exams right before and after the semester break. I'm also one of the very few who has mid-terms for all of my modules. To make the situation worse, all of papers have very high weightage. *gasps*

Some time during my mid semester break, the results for the first two papers which I sat for were released and I felt totally crushed when they fell way below my expectations. I was (and still am) very puzzled as to why I underachieve. I worked hard for the paper, felt prepared for the exams and sat for the paper knowing how to do most of the questions. However, my results correlated negatively. I'm still puzzled as to how and why I did so badly. The sad thing is at college level, exam papers are rarely returned. Hence, I wouldn't know what went wrong and what I did badly on. This will really have a negative impact on the preparation of my end of year examinations because I don't even know how I got off track. Not to mention how demoralising the whole thing was. Oh well.

In the midst of mugging, I managed to make a quick trip up to Sydney for a night. Even though the trip was a little rushed, it was a good break away from the accumulating stress. I'll blog about the trip separately in my subsequent post.

I just completed my last two papers for mid-sems a few days ago and they felt pretty alright. I hope my grades will turn out pretty alright too. I'm pinning my hopes on them. *prays hard* I wouldn't wanna get a shock of my life again.

I've got loads of stuff I will like to blog but due to the lack of time I'm unable to do so. I'm in the midst of rushing an assignment. I promise that I will blog more regularly after submitting this paper.

To the very few people who read my blog, please root for me, wherever on earth you are and have a wonderful weekend ahead.

I'm Sleeping Early Today!

To all who are concern about my nocturnal lifestyle, I'm changing, at least for today. I'm going to sleep NOW, at 8pm! And I'm going to wake up early; 3am!

No Good? But you people were the ones who said I should sleep early and wake up early. So, 8pm and 3am not early enough? *hiaks*

Anyway, as you'd probably have guessed it, I'm waking up to mug for exams, all the way until my paper at 9.50am. Done with 1 paper today, didn't turn outta be as good as I thought it would be. Oh well.

I need lots of luck and blessings for my next paper because I'm not even 50% done studying with it. Yes, I know. I'm screwed. And no, I didn't slack this semester. In fact I worked harder. Sighs. Life really sucks when you're not academically smart.

Anyway, good nights people. You are loved, by me =)

When Exams Get into You

You know that the effects of exams are getting into you when

1. Instead of cooking decent meals, you

• start cooking whatever instant food that is available in your kitchen cupboard and when the procedure of searching food + microwaving food/boiling water + washing utensils become too much of a chore
• you start buying take-away food and when you have no time to do that
  
• you eat rubbish food such as slices of smoked salmon, Ritz crackers, bread, cashew nuts & Eclipse mint in substitution of a proper meal
• and when you don't even want to spare that extra time searching and chewing on food, you drink lots of wate until you get gastric pain, then you start the entire cycle again

2. You get hooked on caffeine

• You drink more coffee, tea & energy drinks (such as Mother and Monster as people here rarely drink red bull. I've no idea why.) than ever
  
• I have a friend who lights up this candle that's suppose to release caffeine, so that he feels 'energised' as he studies. I wonder how useful is that suppose to be.

3. You stop socialising

• because you find that this is too time-consuming and you'd rather spend that extra minute cramming some facts in your brain
• You start to get annoyed by the fact that you have to mug endlessly while your friend/s can walk around freely because they do not have exams as part of their assessments and that their assignments are due much later (Val, if you're reading this, let me emphasise that I am not referring to you and I promise you that I'm not lying. Neither am I trying to be sacarstic. Really!)
  
• You rarely ever appear online on msn and even if you do, you rarely respond to messages
• You don't even check your phone for incoming messages and even if you do,
  
• You selectively reply to text messages on SMSes and Whatsapp
  
• Facebooking is the most you'd relate to as a form of socialising
  

4. You start to think that sleeping is a luxury

• You wish you can stay awake and function optimally with as little sleep as possible
• You start to adjust your biological clock so that your sleeping habits best suit your studying patterns
• You start to fantasise about yourself being superman/superwoman and go on for days without sleep
• You sleep so little that you look like a walking zombie, feel so light headed till it seems as though you're floating as you walk and start to suffer physical symptoms due to the lack of sleep, such as giddiness, migraines and extremely poor memory (the worst that can happen while mugging for exams)

And in case you're wondering, 90% of the above description fits me at present. The remaining 10% are drawn from past experiences and friends' experiences.

