First off, I had mini movie marathons on Friday and Saturday, obsessed with the notion that considering the prelims had just ended, I could not do nothing. The catchphrase of the week was to live out my whims, and these two gatherings were similarly last minute in their planning and realization. Following this, the real living began. 

#1 – Rockclimbing on Sunday. 

One word. Pain. I found a pretty good place for indoor rockclimbing, and rung up Patrick and Elliot to come with. The rates seemed pretty reasonable, with 17 bucks getting you an all day pass and rockclimbing shoes for the bouldering wall. Further expenditure to 25 bucks would get you a harness and line as well for the vertical walls, but we decided to abstain from too much spending and keep to what we perceived to be the ease of bouldering. How erroneous we were. 

For those not in the know, bouldering consists of a wide, albeit short wall of about 3 metres high. There are cushions on the ground, so you don’t require any safety equipment, and the overall goal is more about moving sideways than upwards. The problem? It’s intensely tiring. We Rambo’d through the first 10 minutes, gallantly attempting to scale the toughest walls and hanging on to difficult handholds as long as we could persist. This went pretty well until we started to tire, and by the 15 minute mark my hands were sore and blistered hunks of flesh that paid no heed to my whims. This was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that they didn’t carry a shoe size big enough for my large (by Singaporean standards) feet. It was thus a two pronged attack on all four of my limbs, and after several more half hearted attempts at the “beginner wall”, I was more or less bled of all resolve after 45 minutes. Elliot and Patrick were in similar states and we retreated the centre, tail between legs, while being awestruck at girls who seemed to be able to scale impossible routes. The ol’ ego was further bruised by the presense of small kids who, rather irkingly, managed to do better than any of us did, for longer than we did. Ego reasons that it’s due to their light bodyweight. 

#2 – Soccer!

As the rest of the world who took HL math and geography ended on monday, I joined the KKK (A predominantly HL math union) in a round of futsal at Yiwei’s pad. A rather tiring two hour session that obliterated our pampered bodies. Courtesy of the exam preperations, nobody paid much (nay, any) attention to keeping fit, and towards the end this resulted in a hilariously sedate game. It was not without it’s toll though, as many injuries were sustained by our fragile bodies. Pffft. When’s science gonna make everybody like Superman? It was here that whimsical idea #2 manifested itself.

#3 – Night cycling

A bit of background would be necessary. The night before I had a conversation with Cheryl on msn in which we tried to hammer out the gameplan for day 1 of prelims liberation. She wistfully remarked that she wanted an adventure, and I gallantly (but quite jokingly) suggested night cycling. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) she took it pretty seriously, and midway through the soccer game I received an SMS from Elliot telling of his plans to arrange a class night cycling outing cum sleepover at Nic’s place – some 5 hours before it actually took place. Nonetheless we had quite a healthy turnout with Cheryl, Gerald, Elliot, Melodie, John, Nicholas (obviously), Jim and myself. 

We rendezvoused at 11pm at Mcdonalds in East Coast Park, and after some maintenance to my chosen ride, we set off on what I’d say was one of the most exhilirating class outings to date. East Coast Park is an entirely different place at night, and its emptiness is almost surreal. The scenary is pretty varied as well, and we seemingly traversed a variety of eerily quiet worlds – all connected by a thankfully fairly smooth bicycle path. Being night, and with the park’s situation next to the sea, there was always a healthy breeze and one only felt hot upon stopping. Setting off with initially grandiose plans of riding to Changi Airport, we eventually downsized them and settled for SAFRA resort. By the time we got back to the Mcdonald’s, it was about 12:40am, and our behinds were all bleedin’ sore. After chilling and wasting alot of time, we finally made it back to Nic’s place at about 3am. Upon which began the next phase of crazy week.

