Break
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Break
This is it, the beginning of the long-awaited break this semester. The finals have ended only hours ago, when the invigilators announced the end of the paper and the first signs of relief were shown on the faces of the students. The hour hand and the minute hand met above the number twelve on the clock, and that was the end of it all. All the endless studying; all the late hours in the night; all the pimples that popped out in various corners of your face due to the lack of sleep; everything came to a halt at twelve noon today, the eighth of August. Most people must have been counting down to this day, most people must have been praying for this day to come ever since the semester started. It is going to be a short break from here onwards, but at least it is going to be a breather of sorts, a stretch of our backs before the next hurdle. However, the joy and excitement doesn't seem to reflect very well on our faces. For we knew about the accident that occurred several nights ago, in the wee-hours of the morning under Paya Lebar flyover. It was hard for everybody who knew, but it was harder for our dear friend - Aaron.
Before I dive into that though, here's an entry about the examinations so far. I suppose, Aaron deserves an entry to himself, and not just part of an entry about the end of the exams. Anyway, I guess everybody was exhilarated somehow, everybody cheered by the end of the paper. It's Sherry's birthday today, and the lot of us formed her name with our bodies in the middle of the atrium. Sherry and Elizabeth were at the top floor then, with the latter trying to distract her. At the bottom, everybody scrambled into their places, with Jonathan directing the event and Shem at the third floor - the cameraman. I was the 'Y' in 'SHERRY', since I am the tallest of the group, and Shen made the phone call to Elizabeth as a cue for her to take a peek over the edge. Even before she did so, half the school surrounded us from all around, peering down at this bunch of crazy students trying to form a strange word which they couldn't decipher initially. Some were laughing, while others took random pictures of us. But the humiliation was worth it though, the way Sherry looked over the edge and saw her name on the atrium floor. The best part about it was that the letters actually started singing a happy birthday song for her, which was rather awkward but we did it anyway. A wonderful end to a period of long dreadful studying I must say, despite me lying there with my arms spread out, feeling as if I was being crucified.
I have come to a conclusion about myself. I am the kind of person who works better when you break a subject up, in the sense that I am probably going to work better if you give me the same subject, broken up into tests that cover various chapters over the course of the semester, than to have everything crammed up in the last examination such as the finals. I feel like I cannot work under such a stress, to have everything that we studied thrown together into one single paper. That is a kind of stress that I cannot handle, with the magnitude of it all mounting up inside my head. I think I screwed up my Economics as well as my Music paper, forgetting half my concepts at the very beginning of both papers. It was as if the gentle breeze caused by the opening of the front page, blew everything away through my ears. I stared at the papers with a blank mind, scrutinized every word and prayed for a sort of miracle. I skipped the questions that I know during the music theory examination, and came back to them at 3.15pm, 45 minutes after the paper started. I stared at the questions until 4.15pm, and decided to write SOMETHING, which was better than nothing. I got everything wrong, eventually.
Today's COM101 was my saving grace, surprisingly. I swear, if I am ever going to study that subject again, it is going to be with Chong Hui and Jeremy, or with the method that we used last night. It was a great way of revision, just going through the chapters and throwing out ideas and questions. And thanks to Chong Hui last night, as we brainstormed ideas online, and managed to guess the essay questions correctly. It was quite a breeze for me today, writing non-stop and feeling the words coming to me one after the other. A bad introduction to a story was ended with a brilliant ending, I wonder if anybody is going to buy the book anyway. It is quite an underdog story, isn't it? After all, everybody likes underdogs.
Still, it was hard for all of us to really enjoy ourselves today, and I actually thought that the paint ball event this Friday was going to be canceled. Here's the thing: A couple of nights ago, a couple of my friends were over at the house of another, studying for the music paper. During a break, they decided to hang out with each other and play Mahjong in the middle of the night. That was when Aaron's cellphone rang, and was told about his father's accident. His father died that night.
Apparently, his father was riding on his motorcycle at that time, and had a head-on collision with another motorcycle at the Paya Lebar flyover, about five minutes from my house. The studying group was seized, and Aaron was fetched to the hospital by Dominic in his van. Everybody was devastated and in shock, most of them cried while others just stared on in disbelief. And as for me, I heard about the incident only in the morning yesterday, unable to believe that a motorcycle has caused pain to another one of my friend. Though my friend Aaron wasn't directly involved in the accident this time - though he was involved in a similar accident only a month or two ago - I can only imagine the kind of pain that he is going through right now.
It is the end of the examinations, the beginning of the holidays. But it was hard for any of us to really celebrate, because most of us would be going to the wake tonight. I can't make it because of my friends coming over for a gathering tonight, a date set a long time ago. Who would've known about the accident beforehand anyway; who would've known about the inevitable death of his father? It came as a shock, to us but mostly to Aaron. Like I said, there is going to be an entire entry dedicated to him, but for now that's that. It's so much harder to smile now, so much harder to cheer as loud as we should be. It is as if the pain that Aaron is going through now, somehow infected our hearts as well. We had our lunch together, had small talks and that was the end of it. I guess perhaps, that is our way of saying just how sorry we are, though no amounts of 'sorry' can replace a father in any way.
Be strong, Aaron.
And fuck motorbikes.
