Today's training session was very good. The moment I arrived, cuo qiu. Then when the twins came, cuo qiu bi sai. I won, so I was rewarded with a drink that I had originally declined.

I left Julian behind as I went for Lunch alone. Feeling in no mood to eat, I merely took a chocolate cone from Macdonalds. I regretted this afterwards when I returned to the school, for by then I had started to feel hungry.

I was asked to play with Yi Kar, who had just come back from the Lianhe Zaobao tournament. I beat him 3 - 0, but he was really missing all his la qius, the balls went past his bat physically. I was promised another drink if I beat Yen Kar too, and it was 3 - 2, but he forgot about it. I didn't chase him for the drink. Next was Nicholas, I won 3 - 2, to which coach's response was for a best of 7, continued. Lost one, won one, so overall I won 4 - 3. Another drink if I beat 2 more opponents, coach said. Next was.... I'm not sure of his name??? 3 - 0 it was, anyway. The final opponent was supposed to be Liang Heng, who went home, and Nicholas wasn't happy with our match so he wanted to play again. I lost 3 - 2 this time, so coach passed him the drink.

The Doubles game was depressing, I was already worn out by Nicholas, I was paired up with the weaker of the 2, and it was very hot. The worst part was jiao huan. Yi Kar, Nicholas, that guy whose name I don't know and I. Yi Kar picked Nicholas immediately when given the choice as he felt that the other guy was much weaker, which turned out to be true. I lost 2 and won 1, and even then it was 3 - 2. Guess which one we won? The one with Yi Kar, of course!

Up next, was Gerrat. I can safely say that this was the most intense match of the day. He caught every single lucky ball I shot at him including those that hit the sides of tables or went just over the net, and they catch 99% of people off guard, causing them to lose the point. The net ones may be ok, but the balls that touch the side of the table are nearly impossible to return consistently, but that was what Gerrat did. He was ready all the time as though he expected his opponent to be aiming for that spot. So it seemed like if I did that, I lose, because I myself did not expect him to return those balls. I lost to him, 3 - 2, final set 11 - 8.

Then we have.... the Nanyang Triplet???? A drink for beating all of them, and I totally failed that. Beat Joy, got trashed by Jerilyn and lost to Yirong. Jerilyn's chang jiao causes the ball to feel so heavy and I can't pull the ball up. And then Yirong, with her Anti and her smashes which always seem to go in..... I just couldn't win.

Lianhe Zaobao cup was not a disaster that I had expected. Even if I had been through the first round, Julian would have beaten me anyway, he got a Bye. I played with some SSP guy who didn't seem to be up to standards. But then, neither was I. I lost 3 - 0 with scores 11 - 8, 11 - 9 and 14 - 12. I served out at least 5 balls, was faulted for Service thrice and hesitated a lot which resulted in at least 5 worthless outs. Thus, I feel that I could have won but due to those ridiculous mistakes, I was unable to win. Yi Kar was my advisor for the match. Sean and friends showed their support as well which I really appreciate. Sean, Seth and Yi Kar will be moving on tomorrow so I wish them luck in their match. :D

Training yesterday was good, much better than Sunday. I felt so lousy on Sunday and I left early at about 5pm. It was also very hot and I was sick. But yesterday, I felt that I was back up to my level. We all turned up after being told by Sean to do so, but the reason why was unclear and thus we were left in anger as for those who had not wanted to come, they had just followed Sean's words blindly. Kai Xun, although having missed training for several weeks, still kept his skill and could get back his control by the first ball, it was just incredible. I was having trouble even serving a simple ball, the bat felt so awkward. After a couple of hours, however, I felt much better. However, I still lost to him even when he was tired.

Yay Exams are over I'm not going to talk about the last 3 papers. Gaming season has restarted :D

Chemistry wasn't too bad, but others felt that it didn't go well for them, so I don't know if I'm getting all the wrong answers and not knowing it. Ming Xuan said time was tight, Kai Xun had difficulty for MCQ while Keefe, definitely not in good shape, he left one whole page blank and didn't know that he did. It had torn off from the back of the paper and he didn't realize it. It was only when the teacher came to collect his papers that he did. Fortunately for him, it was the page containing the Periodic Table, or that page might have been full of questions, so it was only 1 side, and that one side contributed 7 out of the 100 marks available.

"Studied" Biology and Chemistry over the weekend. I'm not confident of it. Going to hope for the best tomorrow.

