What I want

I just finished my scholarship applications to both MOHH and MOH, and thats all I'd be applying to. I'm a bit nervous that I'm not paying enough attention to my backup plan of Chemistry, but this is how much I want to study pharmacy. A lot. I liked pharmaceutical chemistry as a H3, now I'm actually within reach of studying it in uni, and then working with those drugs for life. Its a long shot, but I hope it follows through.

So right, how close am I to realising whatever I've just laid out?

A levels were okay. There was a bit of disappointment at the B, but now I'm just content. I've got enough, more than I asked for actually. So very thankful that my GP got an A. And my H3. My dear H3.

GP A
BCME H2s A except econs B
H3 pharm chem Distinction.

Oh that glorious shining distinction. Makes up for the B in econs I think. Its a better arrangement; I'd rather B for econs than Merit for H3. It doesn't give me 90 points, but I do hope it gets me to where I want. Pharmacy has a 10th percentile of AAA/B, which I nicely graze.

The following below is what I submitted under "About Yourself" for my MOHH application. It really isn't all there is to me, but I'd want to write it again here because those are the reasons why I want to study Pharmacy so much. Perhaps a few years or even months into the course I become fatigued from the overwhelming content that awaits me. This will serve as a good reminder on why I got myself into the course in the first place:

"Hello! :)

I'm 18 years old at this moment, turning 19 in May. I'm a Taurus. The horoscope thinks I'd be stubborn. Mama says I'm stubborn. I'm not stubborn. I just know what I want, usually quite clearly. I'm not stubborn because after knowing what I want, I can take many different ways to get there, as long as I get there. I know I'm not stubborn; I'd introduce myself as flexible.

At this juncture of choosing my University course and possibly my career path, I know what I want. I'd love to study Pharmacy. It's a brilliant choice of study because it matches me to a T.

Pharmaceutical science, I just have to agree with it. It knows what receptor or enzyme it wants to target, but it can consider a multitude of different ways just to achieve what it set out to do. I could do that. I've been doing it for a large part of my life.

Pharmacy brings out the softer side in me. There is a large human element mixed in, for pharmacy is actually about using the knowledge in pharmaceutical science for people. A machine could produce the drugs, but I'd want to know how to use them in a beneficial way- in a way that could assist in recovery, in rehabilitation.

Pharmacy is the best way I could put what I'm good at, into something that could heal. I am sure that this is what I want, and I could excel in. And I will, because for a thousand different tries I can take to shine, I'm sure the right path must be out there somewhere."

So me and JZ, we have the same concerns now. He did brilliantly for As, content subjects straight As!! While he's in the midst of applying for his scholarships and trying to settle on his course and perhaps future career, I really do try to help out. But his concerns of studying with brainiacs in uni does strike a chord with me. Chem engineering is his source of worry for him, while pharmacy is for me.

Concerns, of course I have them! About how the coursework is really tough. About the massive amount of time and effort I'd have to spend soon enough. About the sleepless nights. I fret about that the most, I can't go without sleep :-/ But really. There are many easier routes out, different courses to take. I've weighed everything and Pharmacy still wins out. Its what I want to do, so I've just got to grit my teeth and go through with it. I cross my fingers and hope it all turns out fine.

So I'm done with this chapter of my life: A level results, choice of uni course, and scholarship applications. Its going to close fully after Sunday when I visit NUS's open house to listen to their talk on Chemistry, and Pharmacy for good measure. Then I'd decide if I'm going to accept NTU or NUS's chemistry to study, if (touch wood) I don't get into pharmacy. (NTU offered me a place for Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, from their early application. Without any interview! I'm very surprised, and well, its some sort of ego boost hehe)

So I'm one step ahead of struggling for my A levels, and one step before possibly the 4 most packed years of my life. So thankful for this breather in which I only have to attend to sec school chem questions to earn a bit of pocket money for myself. I'm content with how things are going so far, and even though this post has been quite sedated---- I'm content. There you have it :)

Tap tap tap

Read my post on 12th January 2010. O level results were out. I was expecting Cs and Ds. Lawrence Gan called my name along with a few others: Evelyn, the twins, Yu Le, Crystal.........the high achievers. I was genuinely surprised- I wasn't expecting that. Never in my two years have I ever been considered the same league as them.

And results came out, and stunned me totally. Not only have I scored well, I scored perfectly. Perfect. A single straight row of As, single straight row of 1s. I remember seeing my name there up on screen.

That set the stage up for my subsequent expectations.

I went to VJ, survived pretty well, got into peer mentoring, H3, became known as the girl who does well. Would do well.

I am not that girl, you see. I work hard, but I've not done well long enough for me to feel sure about myself. I've not done well long enough to know that those results are not the result of a lucky break. I haven't, you see, and people believe otherwise. After all, all my VJ friends have seen me cope pretty well. But that's only the last 2 years. All through secondary school, it wasn't this way.

And all these constant repetitions, they've swayed my consciousness. Through mentoring, you start to believe that your answers are right. Through the tutoring I'm doing now, you've just got to trust yourself that you have the right answer. It gives yourself this false sense of security that you've got it under control. And it's creeping over, taking over your mind.

A levels was the biggest exam that I have taken. Omnipotent. It would be foolish to think that I've mastered or conquered it. The syllabus is such that you'd never reach the top. Your grades are just a reflection of how close you are.

This is directly antagonistic to my past few weeks of tutoring, when the tutor becomes the ceiling for where the student has to first reach. It's an evil barb, but its just the way it works. You guide the student to go higher, but your ceiling can't be too high.

