Battle Damage Assessment

2003-11-29 8:01 p.m.

Battle Damage Assessment: A term used by the US military (and other armed forces I think) to describe the extent of damage to which they have inflicted upon their enemies installations or armed forces. In this case, it indicates the amount of energy the A Levels have drained from me. It really wasn’t that mentally draining but rather filled with unsuspected “battle” shocks at certain areas. Come, let me bring you through the three weeks of constant combat:

10/11: A Monday. However, no one could object to the phrase “Monday Blues” as it was either go to school or miss the beloved paper 9233/01, Maths C Paper 1. For me, I expected it to be a torture just like all the previous maths papers where I could never finish all the questions in time. However, somehow or the other, I finished them, with about 1.5 minutes to spare. Not bad, I could call that a personal best record. Depends on how accurate my workings were though. The afternoon paper was the killer. 9079/03, Economics. I was supposed to be an ace at this paper, after Mr. Lee’s training. However, the questions were not what I expected but nevertheless, I tried my best. Then after the exam I remember what my friend form HCJC told me 2 years ago that all odd year papers had unusual questions. Hmm, I thought, that means GP was going to be fun tomorrow.

11/11: I was sort of right. GP was not the filled with the normal kind of questions one would expect them to set. Crossed out around 10 questions or so before settling on something about the media telling the truth. Wasn’t really my dream question, but we debated (we meaning the Debate society) on some motion close to it before. Then in Paper 2, I turned into a pro animal rights activist. Or some sort, I guess. I really thought animals meant nothing to Singaporeans nowadays.

12/11:9233/02 was another fun yet draining paper. Finished all questions again. You know how one gets the jitters before any examination? Well, I was pretty nervous so much that I forgot my set was in row D and not Row E. After the exam, I headed down to the teacher’s letter tray as I had an instinct that some extra help could be found there. Lo and Behold, I found my Literature Paper 3 assignment. The highest mark Mr. Dio has ever given me too. My spirits rose. Then I raided( or rather opened) Ms Champagne’s letter tray and found stacks on Paper 1 notes. I can’t photocopy all, I told myself. So I took what I thought was the most essential and photocopied them in no time. Before I left, I saw Louisa and Ruo Hui heading for the same letter tray but I thought nothing of it. However, after scanning through the stuff I zapped, I realized that it was incomplete. Back at the letter tray, Lucas, Philibert, Ruo Hui and Louisa were there, holding on to the rest of the notes. From their conversation, I found that they were going to make copies too. “One more for me, please” I called after them. “I’ll pay for my own copy”. Somehow or the other, I thought they didn’t hear me. Bert however, I believe, heard me and told the lady to make five copies. “Five? Whose the fifth for” Louisa asked. “Jie Sheng”, came the reply. “I thought I sense a tone of annoyance then, but I must have been mistaken. The whole package cost $4, and I dutifully paid up. All the while, I had a funny feeling that the others were ignoring me. Looking back, I guessed that it was most probably because I was too stressed that day. That stress continued further when we were told we had to wait half an hour for it. So I waited until noon and guess what? The shop closed for lunch. I got so agitated that I started to curse and swear. I fired off and sms to Lucas, telling him to collect my copy and leave it in my class letter tray. The reply was: “I’m home already. You must get form Lou”. Hoo, I thought back then. Lou, the girl Mr. Chan keeps on teasing me about. I decided to give it a miss and collect it the next day.

13/11: Suppose to be a lucky day right? No, not so bad after all. However, 9079/01 and 9079/02 were killers. Between the papers I caught up with Luke and CH and told them my theory that odd papers were always weirder and harder. Then Luke left and told Chan about the events of the day before. ”Oh, so you have to ask Lou is it? You want me to ask her for you?” Yeah right, I can do it myself, I thought back then, but didn’t reply to him. It turned out that they never collected the material in the first place, so any the “worrying thoughts” were gone. Miraculously, there was even a copy for Marianne—don’t ask me how. I was just glad I had the notes, that’s all.

14/11: The notes did come in handy during 9008/01—Literature paper 1. For the first time in my whole life for a Literature exam, I attempted essay questions. Not one, but two essay questions. Why, you may ask. It’s because as I predicted they would give “crazy” context questions. So for A&C, they gave Act 3 Scene 13, but not the section that was expected and for Hard Times, they gave an extract on Sparsit which I wasn’t confident on. So two essays, and a Silas Marner context which didn’t feel exactly right but nevertheless I tried my best.

17/11: Cambridge's weird setting of exam questions continued in my strongest subject History. The source base was Ok to my standards, but I felt something missing—really don’t know what. Then the essay questions. No social change, no decolonization, no direct or indirect rule. (You would find the reason why is that they reserved it for History S). So I managed questions 2, 4, and 6 which I’m not really inclined to talk about. Talked to Mr. Loh (yes the only Mr. Loh) after that across the net and he didn’t lighten my mood.

19/11: 9008/03 was much better, and a tiny bit worse. I should have bet with people that Plath’s Elm would come out. (In actual fact, I wasn’t really expecting Elm, but revised it because Mr. Dio set it for CT one.) Miraculously, his guesswork paid off as Elm did come out. However, that poem is a pain to PC in one hour so I did my third Lit essay, something about menace. My fourth Lit essay came from Pinter’s Caretaker, simply because the context was uninviting. Ishiguro was the pain (for me and many others), filled with: “abandoned buildings” and “smoke from pyres…”. See, I can still quote (somehow).

20/11: Now, someone tell us why we ever bothered so much on studying human rights, international law, economic development and PKOs (Peacekeeping Operations) in general when Cambridge can be so kind as to give us something on Congo—the ONUC operation? Ho, talk about my theory being spot on. At least the essays were pretty OK, thanks to Mark Lo’s (ooops Mr. Lo’s) last minute handouts. (Will tell you more about that in later entries). Went out with Chan after that and got an early birthday present, $ 3.50 duck rice. We chatted about school life and other rubbish. (What else could we converse about?)

27/11: Now 9008/08 was fun. Did the prose and compare and contrast, which in my perspective, were the easiest of the lot to do. I could have done the poem, but I just didn’t get it at first glance. Fun paper because you have lots of time. The invigilator seem extremely familiar, and only afterwards did I realise she was one of my Sec 2 teachers from ACS (I). We exchanged greetings and trouped down to the canteen. Had quite a lengthy talk with Luke about prom. We both got a certain dreaded feeling about it, but that’s another story.

28/11: Which incidentally, was my birthday. Somehow, Cambridge’s present to me was a nuclear arms race questions which I attacked and abstract General history questions. Am too tired to talk about them now. Maybe another time.

Thus ended my A Levels, the battle fought where the results will be found a long way down the road.

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