This is it, the beginning of the long-awaited break this semester. The finals have ended only hours ago, when the invigilators announced the end of the paper and the first signs of relief were shown on the faces of the students. The hour hand and the minute hand met above the number twelve on the clock, and that was the end of it all. All the endless studying; all the late hours in the night; all the pimples that popped out in various corners of your face due to the lack of sleep; everything came to a halt at twelve noon today, the eighth of August. Most people must have been counting down to this day, most people must have been praying for this day to come ever since the semester started. It is going to be a short break from here onwards, but at least it is going to be a breather of sorts, a stretch of our backs before the next hurdle. However, the joy and excitement doesn't seem to reflect very well on our faces. For we knew about the accident that occurred several nights ago, in the wee-hours of the morning under Paya Lebar flyover. It was hard for everybody who knew, but it was harder for our dear friend - Aaron.
Before I dive into that though, here's an entry about the examinations so far. I suppose, Aaron deserves an entry to himself, and not just part of an entry about the end of the exams. Anyway, I guess everybody was exhilarated somehow, everybody cheered by the end of the paper. It's Sherry's birthday today, and the lot of us formed her name with our bodies in the middle of the atrium. Sherry and Elizabeth were at the top floor then, with the latter trying to distract her. At the bottom, everybody scrambled into their places, with Jonathan directing the event and Shem at the third floor - the cameraman. I was the 'Y' in 'SHERRY', since I am the tallest of the group, and Shen made the phone call to Elizabeth as a cue for her to take a peek over the edge. Even before she did so, half the school surrounded us from all around, peering down at this bunch of crazy students trying to form a strange word which they couldn't decipher initially. Some were laughing, while others took random pictures of us. But the humiliation was worth it though, the way Sherry looked over the edge and saw her name on the atrium floor. The best part about it was that the letters actually started singing a happy birthday song for her, which was rather awkward but we did it anyway. A wonderful end to a period of long dreadful studying I must say, despite me lying there with my arms spread out, feeling as if I was being crucified.
I have come to a conclusion about myself. I am the kind of person who works better when you break a subject up, in the sense that I am probably going to work better if you give me the same subject, broken up into tests that cover various chapters over the course of the semester, than to have everything crammed up in the last examination such as the finals. I feel like I cannot work under such a stress, to have everything that we studied thrown together into one single paper. That is a kind of stress that I cannot handle, with the magnitude of it all mounting up inside my head. I think I screwed up my Economics as well as my Music paper, forgetting half my concepts at the very beginning of both papers. It was as if the gentle breeze caused by the opening of the front page, blew everything away through my ears. I stared at the papers with a blank mind, scrutinized every word and prayed for a sort of miracle. I skipped the questions that I know during the music theory examination, and came back to them at 3.15pm, 45 minutes after the paper started. I stared at the questions until 4.15pm, and decided to write SOMETHING, which was better than nothing. I got everything wrong, eventually.
Today's COM101 was my saving grace, surprisingly. I swear, if I am ever going to study that subject again, it is going to be with Chong Hui and Jeremy, or with the method that we used last night. It was a great way of revision, just going through the chapters and throwing out ideas and questions. And thanks to Chong Hui last night, as we brainstormed ideas online, and managed to guess the essay questions correctly. It was quite a breeze for me today, writing non-stop and feeling the words coming to me one after the other. A bad introduction to a story was ended with a brilliant ending, I wonder if anybody is going to buy the book anyway. It is quite an underdog story, isn't it? After all, everybody likes underdogs.
Still, it was hard for all of us to really enjoy ourselves today, and I actually thought that the paint ball event this Friday was going to be canceled. Here's the thing: A couple of nights ago, a couple of my friends were over at the house of another, studying for the music paper. During a break, they decided to hang out with each other and play Mahjong in the middle of the night. That was when Aaron's cellphone rang, and was told about his father's accident. His father died that night.
Apparently, his father was riding on his motorcycle at that time, and had a head-on collision with another motorcycle at the Paya Lebar flyover, about five minutes from my house. The studying group was seized, and Aaron was fetched to the hospital by Dominic in his van. Everybody was devastated and in shock, most of them cried while others just stared on in disbelief. And as for me, I heard about the incident only in the morning yesterday, unable to believe that a motorcycle has caused pain to another one of my friend. Though my friend Aaron wasn't directly involved in the accident this time - though he was involved in a similar accident only a month or two ago - I can only imagine the kind of pain that he is going through right now.
It is the end of the examinations, the beginning of the holidays. But it was hard for any of us to really celebrate, because most of us would be going to the wake tonight. I can't make it because of my friends coming over for a gathering tonight, a date set a long time ago. Who would've known about the accident beforehand anyway; who would've known about the inevitable death of his father? It came as a shock, to us but mostly to Aaron. Like I said, there is going to be an entire entry dedicated to him, but for now that's that. It's so much harder to smile now, so much harder to cheer as loud as we should be. It is as if the pain that Aaron is going through now, somehow infected our hearts as well. We had our lunch together, had small talks and that was the end of it. I guess perhaps, that is our way of saying just how sorry we are, though no amounts of 'sorry' can replace a father in any way.
Be strong, Aaron.
And fuck motorbikes.
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on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 5:49 PM.
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