OMG LONG TIME NO POSTTTT. Well I was stuck in Shanghai for a year and blogger was banned. And yeah! Time to revive this blog! :D

Soooo. A lot has happened. And with a twist of fate, I find myself at STANFORD on the west coast of the US! LIKE WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! HOW DID I GET HERE?! OMG. But yeah it's pretty awesome here. :) SO MANY NEW FRIENDS YAY! :) And some people are just smart out of the boundaries of my imagination. :O It's crazy but it's motivating I guess. To be like them one day... dream on haha. I must say I'm reliving the SSP summer camp moments sometimes, although this is actual college. It's the last day of my Thanksgiving break, and nooo I haven't completed my IR essays and CME problem sets yet. >< And yeah it's great to connect with Singaporean and Malaysian people again here. :)

Thanksgiving was a pretty restful break - biked all around the Stanford campus, went to Mountain View to visit Googleplex and take pics with Android figures, tried some nice Japanese cuisine, went to downtown Palo Alto to have a Thai feast... and HIGHLIGHT: cooked my own Thanksgiving dinner with raw ingredients and roasted turkey from the dining hall! Hahahaha oh yeah and dessert was Chinese egg tarts! Egg tarts totally beat apple pies or pumpkin pies. :P

Yup so this is just a quick post. OMG Finals. :( And I'm gonna die again. Exams alwayssss kill me. I'll probably keep dying at the end of each quarter and then bounce back and be joyful again. What a life. I just hope I get better, like I did for the IB.

Probably I'll try to keep this blog alive and post more often! :) It's pretty nostalgic to read old posts haha.

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: College, Stanford, Thanksgiving

Wow one month passes by really quickly.

UK university trip, Music competition, tests and more tests, IB individual oral commentary, internal assessments, Badminton tournament... Ooh this month was packed!

Finished Dream High 2; nothing super great oh well, but nice entertainment after all.

UK university trip was amazing! I visited Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Bath and Bristol. Wonderful universities. I think I love LSE the most, but none of my current subjects are really pointing me in the humanities direction right now. I AM UTTERLY CONFUSED. I DONT KNOW WHAT COURSE TO CHOOSE! :S Like I have doubts about doing medicine, because I don't think I really want to treat people for the rest of my life. Natural Sciences at Cambridge sounds interesting, but would I really enjoy lab work? And what, go into marketing or sth in pharmaceutical/medical companies later? Or be a biomedical scientist, sth like that? Not really. Don't want to stay in the lab so much either. I'm actually thinking of doing law as a graduate course now, because my college counselors advised me that I'm not competitive enough for humanities courses at this stage. Ah well. :/ Bath's campus is really pretty. Didn't like Bristol because I feel the town is too hilly and messy for my liking. UCL is fine. Oxford is pretty much the same as Cambridge, only differences in courses.

Ahhh. What do I do? I guess, I should just focus on the sciences now. :/ Since all I have is Bio Chem Maths EngLit HLs. English Literature certainly seems out of place, but well, that's a choice hard to change now. Hopefully, I'll come to a conclusion about my courses soon. Natural Sciences is up 1st spot personally, but my mother totally disagrees as she says it's the most boring and unproductive course ever. (What my parents say actually turns out to be quite true, so I'm aware of that.) This is making me even more confused.

What I must do now: Get a freaking high predicted IB score. Keep up my 7s and turn my 6s into 7s. Easier said than done though. :'( I really hope I can make it.

Plus, I'm moving to Shanghai at the end of this academic year. Damn, such a disturbance in my academic progress, but my teachers all believe I'll still be able to do well, so I hope I live up to their expectations.

Need to get a start on my Extended Essay, which also means deciding on a topic question to follow. I NEED TO MAKE DECISIONS!

On another note, I won the Player's Player Award for the badminton season this year! Pretty surprised because I thought I was just a mediocre not-so-popular player in the team. Turns out I got the most votes from my team members hah.

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: March

So... Fasnacht break is here again, and yes time to bloggg. 2 months alr.

My mum works in Shanghai for 3 weeks, comes back to Basel for a week. Technically I'm like single-parented now. But it doesn't really matter, I find. Soon, I'll be without my parents. And it's pretty soon. Like next year. 2013. When I graduate from high school... Urgh, the future seems so uncertain.

