Finally set up my CDP account!

Hazy days

It seems like the annual haze is back...
I don't really see the haze but apparently the news reports that the haze is indeed back and the all too familiar PSI readings are back up on our TV screens haha...
I sure hope the haze does not get very bad
Otherwise, we'd all be kept indoors again

Something long forgotten

Just finished dinner with my family at home. Somehow conversation during dinner came to be about my grades in primary school and how I topped my class for the first two years of my primary school studies. At this point I was a little surprised. I had thought that I only topped my class in the first year and got 'second in class' the subsequent year. As it turned out, there were two 'first in class' in that year (primary two). A girl in my class at that time, whose grades had always been very close to mine, finally caught up with me and thus both of us topped the class that year. Haha, that was the closest she got to catching up with my grades, I was still "undefeated" in that class of my lower primary school years:) Haha.
I had really long forgotten about this part of my early school years. It was only when it was again mentioned that I had some vague memories of that. Still, it sure was very good "news".

Latest... Results!!

Hot news, which I only just received!
The results for my finals have finally arrived!!

After all the anticipating yesterday, I am really glad and relieved with what I saw on the screen when I logged in to the site. I had passed all my modules with the exception of Statistics 2. Well, I had been well aware that it was impossible to have passed that anyways (details in the earlier post).  What I'm really relieved with is the fact that I've passed my Introduction to Economics module. There are quite a few modules in my second year which hinged on me passing Intro to Econs and it was thus imperative that I secured that prerequisite for me to continue with my studies. As there were a few who had gotten their results since yesterday afternoon, I had been really anxious since yesterday, expecting the worst. As it turned out, I had passed and will be continuing with my studies in Year 2.
Of course, after this first round of University examinations, I am in a better position to produce better results for future examinations. On reflection, I have really been lacking in keeping my revision in pace with lessons. Well, after one year of Uni studies, I am sure to put in more time and effort to revise consistently and to do more practices to test my knowledge.
Next up, I'm going to select my new classes soon and then... I'm coming for you Year 2!

Reflecting on finals...

Hmm, I shall now do some reflection on my finals. I've certainly not had much time to write about it while I was having my finals.

EC1002 - Intro to Econs
Okay, so first up, Intro to Econs! I had this paper almost four weeks ago. That was on 06/05 and it was to be my first ever UOL finals paper! The exam, as before, was to be held in Halls 7,8 and 9 of EXPO and I set off from home early that day hoping to get to EXPO earlier to orientate myself. Oh yes, since JL was in the east, I got him to come along as well to meet me at the exam venue before my paper. He then stayed on until after my paper.
Moving on to the paper, I found the MCQs quite manageable and managed to answer most of the MCQs quite confidently (ie. without any guesswork). However, there were still a couple of more challenging MCQ questions so hopefully I managed to make some good calculated guesses? Haha, I guess doing all those MCQs with ZH the few days before the Econs paper had been helpful.
I had some problems in Sections B and C though. Although I had done lots of questions on Sections B and C(long answer questions), and so could see a pattern in the papers from past years, this year's paper had questions which were asked quite differently and I screwed up quite badly in answering those questions. Indeed, after discussing about the paper with some classmates during the past couple of days, I realised one of the two questions I did was definitely answered incorrectly. I'm not too confident about my second question as well. So now I'm just hoping I did well enough in my MCQs to get a pass.

ST104A/B - Statistics 1/2
The day after my Econs paper, I had my Statistics papers. It was Statistics 1 in the morning at 1000 and Stats 2 later in the afternoon at 1430. As most of you might already know, our exam script was given to us without the statistical tables. When I asked the examiners for it, I was told to make my own assumptions first and the examiners will take our assumptions into consideration when marking. I felt this was quite odd. As it was, it later turned out that the statistical tables had indeed been missed out and so there was a re- exam for Stats 1.
As for the paper I had that day, it was quite manageable. This being Stats 1, there were more theory questions which required qualitative answers rather than calculations. As such, I was able to "smoke" some answers out as I had grasped the theory and understanding of the content. As for the calculations, they were fortunately still rather easy.
After the first paper I had that day, I went out and saw JL already there waiting for me. We had lunch at a nearby Mac's during which I tried to memorise as many formulae and what not hoping to salvage my Stats 2 paper. I knew it was going to be a disaster as I had done hardly any practice of those Stats 2 questions. While I was desperately trying to understand all that "Greek" on my notes, I heard from a friend that he had rushed home to get his copy of the statistical tables. Well, even if he did get himself there and back home in time for the next paper, there was no way that he would have been allowed to bring his copy of the statistical tables into the exam... right?
All efforts to salvage my Stats 2 paper proved futile as I entered the examination hall, having not absorbed anything from flipping through my notes at the eleventh hour. As it turned out, more than 70% of the paper was on Estimation which was the topic I chose to skip as I had no idea how to perform the calculations of questions from that topic. Thus, I just tried to salvage as much as I could and wrote as much as I possibly could, which was not a lot really. I was just hoping I had done well enough in Stats 1 so that the marks will even out.

