First off, a big *PAT*PAT* goes to YQ. Cheery up! :)

Secondly, I am obviously aware that my stupid exams are over, although it hasn't completely sunk in yet. The exam could've been better, but I was lucky enough in some parts (like specifically choosing to study the definition of "Direct Channel Management" for no particular reason). Think I could've done better in a few questions but I was really tired of writing by that time. Annoying questions had to be worth so many marks. Heck. I just want that A. Or rather need that A. Must at least show that this sucky semester was worth something...Oh well. We'll see late in October.

Eh...oh right...GOODBYE SUCKY SEMESTER!!!

Hehehe. Actually a miracle I managed to wake up on time for the thing, considering I had been up watching RvN score (*cough* I meant, watching the soccer match). Anyway, I was almost late to the exam venue again! Was about to leave for the 1 p.m. bus when it dawned on me I had forgotten to read through my tutorials. So decided to catch the 1.15 p.m. bus instead. Except that it didn't arrive till 1.20 p.m., and the MRT took like 6 min to arrive, so I had to rush all the way to the crazily far Science block. Thankfully got there in the nick of time - even earlier than for ICP in fact.

It was a 3-hr paper but by 2.30 p.m. quite a few people had handed in their scripts and left. I finished at 2.30 p.m. (stopped speeding through in the last page) and only left at 3 p.m., by which time there were only like 3 people left in the room. Went home immediately to sleep (duh). Then it was Internet all the way (for once, no guilty I-am-procrastinating feelings!) till 2.30 a.m. for the match.

Went to sleep at 5.30 a.m.; didn't get to sleep till almost 7 I think. Set the alarm for 10 a.m. but could only manage to wake up at 11 a.m. Wasted a lot of time before leaving for Orchard at 1.30 p.m. Reached there slightly before 2 p.m., went to the usual places, then ended up whiling the rest of the afternoon away in Kinokuniya (finished reading Rotten Rulers). Speaking of which, I suddenly have this big big BIG urge to watch Saiyuki Reload! It's like $31 for 13 episodes? Hmmph! OH YEAH! And the Tudor Chronicles books Sam was talking about? I've seen them before, a few years back with different covers (picture of some guy). Like the new covers better, although the sword is really a dagger. Too bad they're so expensive too. :P

Ahem. 1 a.m. now! Time to do some holiday-ish stuff, otherwise known as stuff too time-consuming for the school term. Like playing The Sims (I wanna play but have to waste time installing ALL the expansion packs...bleargh), The Sims 2 (wanna play with genetics again but not keen on having the com repeatedly hang!). Of course, I could always settle for the genetics in Creatures, but I think I'll have to re-install that too.

Sheesh! Why do I have to re-install all the nice stuff? Bother bother bother. Maybe I'll just continue with FE (have been talking about finishing the game for how many months...) or try my latest FIFA 2003 hobby - getting my least favourite team to score as many own goals as possible (I managed 14 the last time).

The possibilities are endless. Must make good use of this holiday. Won't have another one like it till March...

Jessica wrote home at 12:48 am

Now, what have I been up to the last few days, when I have been mysteriously missing online?

*everyone gasps* mysteriously missing online?!

Ahem. Anyway, I haven't been out since Friday. Sniffsniff. I know. I haven't had a breath of fresh air in so long. I've forgotten what it feels like to step out of the house. How do buses look like? What MRT station do I usually go to? Where is SP?

Sigh. How pitiful.

I tried to make improvements with my screwed-up-internal-clock by sleeping 2 hours earlier (3 a.m.) on Sunday night (or Monday morning, whatever). You know, just so I could get up at lunchtime for a change.

Just so happened, of course, that I was awoken at 8.30 a.m. by hammering going on somewhere-in-this-blasted-block. Couldn't get back to sleep so got up at 9 a.m. Made a nice bowl of cornflakes and plonked myself in front of the TV.

Stayed there for an unnecessarily long time, watching morning cartoons. Must've been years since I've done that. Some of the shows - Fantastic Four and Sonic the Hedgehog - were obvious re-runs which I had watched the first time through...like 10 years ago!

So was feeling very old as each cartoon made way for the next one. And I also couldn't figure out why Kids Central even bothers screening cartoons from 12 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. every weekday. I mean, how many children are actually at home at that time? The morning session would still be on, and the afternoon session just beginning. Or do they even have afternoon sessions anymore? Like I said, very old.