I was trying to ask Ming Xuan and San Zeng a question yesterday so when I went online I saw them both and got them into a conversation. Then Ming Xuan said he did his Chemistry paper on Friday and said that he would be doing Physics on Monday. And I asked what he was doing that for if Physics was already over. Then Ming Xuan said "Different school", and I looked up at his address and found out that it was the wrong Ming Xuan I was talking to. Just then, the real Ming Xuan came online and I dragged him in for a 4 way confusing conversation. At least both Ming Xuans used contradictory font colours, one red and one blue.

Physics paper was not all that great. I couldn't do some questions but I tried. I had to leave 2 blank though. Completely no idea on how to solve it. 4 marks out of 100, gone.

Yesterday's papers were satisfactory, today's papers were not.

Chinese paper 1 wasn't too bad. At least I had my Chinese Dictionary, unlike some people, and I'm not referring to the scholars, they probably don't even need to look at the paper.

During the break I was dragged off by Reuben and Russell to an 'empty area' to study for Geography. I was confident for this subject and the first question from Russell was how much forest was destroyed by Forest Fires in Kalimantan. I gave him the answer with the years included, and Reuben was immediately shocked as he did not expect to remember the years. That information was from the notes, so he took the textbook and asked me the diversity of the Rainforest in Kalimantan. 380 species of birds, 10000 species of plants, then Reuben pressed for more and I gave him 3000 trees and 2000 orchids. He went "and?", and I was wondering what else there was. Then it suddenly popped up. Of course the smallest squirrel in the world at 11cm in length, unique in Kalimantan. And both their jaws dropped. I did not memorize that, I was just fascinated by that fact, which was why it got into my head.

Well, memorizing Geography in detail caused me to spend too much time on one question, which led to less time for other questions and resulted in me failing to complete the paper. I had all the facts in my head, I just couldn't write fast enough, and that's one of the reasons why I think that time limit is unfair as some people don't have the writing speed. But how are you supposed to prove that you didn't use that time to think about your answer and end up with only 5 minutes to write?

Today's first paper was Social Studies, and I thought Maths was first, so I took out my calculator and Flexicurve, after which Ming Xuan asked me why. haha. Social Studies, just like Geography, was a paper of writing constantly throughout the time given. And again, I did not finish writing, but like Geography, I was at the last paragraph, so I won't lose too much for that.

Then I went below standards for E-Maths. The question paper stated in bold to "Complete Section A on this question paper" and "Complete Section B on the writing paper provided". I did not read that part and thus did Section A on the Writing Paper. It was only at Question 7 that I realized I was supposed to do it on the paper itself. When I reached Question 7, I was stuck and decided to skip it first. Then I realized that I had come to the end of the 2 sheets of writing paper that I was given. And no one else had asked for extra paper. This was not right as I was not the fastest in my class. There was also a lot of blank space between each question on the question paper. Then I turned back to the cover page and found out that I was supposed to do it on the Question paper. Hence, I spent about 10 minutes copying my answers over. I had done my working on the question paper previously for question 7, so I had to take that off.

The rest of the paper was ok until the Graph. I've lost 6 marks there, 4 marks for Question 7, 2 marks off a Triangle Question and 2 marks for the 3rd question as I had made a careless mistake while copying my answers over… I might get some working marks as I was told by my friends that I had been going the right way, but I had not been sure and thus left the answers hanging.

English Paper 1: It was...... ok. I don't think I presented my point well enough and of all the people I asked, which numbered to about 20, only one other person picked Shanghai. I myself had to fight back the other very tempting option of Xi'An. I spent a lot of time on this section as I couldn't find good points or words to use :(

The essay section went well though. I turned the paper and picked Question 4 as I expected it to be an Expository Essay. Well, it was, but I did not read the other questions, and one of them happened to be something that I did before. Nevertheless, I enjoyed writing my essay and agreeing that efforts to save the environment are futile.

Paper 2 was not a disaster but there were a few words that I didn't know. Idyllic, Monarchs and Excrement came out. I could figure out Excrement, but it's a really disgusting word. Besides that, the summary was incredibly difficult even after chucking away 1 whole paragraph. But I did manage it in the end.

I finally memorized, or almost, the whole lot of Social Studies notes. Geography is so much easier. I can say that the notes are more "user-friendly"? There were so many difficult words that I didn't know...