March 24, 2011

Defying The Odds

Throughout my secondary school years I've never been a top-class contender one of the geniuses aka Nerdsters of the school, my exam grades were always a mix of As Bs and Cs. So realistically I didnt aim for the big 10As in SPM, let alone straight A+'s. When I scored a (rather) paltry 3As, 5Bs, and 2Cs for trials I really had no idea how I would do for the big one. Some of my seniors said my trial results would be a rough estimate of what the real SPM results would be like. 
That really sent me into a state of.... disbelief. I believed that I could understand enough of my subjects to score at best 8As and 2B/Cs (damn Sejarah and moral), so if my performance is only half of what I thought I was capable of, its hard to say that it's not dejecting. I knew that I could do better than 3As and 2Cs.

So for two months I pushed myself everyday and every night jamming subjects into my head and spitting them out on past year exercises. But apparently to no avail, the grades stayed just about the same. By then I had pretty much given up on setting any targets, just do the exam one day at a time and just accept whatever results I get, regardless of how many As, Bs or Cs.


Then came results day, strangely I was a bit restless and nervous, despite not having a target score and therefore not supposed to be worrying about if I reached that target. Slowly as we waited news broke out that one of the second class students scored 9A 1B (he checked using the SMS service). That got me thinking if I had a chance of landing the magical 10, but nothing's for certain, and I didnt take anything for granted.

When the time came to announce the results, the school very literally did just that, our ex-accounts teacher would read out the names of the students who scored straight 10As, then presenting them on stage to take the results slip from the principal. 26 of our students scored straight As, 2 of them with straight A+. 
Could I be one of the 26?




After announcing about 10 names, then.....














"Deric Chan Wai Lun"



I was shocked. Young was beside shaking me and whooping and woohooing. I seriously couldnt believe it. From 3As 5Bs and 2Cs to 10As. I walked up on stage, shook the principal's hand, and quipped:

"I wasnt expecting this result..."

"Why? You weren't expecting it to be this good or this bad?"

"This good... I wasn't expecting straight A's."  *brief gushing*

"It's all your hard work. Congratulations~" *smiles*



I looked at my result slip, 4A+, 5A, 1A-. Holy crap, an A for Sejarah and Moral after non-stop Bs and Cs.
But the A- for BM was a tad bit unexpected. Still an A though, I wont complain much.


I called mum and told her my results, she was overjoyed. I called dad and told him, he was just as shocked as I was. He thought I was bullshitting him. xD My brother was calm, but happy nonetheless.
 I remember some people saying the Sasbadi Nexus revision books I used to study were complete rubbish. Well, those piles of rubbish got me A's. That's some really good rubbish I bought.



Here we are in the Sin Chew Daily:





March 11, 2011

Ipoh Trippin'

Finally something to actually blog about after I dunno how many months...



Serene, Houey, Chuah and myself embarked on a challenging, dramatic and perilous journey drive 80km up north to the Perak capital for 4 reasons:

One wants to buy a backpack
One wants to buy clothes
One wants to buy a birthday gift
One wants to sell books (guess who would that be :3)


So upon arrival at Ipoh Parade and after going through the "roller coaster" ups and downs on the way to the parking lot, le task #1 was le selling books. Lugging two bags, with people thinking I'm running away/ staying for 3 days and two nights/ carrying a bomb, I made my way to Novel Hut to offload my SPM reference books (after an epic fail to sell them locally) and part of my dad's Readers Digest book collection. I made RM20 from 3 fat SPM reference books and some unused (whoops) work books, while daddy's books fetched RM35. Quite surprised that such good books in almost-new quality would go for such a low price. Too bad you dont bargain in shopping malls...


After dropping off the bomb selling the books we next headed to the Factory Outlet Store for Houey's clothes (poor fella aint got good-looking casual clothes apparently). So after trying on like 5 or 6 shirts, spending I think an hour looking around, he ended up buying......... 3 shirts. Mmm, that would be enough la kan? :P


Then it was de lunch time so we went to this cafe (alamak forgot the name already.. Rocoso or something like that) where I tried something called Taiwan Cold Noodles. Its cold noodles (duh) with a mix of sauce, some veggies and meat. It was okay at first, but as I ate more it got more and more sour (the sauce and veggies at the bottom I guess) until I got a bit jelat. So uh unless you like cold and sour noodles, I wouldnt recommend spending RM6 on it.


Next stop was at ze Popular bookstore where I spotted Kenny Dalglish's brand new autobiography



and also Arsene Wenger's "The Mastermind" biography. Liverpool and Arsenal fans with about RM50-60 to spend may want to consider these options. 
 

King Kenny, I love your work for Liverpool and all, but I couldnt bring myself to cough up 60 big ones for your book. Sorry!!



Finally we watched Disney's new movie:

The story of a young boy whose mother got kidnapped by Martians and sets out to rescue her



I wont spoil the story since it's so new, but what I can say is that this movie wont appeal to teens and young adults. This one's for the little kids and their families. Mildly entertaining for me, but nothing much else. 5/10 rating.



So there goes a day in Ipoh Parade. Lots of students (and lots of couples) like to lepak here apparently, especially lala girls and lala guys. A couple in school uniform hugged even right in front of us as we were going down the escalator. Not sure if I wanted to say "awwhh thats so sweet" or "uggghhh PLEASE!".



Oh and on the way out of Ipoh we saw this sign at the top floor of a shoplot which said Ipoh Chest Club. Not Chess, but Chest, as in the body part between your neck and your abdomen. Seriously? A Chest club? Is it open to both men and women I wonder.....