Finally switched off at lunchtime and went to fix a lunch consisting of tuna on crispy corn slices (sprinkled with bacon bits), and a bowl of Campbell's instant soup.

Did a weeeeee bit of studying after that, before I gave in once again and went to have my nap. Ah, afternoon naps. Just like secondary school.

Woke up at 4 p.m. I think, then studied some more, followed by dinner (watched Pokemon: Advance Generation while eating...found out they screen them every weekday at 6 p.m.) and my bath and I wanted to study after that, but I fell asleep.

Two naps in one day. I always find ways to surprise myself.

Woke up at 9-something and tried to force myself to study, but eventually watched TV. Then was the long break before 3 a.m. (Friends), which saw about half of it wasted on other unimportant pursuits.

Today I was a little kinder and slept till lunctime. Lunch was a nice bowl of instant noodles, cooked by yours-truly and complete with a lot of bean sprouts. Watched Sesame Street whilst eating. Tried to get Consumer Behaviour into my head but...you guessed it! Ended up sleeping.

Sigh. Remind me to get out my FOM notes the next time I suffer from insomnia.

Anyway, my mother will be back anytime now with my Hot Devil Drumlets. Remember when we kept eating them last year? Or was that in Sec 3? Hahaha.

Oh, speaking of which, MATCH TONIGHT!!! Thought I'd give it a miss in preparation for THE EXAM (meaning sleeping early), but seeing how everything's going, the preparation I really need is reading those stupid notes for the 387th time.

WHY can't ANYTHING get into my head???

P.S. It also seems that I have been having a terrible headache the last two nights. Think it might have something to do with me dreaming of re-taking my Chinese O's, and then dreaming again that I was about to take a Chinese Oral?

Jessica wrote home at 5:31 pm

Message received on the SP student intranet:

"A gentle reminder to registrate your GEM for Semester 2.

Please help to disseminate this information to your classmates and friends in SP.

Thank you."

I'm sorry, who were you talking about? *rolls eyes*

P.S. I also just noticed they said "registrate". Erm, what does that mean?

Anyway, no update today. Kind of running for time. Hehe.

Jessica wrote home at 1:51 am

(Of course, I was that late because the exam venue was right in front of the MRT station. Obviously I won't do the same thing for my FOM paper!)

Anyway, my seat was right in the middle of the room, how comforting, so I had to scramble to get my stuff out (the essentials: water bottle, pencil case, tissue paper - you never know when a running nose will start!) and hurry down the aisles trying to find the exact place. There were already two things on the table, the exam paper and the answer booklet (which looked very official and O-level-like...eek). We were given 10 min just to read through the paper, and I was halfway through when one of the invigilators came round and asked for my student pass, which luckily permanently resides in my school bag. But it wasn't with me so I had to get up and take it out (took an embarrassingly long time 'cos my notebook and some other things kept getting caught in the lanyard).

Then I resumed reading through all the questions (and subsequently planning my answers, duh). I was about to read the final two parts of the paper - both case studies - when our time was up and we had to begin.

First few pages were easy enough; just remember which options I had decided on earlier and tick the corresponding box in the answer sheet. There were minor stumbling blocks in the short-answer section (the definition of the cultivation theory and agenda setting function kept eluding me), but overall it was okay. Perfectly fine. I even started the second part of the paper a liiiiiittle ahead of time (couldn't help thinking all that writing-way-too-much in Lit was proving to be very beneficial!). The case studies were both interesting (honestly), I had a rough idea of most of the answers (whether in written form they were accurate is another issue), and those that I wasn't sure of, I happily crapped my way through, hoping to come across as convincing as possible. :P Towards the end I was shivering 'cos the air conditioning was a little too much - and I had a sweater on and was wearing jeans, for goodness' sake!

Actually finished the paper with like 3 or 4 minutes to spare. Which is a great improvement from barely being able to finish my FOM and ICP CAs. Not to mention I had finally calmed down from my almost-late-and-last-minute-dash experience. So I very serenely (:P) packed up my stuff and walked out of school.

