Diary of an Asian Kid

18 Jan 2011

18 January 2011, Tuesday

Finals today! We're doing English, Science, Math, PE and Health Education today. Tomorrow's Chinese, Social Studies, and spring cleaning. I can't wait for it. Yeah, right.

Didn't get much sleep, as I was up until midnight writing. But I've gone to sleep at that time for a while now, so no change.

Even though I went to school by car and Victor on his bike, we still arrived at the same time. However, he kept going, "I'm going to be late!" and walking really quickly. I tried to keep pace with him, and met Christopher and George (on of the boys that were in the harmonica class with me in primary). I was almost at my staircase then.

There were, as usually, a bunch of boys playing Yu-Gi-Oh! in the classroom, even though it's finals today.

Both the test and 1st periods were study periods. I spent one looking through Earth Science and the other sleeping, because the first exam was English. I had a good twenty minute nap during the test, too. It's ridiculously easy this time; I later found out from Miss Chen that I got full marks (Yippee!) along with around five others. That's a bit much, even for English. Damn it, I've lost my edge. It's good for me when the test is harder, of course. But English is always the easiest subject out of the five (For people who've been to cram school, though. Here in Taiwan, if your English is good, it's either because: (A)You're a foreigner, (B)You've lived abroad before (C)Your parents taught you or (D)You've been to a decent English cram school).

I managed to refrain from sleeping away the study period before Science. I looked through the textbook quickly, then fell asleep.

Science was rather easy; I do think that I have a fair chance of getting at least a ninety. However, lunch was immediately after it, so I didn't have time to ask around for answers.

Alice had to go into her class today, so I had to go up four floors to find her, as I did before she started going to the library. I sat with her, Jenny, and Yvonne on the wider part of the corridor. After a bit, Yvonne disappeared into her class and never came back out. Oh, well.

Since Alice had only finished studying Science right before the exam itself, she had to guess a lot of the answers. Sigh. I did try to get her to study some during Saturday, but it didn't work. She preferred to sit and stare at the pages blankly without taking anything in. No motivation to study at all. She's not going to be able to get into either the Business College or a school abroad if she keeps on like this. I'm really worried for her.

It seemed that I still haven't finished my sleep quota today, since I fell asleep again during nap and almost couldn't get up.

The study period before Math was mostly utilized by me for studying Health, which was scheduled for the 7th period.

Even though Math was really easy, I still got four questions wrong. That makes it 84. All because of stupid mistakes! I'm furious at myself. Darn, darn, darn it all. Even Li Kong got full marks!

After the twenty-minute cleaning break, in which no one did what they were supposed to do, it was time for Health and PE. Simultaneously, and on separate papers. There are ninety questions in all, and Mr. Xu was late handing out the papers because we were too noisy.

Health was easy, but PE? I've no idea. I managed to finish the pair of them in half an hour, though I couldn't sleep after that. Quota's filled, apparently.

We got to go home at only a bit after four today! Initially, I left the school quite quickly (and met Mom at the pedestrian crossing, too), and saw that Christopher's bike was still there. He'd probably gone to play basketball, I realized. So I turned back and started trudging back to the school, hoping to catch Alice, at least. I saw two of her classmates pass me, so they must have been let out already.

After waiting for a bit (and meeting Eric; he gave me my English papers back and said if I got 100 then he'd get 96), Alice showed up. She was quite depressed because her Math would almost certainly fail. She guessed a lot because she couldn't finish it on time.

So Alice said that she didn't want to go home yet, and we went back into the school. Our class had a court today, so we plopped down on the floor. She seemed to not want to do anything except sit there with her head hung, so after a while, when I couldn't stand it anymore, I went for a run. I only did 1000 meters today, because my knees hurt when I was running. And I couldn't quite catch my breath.

When I got back, I lent her one earbud, so we sat there listening to music until Martin and Shaun joined us. Martin asked me, "What are you two doing?"

I told him, "We're staring into space and doing nothing. Alice's Math was really bad, and she's quite depressed over it."

"You have too much spare time," he said while taking out his cell phone to play games on. "You should be studying for tomorrow's tests."

I looked at him. "So says the guy who's playing games on his cell phone."

We all joked around with each other, well, Shaun, Martin and I did. Alice still seemed a little gloomy. Despite this, it almost felt like the old times again, when Martin still hung around us. Or I should day, Alice (We're all pretty sure that he had a crush on Alice in at least grade 6. He has Debbie now, though. He was one of the best friends I had in primary school. The funny thing is, I'm very good friends with both girls, so he used to be quite nice to me. Now that he and Debbie are together, he ignores me and I do the same to him. He doesn't even know of Alice's recent fiasco, and I'm certainly not telling him. Needless to say, I'm very disappointed with him) or Debbie. I usually happened to be around at least one of them during grade 8.

I borrowed Martin's Science paper. If his answers and corrections are right, I've got four questions wrong. That means I'll get ninety! Yes! I really hope his answers are correct!

After Martin's turn for basketball arrived, Alice and I managed to get Shaun to walk with us on the tracks (even though he ran off halfway when it was his turn to go on). We passed Christopher's court, and he waved at us. He used to be in the same class as Shaun, so I'm hoping to ask him what he thinks of Shaun always 'playing' with Alice (he says she's his pet, as in animal, and likes poking/ruffling her and these kinds of things. He's rather like Jenny this way). And I've heard that Shaun already has a girlfriend. Ha!

Alice and I left at around five-thirty. I'd originally hoped to get Christopher to go with us, but he didn't look like he was about to leave, so I didn't bother.

I only got home at six because my knee really hurt. I finished both practicing the piano and showering before dinner.

Even though there are still finals tomorrow, I couldn't get up the strength to study, so I mostly lazed about and did a bit of Art and Craft.

Oh, and I finally finished the letter to Singapore, letter, envelope, stamps and all. I'm going to drop it off at the postbox tomorrow on the way home; there are at least two that I've seen.