Beware! ‘O’ Level May Accelerate the Growth of Pimples on Your Skin and Damage Your Eyesight!

Written on Friday, 30^th August 2011, 2300.

I’ve actually wanted to post a new blog post for such a long time but just haven’t had the time to do so. I don’t really think now is the right time either actually, considering that it’s nearly the middle of the night, I just arrived home from school an hour ago, and I’ve still got an enrichment class tomorrow morning at 0830. As Mr Adam Khoo said, sleep is precious. People actually need 7 hours of sleep a day. Fortunately, that’s exactly the number of hours I’ve been sleeping (on average). If you sleep to little, you won’t have a really good memory (if I’m not mistaken). So for those of you who might be taking your end of year examinations soon, make sure you get an adequate number of hours of sleep.

So, the Preliminary Examinations (or Prelims) have ended. My results are still OK, but it wasn’t as good as during the Mid Year Exam. Especially for Humanities. I managed to get an A2 for my Humans during the MYE but now… I only managed to get a C5. I don’t really know why. Well, for SS… SS is just difficult. Not the SEQ though, because for SEQ you can just memorize and understand the content, and then just twist it a little bit to match the question during the exam. But for SBQ, you really can’t tell what’s gonna come out, and I just think it’s difficult! I’m not trying to look down on myself or anything, because I know I can do well. It’s just that sometimes I manage to score well for my SBQ and then the next time I don’t do well. Maybe the problem is with me though. I do understand that sometimes my answers are just plain rubbish. Like for last week’s assignment, I wrote an inference and then gave evidence to support it. However, the mistake was that I didn’t explain how the evidence supported my claim. As a result, my Social Studies teacher wrote this:

“WOW! Evidence but no explanation!”

I understand that it isn’t funny, but I nearly cracked up while reading this. The sarcasm. However, for that assignment, there’s something that I’m really proud of. I got full marks for the first and last question (there are only four questions). And that, is already a big achievement for me. :D

Now, Geography Elective. For the past 2 tests I’ve been acing my Geography tests. I got 88% for my MYE (I was the top scorer for Geog!) and I got 80% for one of the practice papers. That was an extremely big achievement for me. I really didn’t think I would get 88% for my MYE. I just studied as per normal, and BOOM! I got 88. I don’t really know how I got 88. Luck maybe? I hope not.

For the other test, I also studied as per normal. And yet, I got an 80! So for Prelims, I also studied as per normal. However, I only got 54% for this test. Actually, I was one of the 10 people that passed in my class, so I was already quite contented. The top score wasn’t far either, it was only 60%. Now, you might be wondering why the results are so poor. There are several theories that can explain this. First of all, the questions were mixed, and they are usually not. So usually, you can just learn 2 out of 4 themes and do well for the exam. But for this exam, you need to learn all 4 themes because even though you’ll only be required to choose 2 out of 4 questions, all of the questions are mixed: from theme 1 to 4. So that was one of the challenges. Another challenge was that for the previous tests, we weren’t required to apply our map skills. I really did badly in those questions. For the first map question, I got 1 mark out of 5. The one mark was obtained from stating that the speed of the river is slow, all my explanation was wrong. For the second question, I got 4 out of 7 marks. This isn’t so bad, but 4/7 isn’t pretty to look at either. Another theory behind my failure is that maybe I was becoming too complacent. Maybe. I don’t know though. I hope not. I try to be as humble as ever. If I am becoming complacent, please tell me. U don’t think complacency will help at all.

Anyway, next week will be the last week of school. And guess what? I’ve already graduated from Pei Hwa. HAHAHA. OK, just kidding. Well, technically, I have graduated. Sort of. On Wednesday, 28^th September 2011, we had our Graduation Ceremony. I know. It’s weird right? Graduation ceremony before you even take your national exams. I’m not really sure why they did it before the exams either. Maybe because there won’t be any time next year? :\ Anyway, it was quite a fun day. 4E4’s video made me really LOL. The part about Mr Ho Fu Chew’s hair was hilarious. Everybody in the room was cracking up just like me. Their video made my day J

OK, so you must have noticed that in the title bar, I wrote that ‘O’ Levels can accelerate the growth of pimples and damage your eyesight. This is slightly true. At least, according to my theory.

I am a person with a relatively clean face. I rarely have pimples. And when I say ‘rarely’, I mean ‘nearly never’. However, there are like 4 pimples on my face right now. You know how people say that stress causes pimples right? Well, the Os are starting to take its toll on me (is this the correct expression?) and I am starting to get a bit stressed. Teachers give me piles of homework to do, and most of my time is taken up by homework. I won’t really complain though. I know this is for the best, so I’ll do it anyway. Even if it means hell for the next 1 month.

The second thing I’ve realized is that the Os have damaged my kind of perfect eyesight. Before I came to Singapore, my eyes were relatively healthy. I could see objects fare away clearly, and I didn’t wear specs. And now… I WEAR SPECS. Well, actually the degree of my specs isn’t that severe. Only 0.75 in my left eye and 0.25 in my right. About 3 months ago, I sat at the back of the classroom. I could see and read the whiteboard clearly. But now, three months later, I can only see a slightly blurred whiteboard. I can still kind of guess what word it is, but I’ve really noticed that I can’t see far objects clearly.

Now, the dilemma I’m facing is whether I should wear specs everyday or not. Or should I just wear it only when I’m studying, using my computer and reading? People say that if your eyesight is still quite OK, don’t wear specs. It will worsen your eyesight. But is that really true? Some people refuse to wear specs and now their eyesight worsens. If anybody can give me some tips, I’d be glad to take them in with open arms.