descensus (in insaniam)

and here comes the three weeks of finals (as i try to survive my ungodly stomach upsets that i have had the past couple of days recollecting my memories...)

week of 17th november (week 14 of school) - the funny thing about study week is, once you find a spot on the first day u go to the library for the grind, u end up wanting to go back to that same spot for the grind. even if it is a little bit noisy, or a little bit distracting, u just end up wanting to go back there. and u realise that for more than half (maybe 2/3's) of the population, it is the same mindset. so the people i see everyday vary quite little LOL. and somehow or rather with smu being so small i end up seeing the same few people every time. 

always sat at level 4 in the library facing the stairs/connexion. sometimes went to the study rooms that softball booked but realised no one used it because...we all have our own quirky spots in the library HAHAH/people just prefer to study at home/people just prefer to have their own smaller gsr's. but i practically spent the entire week just grinding my sust ops open book notes - i did end up finishing a couple days later than planned but that meant that i could focus on my other 3 mods together after that since sust ops is the last paper and all i would need to do is just shorten my notes and make sure i understand them heading into finals. 

honestly there was not much to this week...just studying, trying to survive the grind, complaining to people, and just laughing through the pains...it is really the time of staying alive (or trying to do so)

week of 24th november (finals week 1) - some people hate finals starting late and others hate it starting early. normally, i belong to the latter. but given that i had imagine dragons concert on monday the 25th (first day of finals), i realised that it was a blessing to have my finals start on the 29th HAHAH. concert was GOOD like its not just the fact that dan reynolds was half naked for all but the first couple songs, but the stage background, confetti, beach balls, and the stage presence were all also so so so amazing. and honestly his monologues about just enjoying urself in the moment, just stepping forth with ur struggles, and not be afraid to open up to friends or professional psychiatrists, is something that i think a lot of people don't/didn't know. and its great that people are advocating for opening up about ur own struggles instead of bottling it up inside u. 

songs-wise, i definitely hollered. and he definitely conducted the crowd for every other song's chorus. i mean looking at the setlist, u can tell that the songs were meant to be hollered in the chorus. the only guilty thing i think is i practically recorded every song (except a couple here and there) but I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH i needed a keepsake so i just held my phone at chest/neck level and just tried to look at them on stage with my own eyes (not through the phone) the entire time...oh wells. 

anyways after all those shenanigans i ended up going back to the same spot in library to study (also yes i realise i have not been to law library for ages...for some reason) and practically spent most of the days studying with bondue faith bcuz we each needed a study buddy ig. i think the study buddy is more of just a companion there as a support system if needed and not really to chat (except if its mealtime)? or at least that's my main takeaway. oh and also to ensure that they have a place to sit and study LOL bcuz the library gets full wayyyy too quickly...

and then i realised that the library only opens on sunday at 1? and then i had to survive from 10 something in commons haiz where everyone was being noisy and stuff zz so annoyingz

and my first paper on friday was logs and transport mgmt...man i swear i have no idea how i did for that paper bcuz i just tried to dump the keywords as much as possible (and to think that i am forced to take this prof again next sem for another module...) i just hope that i did put the right keywords in the right places. 

week of 1st december (week 2 of finals) - i was really banking on my service process final to have that cheat sheet. but on the last week of lesson i remember my prof telling us 'oh no cheat sheet allowed' like OMG i knew i was cooked bcuz i had an exam before that in the morning too and the mcq was OPEN ENDED so i had to memorise that PLUS service process..if anything the only thing i could bank on was my service process midterm being one of the highest in class...

i decided for my tuesday morning paper (ship biz) that i would just try to do things a little bit more adventurously. yknow, taking the harder open ended question or smth. okay tbf i did that because i wasn't confident in the 'easier' question and i didn't really prepare for it, and also i think it would be so commonly picked that the prof would be stricter in marking, whereas the harder question (which is scenario-based and also open to some variance in interpretation) would be easier for me to get marks. BUT it's also more fun because it's smth u wouldn't be able to predict. 

then for my afternoon paper i walked in and...i decided to start with the open-ended questions and that is when i knew i was kinda fked because i saw the first qn and immediately had a mind-blank. tbh even in the 2.5 hrs between my papers that day i was already so out of it i just wanted everything to end in that moment and i couldn't bring myself to revise that day. even the hot honey lemon from koufu didn't help. eventually i just tried to do the paper and i just tried to stay concentrated on the paper and just fly through the mcq question (and try to solve that first open ended question that stumped me to no avail). and that is when i knew my hope of a second A+ in smu went up in flames. but oh wells i figured i would still get a A- at worst unless i was hella unlucky. 

on thursday, i had the sust ops paper. and i swear the mcq's were really tricky because some of them are multi-select and it's not explicitly in the slides/readings and is based on subjective opinion or what prof said in class. and i realised that i made a couple of stupid errors in my open ended in the end that may cost me a sub-grade (tbf it was probably very minor like 3-5 marks (or less) but still...)

and that was the end of finals! idk i didn't really openly celebrate with anyone right after the paper ended and i didn't scream into the abyss or anything but ig having a lil karaoke session with some friends who also finished their paper later in the afternoon was fun and liberating :-)

and with that, school's out. and next comes the holiday entries. 

- steve, still procrastinating applying for internship