First stop was Tiong Bahru Plaza, after my mother convinced me to eat something first. So I had a McChicken, then waited at the bus stop. 16 arrived surprisingly promptly; I got off at the bus stop-behind-Borders, and made my way, as usual, to Zara. :P

Unfortunately I realised that my nice purple blousie was nowhere in sight, so too bad. Had the stupid idea to go check the Takashimaya branch just in case, so I headed there immediately. Well, OKAY. Not immediately. I took the liberty of visiting a few other shops along the way. :P

Anyway, the whole detour was a stupid idea because not only did they not have the purple blousie...they had the other purple blouse (the one I wanted to buy last week but only came in M)...in S. Two, in fact. GRRRRRRRRR.

So very nonchalantly made my way back to the big outlet, where I decided to try the turquoise version instead. Was about to leave the dressing room when I started wondering if I should just enquire about my shirt collection instead of waiting for their call. Took out the receipt and realised there was a stupid COLLECTION DATE printed on it, which happened to be today. Haha. At the counter paid for the turquoise blouse and handed over the receipt; the sales assistant brought out the white blouse and asked me to check if it was okay.

Well. It dawned on me I didn't know the exact spot of the hole (like I said, I wasn't the one who spotted it), so I spent some time staring at the back and pretending I could see the difference. Then I tossed it into the bag (I got the large bag, for the first time! Whee!) and walked out. Hahahaha.

Walked through Borders to the same bus stop-behind-Borders. Got on 16 again and travelled to City Hall. Thus began the very long-and-dreary walk through Raffles City, through CityLink, to Marina Square (via the Suntec Exhibition Centre), and finally across the connecting walkway to Millenia Walk..........................then through the foodcourt, a short distance in Harvey Norman, down the escalator, and another walk all the way to the candy store.

After paying for two Mudsludges and my stringy cola thingies, I began the journey back to the bus stop.

Sigh.

Ended up with blisters and had to survive a traffic jam on the way home, but eventually walked through the front door slightly past 3 p.m. Had my bath and immediately went to sleep. :)

Jessica wrote home at 9:50 pm

Breath out.

Breathe in.

Breathe o -

I CAN'T STAND THIS ANY LONGER!!!

THEY'VE BEEN DRILLING FOR MORE THAN 2 HOURS STRAIGHT!!! RIGHT BESIDE MY ROOM!!! I HAVEN'T HAD MORE THAN 2 SECONDS OF PEACE SINCE THEY BLOODY STARTED!!!

LIKE IT'S NOT BAD ENOUGH I ONLY MANAGED TO FALL ASLEEP PAST 6 A.M., BUT YOU HAVE TO WAKE ME UP 3.5 HOURS LATER?! FOR NO REASON WHATSOVER?! ON ALL DAYS ESPECIALLY, WHEN I'VE GOT AN EXAM TOMORROW!!! AT LEAST THIS TIME TOMORROW I WON'T EVEN BE AT HOME!!!

Jessica wrote home at 11:46 am

Just found out my class is having a Sentosa outing the day after our FOM exam.

Sheesh, not tired is it?

If I don't go then something's really up with me...already missed the first gathering...besides this is Sentosa and they're meeting at HarbourFront MRT, which happens to be two bus stops away...

Maybe if I can't avoid it, then I'll just go for the Sentosa part and not stick around to have dinner at Seoul Garden.

But bleargh. Don't want to spend unnecessary money (Sentosa entry fare). I'd rather...you know, shop. :P

And then there's the stupid chalet which they've either already booked or are going to book tomorrow. PRAYING PRAYING PRAYING they hold it in the second week of October...

Oh. Right. Back to ICP. Second round of studying makes me feel better. One day left before the exam! ARGH! Need that A...need that A...MUST get a good GPA for this semester...

Jessica wrote home at 11:17 pm

Two more days to get my act together and do well for that ICP exam.

*shudders* I didn't know how crappy my studying had been going until I attempted some previous years' exam papers. Now I have to spend every waking moment drilling my ICP notes into my head. Then on Wednesday after the paper I'll have a nice long nap and leave all that I've memorised safely in dreamland.

After which mugging for FOM will start, and it's gonna take a hell of a long time, so...bleargh. Good luck to me. Come on, one and a half weeks and I can say goodbye to this sucky semester!!!

Erm. Let's see. About yesterday. I woke up at nearly 4 p.m., having resumed my routine of sleeping at almost 7 a.m. So the only thing I actually did was go out for dinner at HarbourFront. Was highly distracted because, among other things, the match was going on at the same time. But managed to finish my Bacon Aglio, of course. Hehe. :P

About the match results, let's just say I was going to put up a nice new icon the next time RvN scored...and you'll have to continue waiting for the moment.