Hmm. Basel MUN 2012 was quite a success! I really enjoyed chairing my Environment Committee, although they were mostly first-timers at MUN. We didn't have the highest quality debates, but they were still pretty good for nervous 8th, 9th, 10th graders. :) Well it was my first timer chairing, so I hope I did a good job to make my committee as interesting as possible. Got some pretty positive feedback from them, so I'm really glad! :D Like about the structure of debates, the topics chosen (I thought of the topics by myself!) :P

And oh, recently I went to The Hague for a Maths competition. Koreans dominated again, but oh well, so many Maths topics such as Calculus I haven't learnt were tested, so I didn't do very well overall. :/ 120th out of 220 students? Ah well... Anyway I had loads of fun with Burcu, my team partner, and we shopped with our teacher in Leiden. Valentine's Day sales all around, so I got pretty cheap stuff. :) Better in the Netherlands than in Switzerland where things are all so ex hahaha. And Stroopwafels are AWESOME; I cannot get enough of them! :D

Currently catching the Korean drama series Dream High 2. Still pretty good, but I think I prefer the Dream High cast. :) I also watched Sweet Spy last week. :P I should cut down watching Korean dramas.

Still as clueless as ever about what to study for university. Registered for the May SAT and planning to take SAT subject tests in June if possible. Sigh. UK or US?? And WHAT to study? :S I'm going on a UK uni tour in mid-March, so hopefully I'll get some inspiration...

I chose to do a Maths Extended Essay. Perhaps in the field of spherical trigonometry. I still don't know what exactly to research on. But first, I guess I have to self-teach the fundamentals of spherical trig since it's not covered in the IB Maths HL syllabus...

That's about the highlights of my life now.

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: Fasnacht, IB subjects, Korean dramas

OKAY TIME TO REVIVE MY BLOG!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Looking forward to an amazing 2012! Well, so much is going to happen this year. By the time 2012 ends, I would have decided which uni course I'm gonna do. By the time 2012 ends, perhaps I wouldn't be living in Basel anymore. By the time 2012 ends, my life would have changed pretty dramatically.

WOW.

Looking back, 2011 wasn't that bad at all. Completed the MYP, top scorer too haha. 2 years ago when I first came to Basel, I wouldn't be expecting such things! And yeah, so many events... Oklahoma was simply awesome; I love acting on stage, even though I don't have a main role. Made so many new friends ever since Grade 11 started, and I love all my classes currently. Not doing the best I can yet, but hopefully I'll achieve my goals by the end of Grade 11, i.e. by June 2012. BECAUSE I NEED GOOD PREDICTED GRADES to apply for unit GRRR.

And yeah I'm starting on a diet as of today! JIAYOU I really need to slim down. Esp after this crazy festive season and visiting so many people and eating so many lunches and dinners! :/ And my prom is in 20 days!! Okay let's see how much weight I can lose in 20 days. Even if it's 1 kg it's fine. haha. As long as i stop gaining weight ><

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: 2012

Whoa didn't realize the last time I posted was a month ago? :o Okay. So much has happened ahhh.

Not really actually. Stayed in Basel for the whole of my autumn holidays. Studying Chinese wth. Chinese SAT is in 2 weeks CRAPPPP. :S So I'm like crash coursing now... Heh I did a trial lesson with some China teacher online. :o 1st time doing sth like this. Pretty cool, pretty useful but a bit too expensive so nope didn't register for more. :P I'm really feeling a bit nervous now that the test is so near and I can't seem to get full marks on the practice questions that I have. Grrrrr. If no full marks, I risk a drop in my score because I'd be competing with China nationals who are definitely gonna get full marks. D:

Okay I shan't rant on Chinese. Like it's a boring topic to post about. ><

What else. Oh it's Friday and I haven't completed my holiday homework. Not so much, can chiong during the weekend.

Oh yeah! Recently the Stanford Artificial Intelligence course just commenced, and I signed up for it. Pretty difficult, although I've only completed the first 2 lessons in Week 1. Now on to Week 2. Like there's a lot of logic behind it, and Maths is linked to every part of it. Sometimes I get the logic, then no idea how to do the math. Then I get the question wrong because it wants the mathematical/numerical answer. -.- Oh well see how it goes. It's actually quite interesting to learn, just that the quizzes and homework are hard.