That's my 10 minute break from studying. Back to mug.

Wish me luck!

Ding Dong Biological Clock

My biological clock has always been tuned differently from the average person. I'm pretty much a nocturnal and sleeping at 3am is pretty much the norm, regardless of which time zone I'm in.

However, I always push the mechanics of my body and biological clock further during assignment and exam period by sleeping and waking at odd timings. I slept at near 5am yesterday and woke up at 11.30am, then I napped from 11.30pm to 1.30am. Now, after supper/breakfast, I'm feeling wide awake. I hope that I can function optimally for another 2 hours before I recharge myself for the day.

Unlike a lot of people who sleep and wake at a stipulated time, regardless of how little or much they have rested, I am thankful to be able to sleep and wake as and when I'm please. Sort of, as I find myself thinking a lot before dozing off for the past few days (hence taking a longer time to drift off to sleep). It could be a combination of my biological clock protesting and the pre-exams jitters. I think I've been pushing my body way too hard. It deserves a good rest after Friday.

From Saturday onwards, I want to live the life of a so-called normal person and quit being nocturnal. I aim to sleep at 12am everyday and the latest, by 2am. Hopefully, I can adjust my biological clock back to normal before the end of my mid semester break.

So Cold

I was halfway through studying at 1am when I felt really sleepy, thus I decided to nap for half an hour. Knowing that there's a good chance I'll oversleep and wake up a few hours later (or maybe the next morning), I decided to sleep less comfortably. I slept in short sleeves t-shirt and shorts, really short shorts, with no blanket. The temperature out there is 10 degree celsius.

Guess what? I still slept more than I should. I woke up an hour and a half later, only because my roomie was knocking on my door and I found myself really curled up with the pillow covering whichever part of my body it could. If I were to look at myself from a third party's point of view, I would look like a deep fried breaded shrimp! I found myself shivering as I opened my room's door.

I'm so thankful for having her knocked on my door. Otherwise, I would have caught a cold if I were to sleep through the night. Not the best thing to cope with when one is preparing for exams. Thank you for 'saving' and feeding me, if you were to read my blog =)

End of Daylight Saving

The first Sunday of April marks the end of daylight saving and I'm so glad they 'returned' me this extra hour just before my mid-semester. It sure was helpful. I spent my first 3am mugging and the 2nd one sleeping. The effects of the extra hour gained was amplified when I woke up at 11am today, when it would have been 12pm the day before. Okay, I feel a little silly being happy over something that's insignificant.

I have friends who stayed up deliberately, just to see their clocks changing from 3.59am to 3.00am again. As for me, I didn't get to witness that because the clock on my laptop and handphone is set to GMT +8, in accordance to Singapore's time (My heart is still in Sg k!) and I was too busy studying to be bothered with changing my time just to watch it work as though there's some error.

With the end of daylight saving, the sky starts to darken really early; the darkness of the sky at 7pm yesterday is the same as 6pm today and the day starts getting shorter. It will take me some time to get adjusted to, before I can tell the time by the looks of the sky.

Mid-Semester Exams

I'm going to have 2 mid semester exams before the study break and I've got loads to read, understand, memorise and regurgitate. My readings come up to 3 inches thick and I've only just started studying for mid-sems today.

If you're wondering what I've been up to since the start of the semester, I've been studying for 3 quizzes on a weekly basis, which leaves me little time for exam preparation. Come to think of it, I only managed to study for 2 quizzes on most weeks, which probably explains why I'm doing badly for certain modules. *suffocating*

Being the whiney me, I called home to whine to my dad. Instead of comforting me, he said "You asked for it! This was the pathway you had chosen." Though he didn't mean it in a bad way, I felt a little down after that conversation. Oh well, what he said sorta made sense.

I should just persevere and work hard towards my ideal future.

Keep me in your thoughts/prayers.


Just in case you will like to know, details of my first two mid-semester exams are as follow:

Module: Personality & Individual Differences
Weightage: 45%
Day/Date: Thursday, 07 April 2011
Exam Room Opens at : 9.30am
Exam Commences at : 9.45am
Writing Commences at: 10.00am
Exam ends at : 12.00pm


Module: Developmental Psychology
Weightage: 25%
Day/Date: Friday, 08 April 2011
Exam Room Opens at : 9.50am
Writing Commences at: 10.00am
Exam ends at : 12.00pm

Die. As I typed this, I realised that developmental psychology has no reading time! *faints*