Mugging, Changi and tuition

Throughout the holidays so far, I’ve been mugging like a madman.

…relatively. Compared to my prior state at least. However, I’ve been hopping around Singapore looking for a grand place to study. So far this hols I’ve studied in the Esplanade library, the airport and school. The airport is actually a brilliant place to study, although it’s quite a trek away from civilization. I engaged a chem tutor and had the first lesson today – I’ve been learning things about chemistry I never knew I didn’t know. Hopefully, this last ditch effort is going to be enough to bring my chemistry up to a 6. Likewise for my similarly last ditch attempts at math practice this week. However this is coming at a complete disregard for my HL subjects. I’m lightly reading econs, and history is virtually untouched. My knowledge on the cultural revolution is sketchy at best, and China after that involves Deng Xiaoping…somehow. Vietnam involved hippies and commies, Korea just involved commies. Thankfully history isn’t the first paper so I’ve got some buffer time to prepare for those subjects.

On the subject of the Chemistry tutor, this guy is quite possibly one of the coolest tutors in the world. He looks like a drug addict, and sounds a bit like one too. When I let him in he just plonked himself down on the dining room chair and stared blankly at us (Elliot and Chun Wui are splitting the tuition with me to bring his rate to an extremely affordable level) – Evidently we needed to do some digging to expose the chemistry knowledge hidden within him. It would be an understatement to say that we were skeptical of his prowess, after all he was a slightly hunched man in his 40s with a slight goatee and a pot belly that conflicted somewhat with his otherwise lanky frame. Despite his height, he didn’t cut a very imposing figure, and I blame both his combover and chinless face. The man looked like he went drinking during his lunch break. The worn checkered shirt only reinforced that image. Having seated himself, there was a brief silence as a brief staring match was waged. After about 30 seconds I gathered up enough courage to break the silence, and showed him the chem TYS. He casually flipped through it and muttered: “oh my god” and “wasted” now and then when he saw which topics SL chem was (thank you Jesus) excluded from.

However once he started teaching….well. HOLY HELL. When you get him started on a subject he moves at 200 miles an hour. It’s interesting that he achieves this brisk pace despite punctuating his explanations with: “maybe….possibly…I think so…most likely”. We learnt that his “maybe” is english for “damn straight”. A tuition session lasts 2 hours. Deciphering the true breadth of the knowledge that he imparted lasts an hour after the session. The methods were brilliant, although I suspect he figured them out while high one day (I still can’t shake the drug addict image).

Well, as mentioned earlier, hopefully this isn’t too little too late. *fingers crossed*