Well, better get back to ICP before my brain goes all funny again. Like yesterday morning (around 5 a.m.), I was staring at the second MCQ question in a past exam paper:

"Jessica is known as an expert in chemical life sciences........."

And I was all like, "Eh...that name sounds familiar..." Took me about five seconds to realise what was so familiar about the name Jessica!

Jessica wrote home at 2:24 am

...from you-guessed-it!

Sheesh. Like half an hour ago I was staring at my ICP notes, something about "6 ways in which a group can be related". So I was thinking how on earth it applies to that time when I was with them. "Perception - each member has influence on one another"? NO, thank goodness. "Motivation - there are rewards or reasons for its existence"? For me I suppose...or else how would we ever get those stupid projects done! "Organisation - each member assumes specific function or role"? Unless my role is to shut up and pretend I'm not with them...well.

Then I got to "Interdependence - each depends on the others for success"? So I was like, "Hahahaha. Like how am I gonna depend on them for information if that's what they depend on me for??? Eh...speaking of which...haven't been asked any questions lately...hehe...wheeeeeee..."

And now this. Bleargh I say. BLEARGH. Actually I find it kinda weird since the last time I was SMSed, it was after our Excel test and I had to study for French before I could start on ICP. So I was all, "Bleargh...yes yes...you get one more day to study..." Then as I've been slooooooooowly making my way through the notes, my classmates have all been changing their MSN nicknames to quotes from the lecture notes - which were way ahead from where I was studying. So of all things I get an SMS asking about Lectures 10 & 11, whilst I'm at Lecture 13 now.

Right. Erm. How did she manage to start studying one day earlier and still only be at 10 & 11 now (assuming she's only asking NOW because she's there now)? I mean, I was averaging like 1-2 chapters a day already...ANYWAY. Shall stop wondering. Doesn't help, btw, that I don't even know what she's asking. I don't know what the hell knowledge capital is (I didn't even know we had to know that part!), nor do I know how to explain intellectual property.

Great! Just great.

ON TO HAPPIER THINGS, yesterday (Saturday) was an improvement on my highly grouchy Friday (but please do not ask what I was so grouchy about). For one, I actually studied one chapter before I went out. *cheers* Then when I met my mother at Raffles City, I was presented with a nice flouncy PURPLE skirt. Squee. Methinks I've been getting quite a lot of skirts lately, but mealsothinks me doesn't care. :P

Then we walked all the way to Millenia Walk, before stumbling around in the wrong direction (stupid place doesn't have a directory), then realising where Candy Empire actually was. Well, anyway, spent an unnecessarily long time there just walking through the aisles, before settling on the stringy cola thingies (mwahaha) and a Ski Smoothie bar.

After which we had dinner at the foodcourt and made the long walk back to the bus stop, where, upon boarding 124, I realised I had forgotten to top up my EZ-link card. So by the end of the very long bus ride, I was left with a grand total of -$0.82!!!!

Jessica wrote home at 12:28 am

Boo. Boo. Boo.

BUT Wednesday was very satisfying. I accomplished quite a lot of things. At first I was moping about 'cos I couldn't think of anyone who was free to have a set lunch at Cartel with me. Then at past midnight I found out that YQ's actually released very early on Wednesday...so. Haha.

Of course that meant postponing my wreak-havoc-in-Orchard-before-the-crowds-come plans, but never mind. You only get to have the Wednesday set lunch once very week.

I was late. Unsurprisingly. :P We got a nice cosy booth right inside Cartel. The main course took kinda long to arrive, but it was worth the wait. Crispy fried chicken pieces and black pepper pasta - which reminded me of SHS's black pepper chicken pasta, and led to YQ and I reminiscing about the old times. Sniff.

After lunch we went to MM! Whee! And even better, I finally saw the FE:TSS guidebook! Right in front of my eyes! In my hands!

...But who cares. I don't think I even want to play the game anymore. :P

We followed the escalator down, dropping by Best Denki and failing to find YQ's JVC gummy earphones. Then there was nothing interesting in Sembawang, so we bounded over to TM. Made our way to the top again, where the elusive gummy earphones were missing at Music Junction. After which we spent a looooooong time (okay, me only) rummaging through Ice Lemon Tee for...erm...something (shh! Secret!). Then it was downstairs to Popular, where - yippee! - the pretty purple earphones were in stock. Oh, and the second The Sims 2 expansion pack - Night Life - was out!

