Thoughts from a soggy mind - best served Cold

Looking back at this week in time, i’ll remember it as the Cold Week. Yes, it was freaking coooolddd!! On Monday I had come back from Physics lab at 6pm shivering and rubbing my hands together to try bring them to life. And on Tuesday…

I woke up feeling extra cold. What’s wrong with me? As it turned out…it was the weather! Imagine I couldn’t grip the handlebars of my bike cuz it was just too cold? And the strong wind made my eyes water..Resorted to walking soon after; it’s just too cold to attempt cycling. And guess what…it was TWO degrees that morning! Not to mention that it’s not even winter yet

Thereafter the rest of the days in the week were significantly colder than last week but thankfully weren’t as cold as Icy Tuesday. I don’t think it ever exceeded 15 degrees anymore; now our rooms are starting to get cold even with the heater on. Guess I’ll have to turn up the heater quite soon.

On Thursday C1 Floor had their Floor Dinner with the Head of Hall, Keith and the Sub-Deans, Liz and Charis. And my…was the food good!! For entree we had scallops (four big,fat ones) with seaweeds and pickled greens. Main course was chicken breast with cheese-filled sausages and sweet potato..heavenly Don’t know what herbs they used to marinate the chicken but it was really good. Then cheesecake followed for dessert and lastly, coffee and turkish delight served by Keith, Liz and Charis! Had a really fun night. Well, you can’t have a boring night when you happen to sit beside Barney and opposite Steve.

Today is Jared’s birthday Gathered signatures from close friends in Ursies with the help of Daryl, Aru, Jason and Eugene and we made a booklet out of those for him. Plus a Bleach poster drawn by Jason, autographed by fellow Bleach fans…And we went to Manuka just now to have Malaysian food! The food’s not bad and the atmosphere’s good..18 people crammed into a small restaurant, passing food down the table…get the picture? =) And Wei Min baked a cake for Jared too. Thanks so much!

That’s all for now. Gotta start studying + working on BIOL1003 assignment (based on the video "Meerkats United") tonite. Next week’s the last week of Term 2 and hence the end of Semester 1. How time flies! Then it’s the finals =(

Good luck everyone! Gambateh =)

My favourite personal message on msn this week seems to be "Distractions, anyone?".  Well, let’s just say the workload’s been heavy and I’d really like something to take me away if only for a few minutes (or hours, as I found out later =p)

On the positive side of things, I’ve two assessments less to worry about!  BIOL1003  ecology test was, despite being an MCQ, a nightmare. Had no idea what some questions were asking about (they were asking about details rather than concepts) so I resorted to the old-fashioned "eliminate some and shoot one of the rest" tactics. Turned out to be pretty accurate when I checked my notes later though :)  Then on Thursday i had my BIOL1007 Immunology presentation. Started a little nervous but managed to get into the flow of things and even got a word of praise from my demonstrator

The price of working up a good presentation was, of course, a strained and inflamed vocal box (read: sore throat). Practised too much on Wednesday night without adequate water replenishment so I ended up presenting with a sore throat on Thursday. Still manageable but later that night i was deadbeat

And that’s where distractions came in, hehe. Decided to give myself a night off and just finish off my chem lab worksheets (due the day after). Saw a fren who was feeling down on msn so I picked up my phone…and ended up talking way longer than expected! Still, i had a good time and managed to raise the spirits of my fren again so it was worth it i guess =)

Now i’ve gotta start working on my PHYS1001 Assignment..goin to the library later to search for books. AND start revising again at the same time. Sighs..exams are coming and there isn’t room to complain. Just hold your head down and keep ploughing away i suppose.

Distractions, anyone?

I’ll be running a marathon of the academic kind over the next month…Sighs. Deadlines and tests are looming large before me, like a shadow threatening to engulf my entire existence. I guess i still have it easy compared to others so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much and just grit my teeth and go on..wading through the forest of assessments and/or commitments below:

MSO Malam Kenduri
Date: 12th May 2007
Description : Not heavily involved but still gotta go to Fenner Hall tomorrow morning to help to cook and then a cameo role in the drama at night.

