resumption

i still remember in the previous post i said: "okay i will talk about my midterm stuff next week" and yet here we are after finals and im only talking about it NOW after another sem is said and done. so since there has been like 70 days that has passed since the previous entry im just gonna do weekly recaps until today (hopefully i have the time to do so and i don't have too much (doubt) to yap)

anyways this is also the monthly promotion of kygo music because hes so good istg im listening to his albums typing this out

week of 13th october (week 9 of school) - i honestly can't remember what happened on sunday (13th) after the jb shenanigans i just remember reachign home at 1am because lazy monday was too good and i was just stuffing myself up in burgers. the only notable thing i remember from this week was somehow getting 7/10 for my shipping business midterm quiz which was just a load of mcq qns and one of it required u to know where the fking kiel canal was and it wasn't explicitly stated in class and we didn't have a map ugh...HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT WAS THE GATEWAY TO THE DANISH SEAS

but i also kinda vowed to myself to just start doing my revision whenever i could for finals cuz i knew that i was gonna get super cooked by three projects this year which had excel and one more which was quite intense because of the research that needed to be done (and this is a major source of stress for me this sem which i think caused a breakout that was worse than previous semesters)

week of 20th october (week 10 of school) - i think this is when stuff started to pile up? being a crazy mofo means that i went for softball training on sunday afternoon, went a bit crazy/noisy as has been the case this sem, and then went for a co concert (tsinghai) after that HAHAHA but omg okay that concert was SO BAD like the amount of random dissonances that just happened and u could clearly tell, even with a musically deaf/untrained ear, that it is NOT meant to be dissonant in anyway was crazy. the first half of the concert was still fine (when the solo-ists were all kinda carrying it). but after the freaking intermission i swear everyone just started to doze off on stage LOL missed entry after missed entry, lack of synchronisation by every section, and just the general messiness overall i literally died 7 times in 1.5 pieces after the intermission. then for the percussion solo for long teng (a cny piece) they are supposed to follow someone's lead (usually the chinese drums) but they had a FKING METRONOME ON THE TRIANGLE OR SOME SHIT WHAT THE FUCK AHAHAHAHHA I DIED THE ENTIRE 120 BARS HEARING THAT. i was trying not to guffaw in the stands sia im sorry like i respect music right but this takes the piss i cant defend this. and then i also realised that (bcuz i went with some of the guest players from smu's annual production) that there is actually more tension that what was originally known to me because of the way people convey their thoughts sometimes HAHAHAH i mean i can see that there was some awkward stuff going on but its just that, again, some ppl hide their emotions really well (couldnt be me but sure!)

this was also the start of all the school welfare hahahahhHAHAH so much free food and drinks and games and wew ig thats where SOME of my school fees are going lah horh...the rest maybe embezzled by the offices of smth #shitstirring but could be true for all we know. acf haunted house was goated for the sole reason i got a popmart from it AHHAHAHAHAH wtf i think i used up all my luck that day because whatever happened from week11 onwards was so fking not it. and ig that was a good way to destress from the fact that i got back my logistics transport mgmt midterms and i got a B- because i have zero idea what the prof is asking for (like she is looking for really specific keywords and phrases and any deviation from it means u lose marks completely lmao). also 1.5 hours for that paper was not enough i swear to all gods like the amount of text i had to read is insane. and to think i have to take another maritime module under her again next sem because i have zero alternatives (literally). sighs then i see so many ppl around me get A range also abit despresso lah ngl like its like really joever for that mod unless my finals and project could pull me up lmao

also this is the start of project hell weeks i swear from this week onwards all i see on my calendar in retrospect is project meetings and concert dates HAHAHAHAHAAB LMAO omg that is so funny pls laugh guys

week of 27th october (week 11 of school) - okay so i started working on my sustainable operations project and this...is gonna take some time to explain. 

so basically my prof stated in the lesson outline (and in class) that we should be each spending about 30-50 hours on the project (we were like wtf is she smoking ik shes turkish but surely the turkish drugs and cigs arent that much different from the rest of the world right?) then me and this girl (who is a good singer in smu soundfoundry btw) were doing the part that people insisted was the most difficult (it was) - life cycle analysis. for the most part i think i was taking a more back seat role trying to find the qualitative stuff and she was doing the more quantitative stuff (perks of being an econs student) and we kinda hashed things out on the fly bcuz we didnt really know what was the ideal end goal/product in mind. 

but somewhere along the way while we were just looking through other parts of the report we realised that there was this one part done by the other guy in our 6-man group (can i also just say i have never had a group where all the local girls were attached until this sem (i had two groups?!)) and his part was...really copy-pasted from chatgpt. u can tell how SOULLESS it was and the more i read it the more i realised okay fk this i have to make some edits and suggest others that i think might be useful to add a more intrinsic human element to it. and also (if it serves to add any spice to this story which has a sequel to it) this guy has pretty low eq? and generally u wld associate low eq ppl with high iq but i dont think he is that particularly brainy and he...lacks the social awareness. like the way he speaks sometimes is just offputting (like he only has one volume) and to quote my partner for this project: "bananas are yellow". that is, he doesnt add value with anything he says (which not gna lie right was me throughout the entire study week in week14 onwards LOL i feel like i was just so stressed out about stuff that every single human interaction i had i just didn't have the social capability to add any value to it). but anyways this guy does it non-stop. and this was just monday and tuesday.

ALSO i got back another midterm paper and i got like 90+ in it and i was so shocked cuz like i didnt expect my revision to have come through so cleanly? i was like honestly q nervous before it (who isnt) and when i saw the marks i was like on cloud 9 no cap. just the small W's to balance out that atrocious L the week before jeez.

and i finally went to another concert (i say finally when the one before this was in mid september hah). again, not a really big fan of tate mcrae (like im not a big fan of lany) BUT their music is good in general and i think the more i listen (to both), the more i appreciate the development of the musical expression in both their musical careers. better production, better songwriting, more emotional variance, more styles of music explored, and i think the music is starting to grow on me. and honestly this is why i think its important to just meet people from different backgrounds - you dont know everything and you dont know how you feel about what you dont know. so it doesnt hurt to know it so you then know how you feel about it (sorry for this convolution its just the easiest way i could think to express it - happy tongue twisting and mind bending?) but i think one of my goals for the longest time has always been to just open my mind to more styles of music (i would never have known i loved tropical house if i didn't go on my first kygo binge run between sec 4 and j1) and there's alw smth new to discover! 

anyways the concert was pretty decent. kinda sad that it was only 80mins (i guess she does only have 3 albums and most of her songs are under 3 minutes in length) but the emotion that u can feel from her stage presence (especially the dancing) is insane. i guess it pays to be a trained dancer from young AND being able to be open about your feelings? dont think just do is da wae ig

and omg then a few days after i went to the blast world finals in sentosa LIKE okay it is not an indoor stadium and it is NOT seating more than 10,000 people but wow the vibes were just immaculate. and i think this is one of the MANY things that u can enjoy doing urself because u dont need a buddy with u to see ur fave team (or any team for that matter) win the world final. just soaking in the atmosphere, having a good laugh, appreciating the godtier moments (so many of them) each day is...already worth the money. and i think being able to truly experience the sound system in person where each sound made is just magnified and the effect feels so much grander (and cleaner) than watching a livestream on youtube/twitch. would go for it again, 10/10 (maybe in europe 2025? if i can snag tickets (casually opens google to see the s-tier tournaments there from september-december))

this honestly was a great week. so much fun just juggling projects and chilling for live events (and stressing abit because i was slightly behind schedule). but would give more for this in future  :-)

- steve (recapping week 9-11 in school in this post)