Gee. Am super outdated. The last time I was on the TheSims.com, that expansion pack was practically only a rumour.

ANYWAY, so YQ got her earphones (and made me jealous. I mean, PURPLE!!!) and we popped in at Mini Toons 'cos YQ wanted to get two handphone decorations for her friends. After she had chosen two nice shiny crowns, it was time to *sniff* leave.

...And a little over half an hour later, I was skipping along Orchard Road. Not that I love being there at past 4 in the afternoon, but whatever. Had my mind quite set on either a brown or white blouse. Maybe even two. First stop was Topshop, where everything seemed to be in size 14. :P So pranced over to that big Zara instead, where everything nice seemed to be in M. Bleargh. Was walking around all downhearted when I stumbled upon a table full of blouses at $16.90. What was interesting was that I had wanted to get a purple one not long ago...

...back when they cost $39.90. What the-?!

So anyway, as you might've guessed, the only remaining purples were all M. Boo. The other colours were off-white, brown and olive green, all of which had only one S left.

After a very very very very long decision-making process (which was prevented from dragging on even longer because I had planned to meet my mother somewhere), I settled for the off-white and the brown. At the counter the salesgirl noticed there was something wrong with the white one, so off it went to the tailors for the week. And off I went to meet my mother.

We walked to Centrepoint and had dinner there, then took 111 to City Hall and transferred as usual. Was by then so crazily tired that I kept dozing off and banging my head against the window, so after my bath I had a very nice 5-hour nap. :)

Woke up with a start and immediately checked the clock - 1 a.m. Phew. Went on the 'Net for a short while before dragging myself out (with my ICP notes) and trying to get more than one chapter in my brain. Didn't fare well but at least I studied on the train ride up and down earlier in the day. Then 2.30 a.m. rolled around, and as the match started I hurried into the kitchen to get my Powerpuff Girls ice bon bon thingy (the red-coloured one). I was just about done when they started showing the players. Then RvN came on, I went, "SQUEE!" and skidded across the floor, thereby grazing my knee (which, at this moment, still hurts).

And that's the end of my post. :P Wonder what I'm gonna do for the rest of the week. Okay, so there's only one more day till the weekend. :P Maybe I shall go out later.

Oh wait. Yeah. Wasn't I supposed to study? Hmm.

P.S. I didn't mention what happened today 'cos...well, because nothing happened today. I slept till past 2 p.m., then tried to study but ended up sleeping again. And now I'm online and about to go off to attempt more work...

Jessica wrote home at 10:21 pm

Hahahahahahahaha.

I was just browsing through my old notebooks - remember those, Sam? The blue one in Sec 3 and the red one in Sec 4?

They always make me laugh, from the "favourite Clay song quotes" to the "List of things to do - Bio: I DON'T GIVE A DAMN!!!". Then there's the FE story plans (which never materialised, but it's still hilarious to know I was gonna call the people in Bulgar, "Bulgaricks"...and there's the Death Toll (up-to-date list of people killed in the story) and Death Count (up-to-date list of people killed by the four main characters - Bailey was leading)).

Not to mention our top-secret "A.S.H. Chant" for our top-secret A.S.H. plans (which never materialised also, obviously, since it involved...erm, I shall tell you some other day).

And the classic Might MORPHINE Power Rangers: The Exposé! Hahahahahaha. Remember when we took the liberty of pasting it on the class noticeboard. :P

ANYWAY, that's not the point. The point is that I really should've started on my ICP. Which I will once this is done. And I get my daily Internet fix...which might take a while. Heehee. Like for example, I was on the 'Net for over 4 hours last night...and ended up studying French for less than an hour. Woke up slightly earlier this afternoon (yes, afternoon, not morning) to study the ever-confusing "faire", "jouer" and "pratiquer", which turned out to be a complete waste of time because they weren't tested.

Finished the main part of the test pretty quickly, due to the lack of aforementioned verbs. Then waited before the lecturer read out the listening comprehension part. The first part was okay, fill in the blanks with verb forms. The next part nearly drove me insane. First he spelled out the names of three cities; I ended up with "Beauvais", "Perpignan" and "Montpellier", of which I only know the last one definitely exists. I always thought it was "Perpignon" though, if there's such a city. Ah, whatever. Wait till I get the paper back.