MT105A - Mathematics 1
After a weekend of revision, I was back in the examination hall on Monday, the 11th of May. After my Econs and Stats paper were over, the next couple of papers were much more relaxing. I had Maths 1 on that Monday.Being Maths 1, the paper was really a breeze. I left the examination hall feeling I might just get an A for that paper!

MT105B - Mathematics 2
A week after that, on Monday again - the 18th - I had my Maths 2 paper. It didn't go too badly but it was definitely not as "smooth" as my Maths 1 paper. That was once again mainly due to a lack of practice in the months before the paper. Still, I should have no problem getting a pass for that paper. Hopefully after the grades even out for both my Maths papers I can still secure a Second Upper grade.

SC1179 - Contemporary Sociology in a Global Age
On the Wednesday of that same week, I had my last paper( not counting the re-sit for my Statistics 1 paper). It was my Sociology paper, 'Contemporary Sociology in a Global Age' to be exact. I was quite excited for this paper actually as it was the only paper I took where I could make use of what I had learnt in from writing General Paper essays. Moreover, I had studied a lot for this paper and English writing was something I was more confident in so I had been looking forward to taking that Sociology paper. By the end of my last essay, I sure felt that I had used most of the content quite effectively and most of the content was most certainly accurate.
There is one essay which I am quite confident in which was on the topic of 'Crime and Deviance'. I had spend quite a lot of time on that and I was really glad there was a long question on that. However, time was still a problem so there were a couple of rather rushed essays too. Those were likely going to get lower scores. I should have no problem securing a pass in this paper, and hopefully even an A or B grade? Well, this is a qualitative paper, so I guess I can be a little more optimistic on this one.

ST104A (re-exam)
The re- exam of my Statistics 1 paper rounded up my finals. I had only just taken it a few days ago on the 28th of May and it was surprisingly quite smooth sailing too. There weren't many questions I could not answer. I am sure that was a result of me having used a large portion of my time during the few days before that paper to really study the content in detail. After all, I was done with all of my other papers so I could focus all my time on this one module... haha! Yup, so I'm feeling really good about this paper and glad for the re- exam(unlike most of my peers, I'm sure). I'm just hoping I would do well enough in this paper to pull my Stats 2 grades up to get an overall pass.

Hmm, that's all for now. Till the next update. ciaoz!

Once in a lifetime experience

Hi all once again! I just got back from a rather quick meet up with JL. So what did we go out for this time? Well, race pack collection for a 10km NILA Run on the coming Sunday.

Now, that sounds kinda scary considering that we both just returned from walking 30.1km(that's 7 x 4.3km) around Bedok Reservoir for the 50 Hour Non Stop Run just yesterday. Despite just walking round and round the same loop seven times, it still was quite an interesting experience. For one, the idea of a running event happening over 50 hours is already an interesting concept. This meant that we could take a break during our run to go for a meal or a drink, and continue later. In fact, we could even run five or six rounds on the first day and come back again the next day to continue. So cool right? I was also going to have to walk 43km to get three medals which was our aim. Basically, we get one medal each after the third, sixth and tenth round. That is sure going to be a challenge!