#4 – Cable Skiing

Having been thoroughly exhausted by both soccer and night cycling in the same day, I collapsed first and roused at around 9am, and the others soon followed suit. After dilly-dallying for a bit, we eventually set off again to East Coast Park, this time for wakeboarding. It was with much pain that we hoisted ourselves atop the bicycle seats (nay, pikes) and painfully pedalled the 2.8km to East Coast Park, with thighs and buttocks in full protest. Cable skiing is brilliantly, brilliantly fun. And painful. And exhilirating. And painful. After a few initial wash-outs, I somehow managed to get the hang of it enough to make it to the first turn (Surprising since the last time I went, I accomplished no such feat despite an hour of trying). The rest of the skiiers weren’t so lucky, as one by one they all switched to the kneeboard. I can’t say they had much of an easier time though, as nobody could quite make a full round of the circuit, and it seems that kneeboarding is alot more taxing than wakeboarding. 

Luckily for me, the starting pad was at the beginning of the longest straight of the circuit, which gave me quite a bit of time to enjoy being on the board – since I couldn’t quite master turning. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to tame the wakeboard and to be able to cruise comfortably, but yet doom was always in view as the first corner loomed. By the end of the 2 hour session I hadn’t been able to get much further than that, instead assured in the fact that after my brief moment of bliss, a guaranteed wash-out awaited me at the end of the straight. A close call came in the form of Elliot washing-out right in front of me, and this led me to rather quickly master turning (to some degree) lest I decapitate him. The net result of the entire wakeboarding experience was a burning desire to go back for more, and obliterating the blisters I had from rockclimbing. Not to mention a neat tan that’ll have disappeared by the time you read this post. 

#5 – Farewell Chapel, Honors Day and Class sleepover cum movie marathon

The day is wednesday – midway through the week. After recharging my batteries the night before, it’s time for the farewell chapel. This was of course a sombre moment, as I’ve witnessed so many farewell chapels, all the while it never occured to me that my time would come. Well it did come now, and it further alerted me to the realness of the looming IB examinations, and how our time in ACSI is drawing pretty quickly to a close. Rather amusingly was a slideshow of “Year 6 Life” that they put together. However, being a major contributor, it consisted mostly of “6.9 Life”. 

After the whole affair, including Honor’s Day along with the provided free food session, I quickly retreated home to take a quick nap in readiness for the class sleepover. Over the course of the sleepover, we watched “American Gangster”, “Definitely, Maybe”, “Van Helsing”, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay”, “3:10 to Yuma” and “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”. However, thanks to a rather unpleasant encounter with a Mr Jim Beam, I wound up missing most of “Definitely, Maybe” and “Harold and Kumar”. It’s a good time for that to happen though – I’ve been put off alcohol for the conceivable future. 

#6 – Shisha and Ministry of Sound

The final major event of the week was a friday night excursion to Haji Lane with a couple of classmates for Shisha, and a rather unexpected visit to Ministry of Sound. Haji Lane is a pretty quirky place, and all in all I kinda like it. It’s got a certain charm to it that’s pretty hard to describe, and it achieves this despite being home to a variety of “cooler than thou” fashion establishments. The focus then was shisha, and I must say it was pretty delightful. I rather like the taste, and the communal atmosphere of a shisha session is pretty fun. However, that’s a pretty poor excuse for Shisha consumption methinks. From a cost/benefit analysis, I don’t find it worth it. It’s essentially flavored smoke that doesn’t give much perceivable effect (unlike alcohol). It’s alot more pleasant than downing shots, but considering it’s pretty much as unhealthy (or more) as smoking, I don’t see it playing a large part in my life in future. If only they could figure out a way to remove the ill-effects…

After the shishaing, it was on to Ministry of Sound where thankfully we managed to gain access for a very small fee. This, I have to say, is one of the dumbest places in the world. I honestly don’t get the clubber mentality. I realized that it’s nothing more than a group of people getting high and dancing to music blasted at earsplitting volumes (I suppose this is a ploy to encourage grinding since you need to lean in close to achieve any form of communication). Come on. I don’t need a club for that. And everybody seems to be taking it really seriously, and trying to act all cool with VIP access and sweet-takling the bouncers, etc. It honestly reminded me of the SNL sketch: Night at the Roxbury (A more accurate representation of clubbing than you would think). There are essentially 3 main archetypes of clubbers, excluding those who are obviously paid to do it, along with the monumentally stupid who think that bringing their girlfriends to club is a good idea.I shall list them below:

1 – The intense guy. You can see this guy just off the main dance floor, normally with his back away from the group of dancers, and seeming to take his dance moves pretty seriously, popping and all. It honestly looks as though he’s staring intently at a reflection of himself in a mirror as he performs his various “moves”.

