I discovered many new things today.

Discovery 1: Most humans are stupid

This theory has been built up steadily throughout the day. The first lesson I had in the morning was econs tutorial, where I never cease to be surprised how Mrs Leong manages to turn every single period we have with her into a torturous stretch of time. I thought nothing much could go wrong since we were just getting back our econs MCQ papers, but she still somehow gave us the Look (the "you little dumb worm" look), and asked us all questions that we couldn't answer, not because we didn't know how to answer but because we really didn't know what she was asking for.

I have some general observations with regard to this. Mrs Leong asks us a question. We don't know what she is talking about. In order to avoid the Look we try to answer what we think she is asking. We hit nowhere near the right answer and she gives us the Look. She repeats the question in another form, and she continues to Look at us. Deciding that saying someting is better than just sitting there and looking back at her, we sprout half-formed theories linking interest rates and unemployment that we know are crap once we hear ourselves saying it. It is, however, too late, and her overall estimate of our stupidity level increases even further, and her way of overcoming it is to ask us even more questions that we cannot answer. This forms a Vicious Cycle where both sides think that the other is stupid, with the class wondering why she is asking such dumb questions and Mrs Leong wondering why we can't answer such dumb questions. I rest my case.

My theory was further substantiated in the next lesson we had, Chemistry lecture. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the lecturer had a Very Short Time to complete the syllabus, as well as the biochemistry summary which will no doubt Help In Our Revision. I fail to see how reading the lecture notes in the speed of a bullet train and jabbing the notes on the visualizer rapidly to emphasize her points manages to accomplish this. Even worse, her efforts to draw in as little breath as possible to finish her words also keeps her voice a constant monotone; and unfortunately for me, her somewhat shrill voice has the effect of penetrating my consciousness, so that I was unable to slip into a restful sleep. I don't think that many people had that problem, though, considering that most of my row looked gone to this world.

I discovered further stupidity when I was retaking my NAFA test. While the average female pretty much stops growing taller by the age of 14, the standing board jump passing mark increases every year. So the typical adolescent is expected to somehow find greater spring in her legs, even when puberty causes her hips to enlarge. For a butt heavy person like me, the stupidity of the sports council or whatever organisation designing this test is an especially sore point because I jump to the same mark every year but I'm getting a bloody bronze (which in the PE dept's opinion is a fail) because the mark keeps increasing. Argh. I got three As and 2 Cs for the rest, so I was supremely irritated after my second NAFA today.

ANd then when I went to the concourse after PE, I encountered further stupidity. Those nice silver tables replaced the big, ugly, white ones presumably so that MORE Vj students could use them. But what has happened thus far is that everyone is just moving the table together because they find that they have no space. I don't see why the money had to be wasted in the first place.

Discovery 2: Failing a test when you didn't study feels infinitely better than failing a test than you did study

This is because in the former, you know that it's partly cos you're lazy and suspect it's possibly cos you're stupid; while in the latter, you KNOW that it's because you were stupid. I find it rather ironical that I spent the most time studying for Chemistry, yet I scored the worst marks for it. The remaining nine out of ten days I had after my competition was wholly spent doing Chemistry, becasue I knew it sucked. One day was spent on math, and I left just the day before for econs and physics. To my amazement, I passed physics, math and will probably pass econs, but I GOT MY FIRST BLOODY FAILURE IN VJ ON THIS CHEMISTRY PAPER. Argh. It was almost amusing, actually. The first thing my chem tutor did when he stepped into class today was to pass around photocopied articles that quoted "success is not forever, failure is never final". With sinking hearts we made educated guesses on which category we were approximately under.

Sigh, now I feel like an idiot in more ways than one.

My third discovery is that I have:
1) Underestimated the number of people reading my blog
2) Underestimated the gossip index of the average student

This comes after certain curious souls whom I didn't know knew of my blog, as well as several individuals whom I know knew of it tapped me and asked, "ay, who is it? Is he among those on stage this morning?".

(sweatdrop)