Hmm, why all these talk about walking when this is supposed to be a run? Well, we did intend to do some running during this event, even if we didn't complete all 10 rounds running. However, it was only when we got there that I realised that the path we were to be running on was mostly sand, with only some short sections being hard, solid ground. This means that the ground which we were running on was really uneven. That sure made running much more difficult. Therefore, after trying to jog a little for the first two rounds, we decided to give it up and just walk the rest of the way. Due to not having trained for this run, we were both starting to pant quite a bit as well.
We decided to finish off our third round and then go for lunch as we were both getting a little hungry by then. We also really needed a break badly to catch our breaths, to get some reprieve for our aching legs and to get some shelter from the scorching midday sun. Haha, it was really a great mistake. I had totally forgotten that we would be under the midday sun for a good couple of hours if we started the run at 11am. Otherwise, I would have picked a later timing to start our run and prepare sunscreen lotion as well. We had a rather quick lunch at a coffee shop nearby, during which we hydrated ourselves with a cool drink and took a good rest sitting down. When we felt we had rested enough, we returned to the starting line to begin our fourth round. At the end of our fourth round, which meant that we had walked more than 17km, my feet were starting to get really sore.
By our fifth round, I was really starting to get quite familiar with my surroundings. The first landmark was a sort of generator I think. That was the signal that we had just started on the long route. Then next landmark was just before the 2.8km point which was the water point. A little further on and we'd pass by TP and then a bistro called "WAWAWA". Coming to that bistro meant that we were slightly more than a kilometre from the finishing point. Then we would pass by some rowing event happening on the reservoir before passing by a huge balloon of NILA floating above the reservoir before reaching the finishing point. Well, the balloon was supposed to be floating, but it was clearly having difficulty doing that haha!
It was also somewhere around the fifth round that we finally met up with one of JL's friends who was also participating in the run. Well, she was also walking too actually haha! She was only planning to do three rounds and get one medal but we did manage to persuade her to do six rounds to get a second medal. We decided to accompany her and end off with seven rounds that day, continuing the last three rounds the next day.
So, long story cut short, we finished off the last two rounds with our legs getting ever more painful, with us being so glad to move from walking on sand to solid ground. Interestingly, my feet felt less painful walking on solid ground compared to walking on sand. I could see that the others felt the same too as I saw them both hop onto the solid ground as gratefully as I did. Walking on solid ground sure offered much relief for our aching feet. I did realise that JL and his friend seemed to be doing much better than I did most of the way so I tried to just suck it up and hurry along, though I fell back quite frequently. For me, my ankles were hurting terribly with my calves and knees aching slightly. However, JL's thighs were the source of pain for him.
It was already 10pm by the time we were done. Boy were we relieved and glad that it was finally over. As we were all feeling really shagged out mentally and physically, with aches all over our legs we hardly knew which part was really aching, we decided to skip dinner. It was actually kind of comical; the three of us hobbling along gingerly on our feet. I wonder why we signed up for this to torture ourselves haha! We even wanted to take a cab home instead so that we could get some rest asap. JL's friend then suggested something called Uber which was really a much cheaper and more convenient alternative to taking a cab. I didn't know much about it so I just went along with the idea. Hmm,.. and it did turn out to be much better than taking a cab. It was definitely much cheaper and I got home in only 20 minutes!! I was really quite surprised too but relieved all the same.
Well, you might have already guessed it. We weren't ready to go for our last three rounds this morning and decided to give it up. JL's ankles were starting to hurt really badly by this morning, though my legs were feeling much better. It was still a really awesome experience, something I will remember for a long time to come!:)

Final countdown to Finals...

It's 16 hours more to the start of my first UOL paper that I will be sitting for.
I guess I am quite prepared for it. Just a little bit more of last minute reading to do, light reading of course! Actually I've been studying for two whole days since yesterday with ZH, just doing Econs for the whole day.
Of course I know I shouldn't be doing that, but once we start it's kinda hard to stop.
The result - am having a splitting headache now and am very very tired, mentally shagged...
Haha, I haven't felt this tired in a long while, phew! I sure hope I have given my brain a good warm up over the last two days. I will be going in for the real thing tomorrow.
And of course I've also got to simultaneously be preparing for both my Stats papers as I won't have time to prepare for them tomorrow. The Stats exams are right on the day after my Econs paper.
All the best to myself for tomorrow I guess. I'm ready!!
Haha I am actually really anticipating taking my first UOL paper as a University student!
I am surprisingly calm... I hope that's a good thing?