2 – The Grinder. Found in the midst of the dancing, congregated around the sole hot girl. He seems pretty snazzily dressed, looking all smooth and suave. He’s probably got access to the various VIP rooms littered around the club for supposedly exclusive guests. I fail to see how it could make a lick of difference whether you dance and get high behind closed doors or on the dance floor. I suppose the main difference is that more people get to laugh at the latter.

3 – My personal favorite, the guy who thinks nobody is watching. He’s found just off the dance floor at the tables, normally with a drink in his hand or nearby. He’s probably thinking that everybody’s concentrating on the dance floor, and dances in that extremely self-conscious “nobody can see me therefore I can do whatever I want to do without getting embarrassed’. Wrong. I see you, chum, and you’re hilarious. 

How about the club itself though? Well, I suppose I have to concede that it is *rather* cool. The rnb room has a dance floor enclosed by a cage, which looks like it came out of a movie, or a dead or alive stage. But what really impressed me was the disco room. Now this had it all. A million disco balls, a psychedelic hypno rotating wall, a light-up dancefloor, and the best thing about it, acrylic pods that dangle from the ceiling which are actually chairs which swing about courtesy of the hook through which they are attached to the ceiling. As if this wasn’t enough, seriously, who doesn’t love disco?!

All in all, clubbing is extremely disappointing, and I can’t imagine how anyone can find it fun. I suppose it’s just my own opinion, but I definitely wouldn’t pay 20 bucks to get into a club and do that the entire night. There are better things to do with my life. 

I ended off this action-packed week by finally finishing off Isaac Asimov’s foundation series which has been lingering around for the past year or so. It cemented in my mind the fact that Asimov is totally and completely AWESOME, and I fart in the general direction of anybody who thinks otherwise. I also redeemed a $110 Kinokuniya book voucher on Fairbank’s Search for Modern China and a thin but grossly overpriced (like, 43 bucks…for 200 pages) book on the Third Reich, which seems to be a consolidation of all the resources on Hitler’s Germany in a concise package, and thus hopefully worth it. Melodie suggested that I should have done my research beforehand, to which I replied: “A true artist is driven by inspiration…..and a good exchange policy. ”

As the night draws to a close, I can’t help but long to return to this carefree week, but alas I’ve gotta turn my energies, finally, to studying for the IB exams. I’m tired and I can’t be bothered writing anymore.

In other observations, bookshops are extremely depressing places. Whenever you go there, you always see millions of books that you really really really want to read, but yet in the back of your mind you know you’ll never actually get around to reading any of them. Considering the amount of “enrichment” you lose from forgoing the fruits of the labor of authors much smarter than yourself, along with the various new insights you’ll probably lose about life, the opportunity cost I’d say is pretty high.

I’ve got to get around to reading “Blink”!

English Paper 1 – Hopefully good
English Paper 2 – Probably mediocre at best, based on what Mr Connor said
History Paper 1 – Hopefully good
Math Paper 1 – Terrimable
Math Paper 2 – Much better than paper 1
Chem Paper 1 and 2 – Um…Maybe?
Economics Paper 1 and 2 – Pretty good methinks.

Today was a pretty good day – Math paper 2 was…should I say “optimistic”, and I learned that for the first time in my life, I’m getting two honor’s day certs. Thank you muchly, hockey.