It really is time for me to let that go, and become the student once again this Friday. Alright I'm ready I'm ready I'm ready! I want to be up there on stage but as it always is, zero expectations zero disappointments. Oh god I want to be up on that stage so so so bad.

Lensbaby

So I asked, what's a lensbaby?

And he said: this is what happen, when two lenses mate.

He reaches into his camera bag, and carefully takes out two lenses. This one is the male, as he points to the bulkier of the two. And the other is the female, he continues, referring to the slimmer and slightly more petite Sony lens.

When two lenses mate, this first happens to the female. He then extends the lens of the Sony, such that it resembles the small and erect female organ.

The female prods it's extended lens into the male.

The male then extends in a much more visible way, with the lens zooming a lot further out, albeit in a slightly rude and obscene manner.

After a while of jerking back and forth, the two lenses then decide to end it. They connect their small red dots and, after he pauses for dramatic effect,

There you have it, a lensbaby.

The crazy, awkward and horrible

Its in the middle of the night right now but I'm still going to blog because.....

Because.................




Jz is going to do ballet and I am going to run 3.2km non stop hahaha.

The Warlock's Hairy Heart

-by Tales of Beedle the Bard

There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love, gambolling and preening, losing their appetites and their dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity.

Unaware of his secret, the warlock's family laughed to see him so aloof and cold.

'All will change,' they prophesied, 'when a maid catches his fancy!'

But the young warlock's fancy remained untouched. Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference and the sagacity that had produced it.

The first freshness of youth waned, and the warlock's peers began to wed, and then to bring forth children.

'Their hearts must be husks,' he sneered inwardly, as he observed the antics of the young parents around him, 'shrivelled by the demands of these mewling offspring!'

And once again he congratulated himself upon the wisdon of his early choice.

In due course, the warlock's aged parents died. Their son did not mourn them; on the contrary he considered himself blessed by their demise. Now he reigned alone in their castle. Having transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty, his comfort the only aim of his many servants.

The warlock was sure that he must be an onject of immense envy to all who beheld his splendid and untroubled soliude. Fierce were his anger and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of his lackeys discussing their master one day.

The first servant expressed pity for the warlock who, with all his wealth and power, was yet beloved by nobody.

But his companion jeered, asking why a man with so much gold and a palatial castle to his name had been unable to attract a wife.

Their words dealt dreadful blows to the listening warlock's pride.

He resolved at once to take a wife, and that she would be a wife superior to all others. She would possess astounding beauty, exciting envy and desire in every man who beheld her; she would spring from magical lineage, so that their offspring would inherit outstanding magical gifts; and she would have wealth at least equal to his own, so that his comfortable existence would be assured, in sprite of additions to his household.

It might have taken the warlock fifty years to find such a woman, yet it so happened that the very day after he decided to seek her, a maiden answering his every wish arrived in the neighbourhod to visit her kinsfolk.

She was a witch of prodigious skill and possessed of much gold. Her beauty was such that it tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes on her; of every man, that is, except one. The warlock's heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless, she was the prize he sought, so he began to pay her court.

All who noticed the warlock's change in manners were amazed, and told the maiden that she had succeeded where a hundred had failed.

The young woman herself was both fascinated and repelled by the warlock's attention. She sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth of his flattery, and had never met a man so strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however, deemed theirs a most suitable match and, eager to promote it, accepted the warlock's invitation to a great feast in the maiden's honour.

The table was laden with silver and gold bearing the finest wines and most sumptuous foods. Minstrels strummed on silk-stringed lutes and sang of a love their master had never felt. The maiden sat upon a throne beside the warlock, who spake low, employing words of tenderness he had stolen from the poets, without any idea of their true meaning.

The maiden listened, puzzled, and finally replied, 'You speak well, Warlock, and I would be delighted by your attentions, if only I thought you had a heart!'

The warlock smiled, and told her that she need not fear on that score. Bidding her follow, he led her from the feast, and down to the locked dungeon where he kept his greatest treasure.

Here, in an enchaned crystal casket, was the warlock's beating heart.

Long since disconnected from eyes, ears and fingers, it had never fallen prey to beauty or to a musical voice, to the feel of silken skin. The maiden was terrified by the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair.

'Oh, what have you done?' she lamented. 'Put it back where it belons, I beseech you!'

Seeing that this was necessary to please her, the warlock drew his wand, unlocked the crystal casket, sliced open his own breast and replaced the hairy heart in the empty cavity it had once occupied.

'Now you are healed and will know true love!' cried the maiden, and she embraced him.

The touch of her soft white arms, the sound of her breath in his ear, the scent of her heavy gold hair: all pierced the newly awakened heart like spears. But it had grown strange during its long exile, blind and savage in the darkness to which it had been condemned, and its appetites had grown powerful and perverse.

The guests at the feast had noticed the absence of their host and the maiden. At first untroubled, they grew anxious as the hours passed, and finally began to search the castle.

They found the dungeon at last, and a most deadful sight awaited them there.

The maiden lay dead upon the floor, her breast cut open, and beside her crouched the mad warlock, holding in one bloody hand a great, smooth, shining scarlet heart, which he licked and stroked, vowing to exchange it for his own.

In his other hand, he held his wand, trying to coax from his own chest the shrivelled, hairy heart. But the hairy heart was stronger than he was, and refused to relinquish its hold upon his senses or to return to the coffin in whih it had been locked for so long.

Before the horror-struck eyes of his guests, the warlock cast aside his wand, and seized a silver dagger. Vowing never to be mastered by his own heart, he hacked it from his chest.

For one moment, the warlock knelt triumphant, with a heart cluthed in each hand, then he fell across the maiden's body, and died.