17th oct Friday:

Well, the night before I really intended to just don’t sleep and just study on. so I was worried that I might fall asleep and so set my alarm to ring at every hour so as to jostle me awake to continue studying should I fall asleep. It wasn’t very useful. But then I of course I know the obvious like whether this would really help significantly especially so when your brain is so stoned from the information overload. Then you also need the sleep before a paper etc etc, I know it all, heard it all, in fact I even tell that to other people. Technically speaking your brain can better absorb the information and digest/grin on the information that you have taken in during the day when you are asleep.

But when you haven’t even pass the stage of reading all the stuff you ought to have memorise, going to sleep makes you feel guilty. Not that I choose not to have read, maybe you can label me as slow, but the language barrier is so great and its best to just memorise it on the first time around. Not to mention when you suffer from information overload, you can’t put anymore in or risk having some dropping out via some small unknown channel.

Today’s paper was really an experience. The 2 sections were printed as 2 separate sets and one of them, the one on the x-ray topic, I totally don’t know all the answers in there save a 5 mark question. It was really terrible. Never had such an experience before! Thought this kind of experience will make time crawl super slow, will make you wana kill yourself in the process but amazingly, time still moves!!! Not that I am glad that it is moving in such a way but it wasn’t as terrible as I have depicted it out to be.

Then after the paper, took time to go so the residential permit and when she insisted I can’t just extend my overdue residential permit and that I bring the apartment’s rental agreement to prove, and the fact that the my other housemates actually just go it done just like that, I was so stressed and pissed that I almost tear. But in the end, I went back to grab the stuff etc etc then finally getit done already:P

Well, the original plan was t come home to sleep in the afternoon but I wasn’t really sleepy by then. To make things worse, the neighbor upstairs was doing some sort of renovation so totally cant sleep. So in the end I watch Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King extended version that I bought in Singapore but haven’t watched yet. Besides dinner, there asn’t anything much left to mention of the night.

I really like watching LOTR and can watch it many times without feeling sick of it. I think LOTR should be a literature book or something as it os just so fantastic, I didn’t finish reading the book but I really love the 3D feel to every character in the story, even though they my be elves, or half-lings or whatsoever and I think it is really touching at some scenes, shows how people grow after a major incident, especially in the part 3. The honor given to friendship throughout the show, between Fordo and Sam, between Pippin and Merry, between Gimli and Legolas and even generally in the fellowship. I always feel sad watching the last part of the show as it is time to part but knowing that the friend will always have a special place in your heart and is part of your growing up. Its so true to the heart….

Could imagine watching the extended version with denise and I know she hasn’t watch it yet and can blatantly see and hear our comments and gossip about all the additional scenes etc etc…sigh….

16th october, Thursday:

I think being in my course is really scary. You really don’t know how scared, worried stressed you can get till the point that you can proclaim that it is the scariest exam ever.

I remember doing it quite a few times in the past. The anatomy in year 1, another anatomy in year 2, the pathology in year 3. Especially the last 2 when an enormous, gigantic, load of information is cramped into us as the lecturers are given a scope to cover within the ridiculously limited short no. of hours. They will often tell us how crazy is our schedule and we, on the student end of things, feel even more terrible and demoralized. Then we will be memorizing, some memorizing better than others till the point that we are numb to the thing we are memorizing and our brain just won’t cooperate to make things more difficult.

It’s the same now. History only seems to repeat itself and only gets worse and never better. The text was meant to be covered over 3 months but we are to be done n exmined in 1 month, not to mention to obvious language barrier that everything is in Chinese, all the terminologies. The teachers also complain we have too little time and complain we don’t absorb fast even or don’t revise fast enough. Well, even the teachers teach till the point that their throat is pain, moreover us who are listening and trying to absorb the information as our own. Sad….

I think I am so going to be screwed tomorrow. It really feels terrible to be in such a state and I don’t think it’s funny to say you deserve it. So tempted to just throw in the towel and just try and if not just take the paper again but that would be a waste of the effort that you put in this time round. But the effort put in this time doesn’t seem to be yielding much. Is there something wrong with the equation this time? I lost in the” vexed-ness” of things.

Fortunately and it’s a real blessing to know there is a God that I can rely on…

15th oct wed:

Well, didn’t blog the last few days as there wasn’t anything much and moreover I wasn’t in starcbuck. Not that I don’t have internet access at home that I only blog at starbucks too but that I think I really like being in starbucks and plugging into the music online or in my computer.
This afternoon n tomorrow is off for us as there will be exams on Friday so I decided that I should come to starbucks least I slack at home and sleep or whatsoever. But the truth is that I am really tired mentally and physically and it is really hard, demoralizing to be forced to memorise so much things in such a short time that most of the time I will actually be studying till the point that I think that I am stoning and I actually fall asleep at my desk yesterday night when I was studying.