This comes amidst a sudden crystallization of my love for the subject of economics, juxtaposed against the reality of the entry requirements for taking economics at University. LSE lists 7 points in HL math as a basic requirement for the course. For someone who’d be happy with a 6 in SL math, this is obviously quite a dampener. Looks like there goes my hope in Economics as a degree course. This is doubly stinging due to the realization that my best subject currently, is a sham. Real economics requires math. It seems the only economics course that I can actually try to get into is economic history, which…well I suppose it’s *kinda* interesting, but doesn’t really appeal to me as something that I’d be able to live and breathe throughout the duration of my university year. In University I don’t want another situation like I have in school where I’m taking subjects for the sake of taking them, most of which I’ll probably never require outside of school (I’m looking at you, SL maths and chemistry).

I’ve decided that for me to have any passion in my university degree, I’ll need to undertake something that I feel is immediately relevant for my future career – that or something that’s just plain totally awesome (unlikely unless they hand out degrees for slacking off anytime soon). This means that I’m pretty much in a debacle over where to take my life after IB. The reason why this has suddenly started to preoccupy me is due to the fact that everyone (well, mostly the girls) (actually, just one girl) (Melodie.) is stressing out (like, really) over university applications. Of course the matter isn’t of immediate concern to myself courtesy of the 2 years of NS that I’ll have to serve prior to my university tenure, and also because I won’t bother applying to Oxbridge by virtue of the fact that I won’t get in, but nonetheless the thought is there. The essential issue that I’m confronted with is whether or not I should just take a general-ish humanity based degree, or go on ahead and try to get into film school.

From what I’ve been reading so far, it seems that for most of the general humanities, by taking such a degree in the first place, you’re more or less giving the message that you haven’t really decided what you want to do, so you’re taking the nice and safe approach and doing a degree that gives you many options in future. For employers, they see anyone who’s done a degree in a field like Sociology or History as someone who is able to write essays/analyze/critically think – the field is a secondary consideration. After all, unless you actually want to go on further in said field as an academic it’ll be a different case, but otherwise as I mentioned, the content of the degree is of little import. I’ve got a multitude of ideas as to what I want to do in future, but it more or less leads to an “action-packed” job as opposed to a dull nine to fiver. I’ve flirted with the concept of advertising, event organization and even theatre in addition to filmmaking. No doubt this list would probably grow as I discover more in future. I suppose I’ll just go with the flow and do whatever I end up finding interesting before I settle down into something I’m certain I can do for the rest of my life (I’m not referring to finding a wife).

On the flip-side, with a film degree, I’ll be single-mindedly channeling myself into the field of filmmaking, with little recourse. Unless I take a film critique course (which actually falls more under the above “humanities degrees”), a film degree would be a very practical and vocational course which would prepare me immediately to jump into the pretty dangerous film world. However, a degree isn’t crucial for one to work in the film industry – it only gives you the opportunity to build up a nice portfolio so you immediately have something to show for when you want employment. I’m pretty worried about the pigeon-holing aspect of this degree. Furthermore, I’d be lying if I said that the “pride” factor didn’t play a part. After all a degree in Sociology sounds a whole lot smarter than a degree in filmmaking. Sure you can argue that the passion for the work really plays its part. I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy a film degree, but I don’t have to take up a film degree in order to do filmmaking in future – I can still do films on the side, regardless of which degree I take up.

What further compounds my problem is the fact that I’ve suddenly begun looking on the UK in a better light. Previously I had my mind pretty set on America, citing the terrible weather as an excuse for my lack of interest in the UK. However, one thing that’s been niggling me is the fact that London is a really charming city – impressive especially considering it achieves this feat in spite of the dismal weather. I can’t speak for America though, since I’ve never been there before. The impression I’m inevitably left with is therefore what I’ve seen on American TV (which I’m sure probably isn’t a very accurate representation), and I envision people walking around with 9mm pistols, ready to shoot you down for the slightest disagreement (I should really stop watching this). The only way to find out I guess would be to take a trip down to America to find out first hand what I’d be getting into if I applied to a US university. I’m even having doubts about the university I should go to – I used to think that I wanted to go to UCLA only, but ultimately this will change based on what course I wind up doing in the end.

Oh well. I’ve still got lots of time to go before I need to make a decision, so I’m hoping some major epiphany will come my way in future.