Category Archive
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It’s been a good year.
Better than last year, I think. I hope you’ve noticed I’ve been changing – or at least trying to change. I’ve been pulled closer to God, and I’ve seen my life in a whole new light. This is good – I hope it means that , in time, I’ll become better than what I was before.
The IB experience has changed me as well. I think it’s changed me for the better. I think differently, I write differently and I talk differently. It’s still me, but now I’m slightly more presentable. I just my results don’t prove me wrong.
You’ve changed me as well. This has been a strange time we’ve had together, in this strange land. It’s time to move on to a different place though. I’ll tell you when it’s set up.
Paper Review
I tried to write a long post about my papers but simply couldn’t get around to it. I’ve realized that all I really need to do right now is place them in God’s hands. No matter what, I’ve learned that alone, I can’t really achieve much, but through God’s grace, I’ve done things that are… well, beyond my own capacity.
So I’m letting go of this – no matter what I get, I know its what I’m supposed to get , in the grand scheme of things. I’m still praying I do obscenely well though.
Finale 2
We can’t talk about papers until 24 hours after them, so instead of doing breaking this rule I’m going to save up all my posts on exams and release them on November 16 or so. I think I will have a lot to say. Maybe I will even move to another blog – I like to do that when a season of Luke ends. ( Each season a different blog).
By the way, I must tell you the following.
In every stage of my life, I’ve felt – in one way or another – the guiding hand of God. I may not be as religious as I should be, and I’m trying to change that as much as I can. So here it goes.
I don’t know whether I’ll do well or badly, and I don’t know if I’ve worked enough these past few years. I would like to say I’ve tried my best, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve always been holding back a bit, slacking off when I should be working. I’m easily distracted and reasonably stubborn as well – a combi that definitely doesn’t work well together. So all I can do now is say that whatever grade I get – I don’t deserve it. If I do well, its solely because of God’s grace in my life and his influence.
Basically, it will be a miracle if I do as well as I hope I can.
Just like it was a miracle that I got into ACS (twice).
A miracle that I got into IB. ( and without crippling fees)
A miracle that I’m even able to talk about all this.
But, even I don’t do that well in terms of grade, I know its really in my best interest in the long run. I’ve made a lot of mistakes thus far in my life, and I probably will continue to make mistakes. I just hope that I can do enough right to serve the purpose that God has planned for me.
Finale
It gets harder me to to study, the closer I get to exams. (I have said this before, I know.)
Since I have a paper tommorow, I haven’t been able to do much for the past 24 hours or so. This whole week has been reasonably relaxed for me, mainly since I managed to finish the main bit of my revision on Sunday.It’s not like I’m a really hard worker, its just that I can’t do work during the exam week. I just sleep. And wait. I do a lot of waiting. I know I should be studying – I’m still not 100% sure on how to answer a ‘Nature’ question for Wars and a ‘TOT’ question for Econs. English Paper 2 is still a nightmare(I have said this before, I know), but I hope to finish reading Huck and Siddhartha the weekend before the paper, something I can do, since I don’t feel that reading is the same as studying.
With IB nearly over I feel very strange. (I’ve said this before, I know) During the last few days of my revision, I felt like I was living the past six years again, just very very rapidly. I looked at things in ways I haven’t looked at them in a long while. It was quite disturbing, but moderately enjoyable.
I haven’t burned out yet, because I don’t ever do more than 5 hours of work a day, but I haven’t been really slacking off because I haven’t done less than 3 hours a day for at least the past few weeks. Not a lot, but more than my usual efforts. I find myself hoping that this is ‘enough’ and it worries me when I wonder if it isn’t. I’m not exactly a focused sort of person and I don’t know how to change that about myself. The problem is people like me tend to end up dead or on the street. Or dead on the street. Of course, I understand that God knows what’s best for me, and know that he will see me through this minor event. However, what’s best for Long-Term-Luke usually means that Short-Term-Luke is going to have a shitty time. (I have said this before, I know.)
I enjoy the surreal. This is a particularly surreal time in my life. Let me tell you why.
For the first time ever, I’m actually less than two weeks away from something that might actually matter. What happens November 07 can change my life forever.
FOREVER!
The PSLE didn’t matter. Streaming didn’t matter. Pre-IB didn’t matter. Not even the Prelims really mattered. But this… Well, this matters. Life goes on regardless of your IB grades, but not doing well for the Finals can really screw a person up. Or at least, that’s what we have been told.
How strange it is that this is the end.
The past couple of days have been so dreamlike. I suppose I just can’t get my mind around the fact that ACS is finally over for us. This school, and the people I have met through it have shaped my life in ways that I never thought they would.They aren’t just some old school friends – after so long together, we’re almost like family now.I’ve known some of these people for twelve years of my life and I’ve known some for six. Some I’ve known for only two, but two years of IB is a long, crazy time.
I just hope that we don’t drift.
Interestingly, my uncle is coming down to Singapore for an ACS reunion thing. Apparently they’re trying to get money to pay for their teachers pensions. Its pretty cool that people still come back after 20 years.
We have a lot to be thankful for. I have ten times more opportunities available to me right now, than my father did when he was in school and a hundred times more opportunities and career paths than my grandfather.
Wikipedia allows people to edit articles without first getting accounts.This is an opportunity for much lulz.
However, after adding the word ‘carnivorous’ to the Gazebo entry, I was overwhelmed by guilt. Saddened and shamed, I furtively changed it back. Then I made an account, for no apparent reason. Perhaps it was an admission of guilt. Wikipedia is a good place, a useful place€. Who am I to deny some…architecture student of the proper definition of a freestanding, roofed, usually open-sided structure providing a shady resting place?
Grumble
Sometimes, when I can’t seem to concentrate on work, I surf university websites. It seems that I work better when I remind myself what I’m working for.
Funnily enough, the courses I usually end up spending my time reading up on aren’t related to what I tell people I want to do. For example, I just spent the afternoon reading about places that offer ‘Archaeology and Anthropology’ as well an an interesting course from Melbourne called ‘Media and Communications’. This is new for me because normally, when someone asks me what I’m going to study, I just say -
‘ Lawyering, on account of the money.’
I don’t really want money. Money is problematic and worrying.
What I want right now is job satisfaction. I do not know what that means, but I’m reasonably sure I know what it feels like. It’s what makes you get up in the morning and lets you sleep at night.
If I get a job that I enjoy – if I do something I’m happy about doing – I wouldn’t mind not having excessive amounts of stained paper under my mattress. HOWEVER, if I happen to end up doing something that I thought I would enjoy, but ACTUALLY DON’T, I feel I would need a great deal currency to find comfort , hopefully by defining myself with Scandinavian furniture.
So what do I want to do? What do I want to do!?!
Journalism sounds like fun – it sounds meaningful and exciting. It’s also pretty easy to study for. Just do something besides dentistry and then go and get an internship. But could I be a journalist? (Oh, you laugh. How sympathetic of you.)
A & A is also interesting. I don’t know what I can use it for, but something regarded as the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences, really should be worth something.
And Law also has its merits. People have assured me that being a lawyer doesn’t automatically make you rich and corrupt. They have presented detailed case studies with helpful diagrams. Lawyering is still an option.
So many choices, and so much time to decide. Why doesn’t it feel like enough?
But then again, maybe this whole discussion is moot. Money may be a terrible thing, but you really need a lot of it to actually get an education. And besides money, you also need grades. I’m a man who has never sat for an international exam EVER. I do not have any guarantees.
At all.
Really.
Wow.
I think I’m going to go sit in a corner and rock back and forth slowly.