BIOL1003 Ecology Test
Date: 15th May 2007
Description : MCQ (thank goodness!) test based on 7 lectures that none of the 200+ students in the lecture theatre had any idea what the lecturer was talking about.
Weightage : 12.5%
My progress: Nil. Revision’s starting tonight =p

BIOL1007 Immunology Seminar
Date : 17th May 2007
Description : 10-minute seminar presentation on chosen topic (Mine’s spleen) including Q & A.
Weightage : 10% for  presentation and 5% for resource worksheet
My progress: Done with  searching for sources. Gonna  make the slides tonight.

BIOL1007 Lab Logbook Final Check
Date : 17th May 2007
Description : Lab logbook to be handed in to demonstrators for final marking. No more corrections allowed.
Weightage : 20%
My progress : One more table and one more diagram to draw, then final checking and it’s done =)

PHYS1001 Formal Lab Report
Deadline : 29th May 2007
Description: Formal lab report based on any one of four experiments done in Term 2
Weightage : 5%
My progress: Nil. Gonna start next week once all the bios’ are out of the way

PHYS1001 Assignment 2
Deadline : 29th May 2007
Description : Typed report on real-life examples of electricity/magnetism and computer-simulation games on astrophysics
Weightage : 10%
My progress: Still trying to improve my scores on those pesky games!

Semester 1 Final Exams
Dates : 7th, 8th, 12th, 13th & 14th June 2007
Description : Finals. Need I say more?
Weightage : Between 40% and 60%, depending on the course.
My progress: Happy to report that revision’s right on track

So…it promises to be a tough month ahead; particularly the next two weeks. Still, listing out everything I’ve gotta do here was kinda therapeutic. I’ve outlined what I need to do and now there’s just a ’small’ matter of trying to achieve them…

So guys, if I ever snap at you especially in the next two weeks, please bear in mind that it’s probably a combination of my hormones and the workload above.

Cheers everyone, all the best with your assignments too

p/s : International Dinner last night was FUN!! As expected they didn’t serve caviar after all but the Russian and Cuban fare on offer was excellent. Some people came in the weirdest costumes e.g a guy dressed as Anna Kournikova. Could have pulled it off but for his chest hair…..=p

Time flies…yet another week has passed and the Semester 1 Final Exam is drawing nearer and nearer. Add the fact that my revision’s behind schedule (!) and it’s not a really nice situation to deal with eh?

Oh well, it’s not really too bad except that I didn’t expect to take more than 4 nights to finish the Mechanics section of College Physics. That threw my schedule out of the window. Still, it’s another 4 weeks @ 1 month to the finals so there’s plenty of opportunities to make up for lost time. Starting with this weekend, of course!

Let’s see….Urgent priority would be to research about spleen for my BIOL1007 Immunology presentation on May 17th and revise on Ecology for the mini-test two weeks from now. Anything else fitted in would be a big bonus cuz there’s loads of other stuff as well such as the talk by Dr Paul Chen (School of Economics) and Prof Aidan Byrne (Head of Department of Physics) tomorrow night at Ursies which should be pretty interesting. Not to mention there’s buddhist society mtg on sunday plus one or two ‘extra-curricular’ activities along the way….

Ahh. A packed weekend, i see. Looking back at the week that’s passed, there’s quite a few positives though. For one, i managed to push myself back into Study Mode which wasn’t the easiest thing to do after the highly relaxing Easter break. And a comment by Aru during breakfast yesterday was insightful. It went something like this -

Someone at the next table: Oh, you’re going for lectures now? Have fun!
Aru to me: Have fun? They seriously think this is primary school or something….like
                 you’re going to kindergarten and doing colouring all day?

I guess it depends on people to interpret what’s meant as having fun. Still, it’ll be great if some of those dumbasses in CHEM1101 and BIOL1003 especially would actually realize that their parents didn’t pay ANU shitloads of money for them to talk during lectures.

Oh well, a balance between studies and relaxation would be great. Which is what i’ll be striving to achieve during this packed weekend

So all the best folks, and take care!

p/s: It’s MSO’s Malam Kenduri next Saturday! And before that, International Dinner on Thursday night. The theme is Russian and Cuban food. I wonder if they’ll serve caviar? =p