I think studying really sucks. It’s stressful that there is so much and nothing seems to be going in even if u were to read it 5 times back to back but the moment you turn the page, tha’s it, you fogot already. I think I have never experience such bad efficiency at studying, moreover its in Chinese and it takes that extra effort to even know what they are talking about.

Well, I don’t suppose there is anything much to say except that I think the weather is really trying its best to kill us by gradually having a bigger gap in temp diff between the day n night, about 22 and 10 or 26 and 10??

I just hope the papers will be over soon. By then I think I will wana stone for a while more since I don’t really know if I would wana rush to the malls and streets and the night markets whatever to do some shopping tho the real motive in going out is that I just want to go out and not really do real real shopping. But then I know I will be super tired as I am already very very tired. It’s hardest in the afternoon and it is only starting, it’s 1.42pm when I write this.

6.35pm:

Well, basically I am surviving on less than 5 hours of sleep everyday and on some days lesser and I think it is the hardest to endure the dread and the tired feeling, the pain in the eyes, the temptation to wave the white flag which all comes only a couple of hours after I have waked and it’s about noon time and slightly after that is the hardest. After that my body just gets used to it. Back to normal momentum or just slightly slower

They always say that those people who know what they want in lives then actually have a specific goat o work towards and they are usually the more successful ones in life? Well, subjectivity of successfulness aside, I wonder if they ever felt their on their journey and if they do what were they thinking? How many failures did they overcome? How did they overcome? Caz I am seriously tired.

11th oct Saturday: everyday, the temp fluctuates btn 20 to about 10 degree Celsius plus and minus. Walking in the streets last night was so cold that my finger tips hurt from the chill.

I think waking up every day is a grueling experience. Not to mention the fact that it is only human to wana laze slightly longer, sleep-in whatsoever but you must understand that the moment you uncover the blanket it feels really chilly and you would just want to cover back again. Woke up in the late afternoon as I only slept at around 5 the previous night. Well, there wasn’t anything much except going to starbucks to study again.

12th oct, Sunday: fine, 22-10degrees Celsius.

Though I only slept at about 4am plus last night, I woke for church at about 8am. Actually the alarm was ringing from 730 till 8 am and I was in denial from 730 until I finally got out of bed at about 810? Church this morning and we were to take the bus there for a change as the other classmates/friends/believers/sisters in Christ(don’t know what to call them but am definitely glade to know that there are other fellow Christians in the class) said it was much faster that way.

I think it’s our (Serene and I) 3rd time to church and every time, we would meet Marietta to go together and every time we are late. Opps! The bus was crowded but the most amazing thing was that we were all on the same bus, the 3 of us together with the other few classmates who went to the same church. Some of us actually board the bus at different bus stops! Not to mention that the bus comes at a rather high frequency. Amazing right?! We only saw each other on the bus or when we alighted from the bus. It was really pleasant.

Then after church(which was along the road called Liang Ma Qiao) Hu Gang said he was in the area so I went to look for him and he said that he was at the mrt station which was 1 station away from the station nearest to the church(which wasn’t very near to begin with, about 5-10min walk). So I got to the train station, took a train only to be instructed upon arrival to the destination station to walk towards Liang Ma Qiao’s direction after exiting the station. So I asked for directions and walked a couple of mins before seeing he and his friend sitting by the roadside and we walked to take a bus back. The most irritating part of the whole thing was that the bus stop where we took the bus was actually opp the Liang Ma Qiang mrt station! Damn!
The ride home was interesting as the bus we took was a double decker bus and I haven’t been on one yet since I came to Beijing. I have only been on the normal bus or the super long bus type. The double decker had an old feel to it and the upper deck’s ceiling was really low. In Singapore, I can comfortably walk on the double deck but this ceiling was so low, bending my neck only made me face the ground directly and i had to really slouch a lot to walk more comfortably. He bus really felt ancient and riding the bus was pretty fun, like to look out the window and take photos of buildings etc.

After we got back, we went our separate ways and I was off to lunch. Wah, after lunch I was super sleepy that my eyes hurt a lot just by keeping them open! So I rushed home to continue sleeping for 2 hours or so and am now in starbucks…..eyes starting to hurt again…sigh…still so much to cover for the coming exam…..sigh