Interview for Top Student Award

Went for an interview with Ms. Yeo this afternoon, our dean of studies. I was the second in line for the interview, after my classmate, Ian. It was in alphabetical order. I was told to enter Ms. Yeo’s cubicle as soon as Ian came out. The room was hot, maybe the air-conditioning was not turned on. I started to sweat as soon as I entered the room. And no, it was not because of nervousness.

Ms. Yeo asked me some questions default to interviews. “What edge do you have over the other students vying for this award?”, “How important is this award to you?”. To the second question I answered with a not so cponventional answer. I did not put it that it seems I was desperate for the award.

All in all, I preferred the Literature top student interview over this interview. Mrs. Laura Ng was less serious and more casual. It was a more fun experience with Mrs. Ng. But today’s interview will most likely resemble job and future scholarships and awards interviews more. A more formal assessment.

English compo test results

All right, so our teacher finally returned us our test papers. It was a compo test with graphic stimuli and we were supposed to write a narrative. It was relatively comfortable for me to write compared to the previous composition assignment which I had completed under busy conditions and had to rush it. Maybe I am more orientated towards formal assessments. I feel more able to concentrate when there is no noise around me and no other commitments to distract my attention.

I got a 24/30, which translated to exactly 80%, a personal best this year. The only time which I surpassed this score during my course of study in Hwa Chong was last year. A narrative prose that was graded 26/30 by Miss Grace Chua, who was standing in for Mr. Lim while he was in Vietnam or some other secluded place.

The stimulus I chose out of two was a picture of two young boys scavenging in a filthy place. It was most likely the dumps of Manila. Those two boys, probably brothers, looked Fillipino too. So that was where my story was set in. I would not bore you with the details, it was, as Ms. Tan put it, a not very interesting piece in terms of content. But I think I made some improvements on my language.

So, thats it for now, something like a reflection on the composition by me. Will talk about an interview with Ms Yeo Hwee Joo in the next post.

Chinese New Year just round the corner… Time to relax a little

Tomorrow is the CNY celebrations in our school. Many of my classmates are not going to be present. Some going back to PJ, some KL, even Penang… Anyway, I am going. Last year’s celebrations were fun and I don’t really feel like explaining why I will NOT be present. Hehe. Going back tomorrow afternoon.

Barely scraped an A1 for Chinese… It was quite challenging with a summary, and I spent the previous day studying for Mathematics as the teacher made it sounded like it was VERY difficult… But it was easy, mistakes made were all careless only… == I seem to not have much affinity with summaries…. If the summary is gotten rid of in English comprehension papers then I would usually achieve a high A1… But then it is one of the most basic things in the paper and most people seem to be all right with it and more problems with the cloze and the comprehension questions, both with which I am good in. So I guess I should brush up on it a little bit. Got a 80% for mathematics, not bad. But should try to be less careless next time and remember the negative signs, the parentheses, the correct expansions et cetera. Science was free frag and I got a 33/40 which is around 82 or 83.

Literature test was fun. The questions were average but I happen to like the poem very much. Wrote around 4 pages for the whole paper and that resulted in a severe cramp of the forearm muscles… Second time this week already. Maybe the school should rule that there should not be humanities and language tests consequently and allow for at least a day’s rest for us between those. Sciences and Mathematics are fine though. Haha. To think that I wrote till I cramped even thought it doesn’t happen when I do wrist curls with 10kg weights…

Now that all the tests are over and the only assesment that awaits us is the Physics module examination, I guess I can finally slack off on the studying for a little. Have been designing worksheets for Chinese ACE for the last few study times and it is getting a little bit monotonous. Now, I shall do some other things. Maybe get a few books from the library to read, or maybe analyse a few literary texts. Now, that might sound like “mugging” to some people who don’t do that even the day before EOY exams, but to me, reading is fun and analysing a literary work that I like is even more fun.

Well, thats it for now. Might update while I am at home for CNY.