La la back to school soon. I think I might be moving to French B SL after all. :/ I did learn a lot in French A; my French has def improved and I can listen to native speed better alr. :) I think I got a 6- out of 7 in the last essay we wrote, really quite an achievement for me! But it took me so much effort... and I think I'd better concentrate more on my HLs too. They're not getting 7s yet, except for a fluke in Maths and Chem, but need to jiayou for Bio!

I feel I'm distancing from Singapore and its happenings. Plus my friends in Singapore. Nooo. Like my blog is dead. I only write in the hope that someone in Singapore would remember that such a blog called enchanting-twilight existed.

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: Artificial Intelligence, Chinese SAT

121st post since I don't know when. Ahhh school hasn't been going too well so far. :( IB stress is kicking in definitely. Grades are like whoosh down the hill. 4 for French oral, 5 for French essay, 5 for Bio test, some sucky score for Bio lab report, 6 for Maths test when some guy scores nearly 100%... okay, 7 for Chem which was good and made my day. But other than that the work load is horrible. :'(

Urgh and I have a French written exam plus a French individual oral presentation next week. I shudder. I actually feel scared speaking in front of the class, knowing that I'm gonna make silly errors in vocab and grammar unconsciously, without knowing. Well that's basically what pulled my essay grade down, too many grammar errors and weird vocab until the meaning the essay got diluted. Something of that sort. Hmph. Okay I'll hold on until October. I'm actually becoming accustomed to hearing fast French. :/

Yeahhh and Bio grade boundaries are way too high!! 90% for a 7?!! Like I got a 75% for the test then I drop down to a 5. Ewww. Means I better work harder or sth. Don't tell me to chill because my life is pretty messy now.

English Lit... HL. A rather fun and interesting class, but terribly difficult. I thought I tried my best, ends up I scraped a pass for the essay. -.- Oh my teacher is so so funny; we're reading Death and the Maiden now and it has sexual innuendoes everywhere and the 3 boys in my class start giggling. SO she made everyone say 'cocks and panties' so that we'd get over this laughing stage and deal with the sexual connotations sanely. Well now the boys are kinda crazy over this phrase; they repeat it every day. It's rather amusing, but sometimes I just need to tell them to shut up. Haha. Oh my English lessons. :P

Hmm I've been playing quite some table soccer during my lunchtimes. :) So fun. And I choose boys to play against - the only way to improve right? I mean girls usually suck. AND IT IS SO FUN TO BEAT BOYS :) So far I haven't lost to any boy yet hehehe. Well except for one because I deliberately gave him the last point of our 2nd game so that his egoistic self wouldn't be too damaged. -.- 10-9.

This is bad; seems like table soccer is the only thing I'm doing well in in school...? :o

Gonna check out some American colleges this Sunday. Duke, Stanford, UPenn and Georgetown are going to Zurich for a presentation, so I guess I'm going there with my mum to listen to what they've got to say. Not like I can get in. :s

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: school

Full marks for the first ToK oral presentation! Whoohoooooo. Okay it was only worth 5 marks, but it has really pumped me up. I love ToK haha. Talking about all sorts of crap spices up my life indeed. Well that's to start off on a happy note. Things get worse. 9/13 for first Maths pop quiz when people actually get full marks. Stupid mistakes as always. English poetry commentary today; I can go kill myself for taking Eng Lit HL because the poem was so hard I didn't get it at first! After staring and re-reading it a billion times, I think I got sth out of it. Hopefully my interpretation is right... And what else... French oral tomorrow DIE DIE. French essay due this Friday and I'm only 40% done, and I know it's lousy anyway. Chem test next week on crazy mole concepts which I need so much practice on but can't find time to. -.-

Right enough about the workload. Know what? I think I'm becoming a REBEL. My parents told me to quit the school play, but no, I'm staying. Well I got a role with 5 lines ahaha. Not main duh but no silent either. ;) we are acting Oklahoma, a musical with some romance and comedy. Should be pretty fun; some songs are already stuck in my head. Really bad because during the English commentary today the silly tune was playing over and over again in my head; freaking distracting.

I should stop procrastinating and get on with my Biology lab report. So mafan.

Oh yeah last night was a mid-autumn festival fair and exhibition in Basel. Never knew Basel had such stuff. Thanks to David (the abc) who told me about it. More well-informed than me hmm.

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: school