Then he read out three super-long telephone numbers, which (if I'm not wrong...hope I'm not!) turned out to be 10 numbers long. The numbers were all read out in twos, so instead of "three...two..." it was read out as "thirty-two" - thereby making everything more complicated.

The last part was okay, just figure out if the sentence was masculine or feminine or indetermined. Then got up to hand in my paper (by then it was only 6.30 p.m.), and my lecturer kindly asked if I was going to turn up for the weekly holiday revision classes.

Thought it would be pretty rude to say, "Noooooooooooooooooo!!! NO HOLIDAY CLASSES! I'M NOT COMING BACK HERE DURING THE HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!", so I just said maybe, but I can't make it for one of the classes. Which is true.

And now...yippee!!! No more school till next Wednesday!!! Shop shop! Sleep sleep! Soccer soccer! Study study!

...well, duh, of course I'm going to study. What else did you think I have next Wednesday?

Jessica wrote home at 9:53 pm

Secondly: Heyyyyyyyy, I really really spent a lot of time on that game! You know how hard it is to get Latias? And a green-eyed Tentacool? And FIFA 2003 wasn't any easier either, it's like 38 games per season and I played four or five seasons...*bursts into tears again*

Yesterday (Monday) wasn't all that great for me either. I purposely left home earlier so I could hand my crappy project to my lecturer in her office, then walk all the way to SB for my test. Anyway, I reached SP really early and thought, "Right. T17's where her office is. It's on the sixth floor, one floor above my French class. So that's the block right in front of the MRT. I'll just take the elevator to the sixth floor..."

#$%^&*! Got there and the stupid lift wasn't working!!! So had to race all the way from the second to sixth floor (where I've never been before). Entered the staff room entrance and was greeted by a very long corridor with doors on both sides. As I went deeper and deeper in trying to find room 16, it got quieter and quieter and I could hear both my footsteps and my heavy breathing.

Stopped outside the door for an absurdly long time before deciding I had no choice but to knock (instead of dropping the file into the box outside that read "Assignments", 'cos the room belonged to two other lecturers, so who knows whose box that was?). Pushed open the door and found the room empty save for my lecturer, who was - of all times! - on the phone.

In the next few seconds, she told me to hang on a moment, I began to step outside then thought the better of it (if I stayed outside then she'd have to walk all the way and open the door to let me know she was done right?) so began to step back in, had only taken one step when she told me to wait outside instead, then I realised this was getting nowhere so I asked her plainly if I could just put the damn thing in the box outside...and she told me to give it to her.

I left with the idea I had just seriously annoyed her. Blah. :P

Then walked to the business block, where I was incredibly early, although the lab was empty for once. Took a very long time deciding to enter ('cos I didn't want to be with the few people inside), and when I finally entered, the lecturer entered not long after and told us all to wait outside so she could set out the test papers. Bleargh.

The class arrived at the last minute but that's not the point. My assigned seat was right at the back row, with my back to the window. There were two different papers and another classmate who was seated two seats away (the only other person in my row) had the same paper, so he decided to be funny by saying, "Eh...when I do this (makes hand signal) it's a signal to let me look at your screen okay?"

Siao.

The test started and I spent a lot of time on the first section because we had to do this unnecessarily elaborate Excel worksheet from scratch. The calculations were very easy though. The second section required only a graph; wasn't hard at all but I was somehow behind time.

The last section (50%) was obviously going to be tough, since we hadn't been given any of the really hard calculations yet. Managed most of it without much difficulty (especially all the complicated nested IF, AND and OR - since when did I get so good at them?!)...until I got to one of the last calculations, which required me to find the Future Value of some investment.

What the hell. That was the one thing I had been hoping would not come out! All I knew was that the FV function does the opposite of the PMT function, but I had no idea what data to enter into the blasted FV function. So after trying a few entries here and there, I had no choice but to give up and choose the most "correct-looking" results as my final result.

After which I had to sum up the total of the all the Future Values under a certain investment plan, and for some reason I couldn't get the usually-easy SUMIF function to work. Wasted so much time on it that before I could attempt the next three questions, our time was up.

While the lecturer went on about which directory to save our files in, I took my chance and hurried through the rest of the questions. First I was required to change one piece of data and get the resulting value of the change - that was done fairly fast. Then I had to find the frequency of the ages of the investors. Took some time but I eventually got the FREQUENCY function to give me non-cumulative numbers.

And then we had to return our papers and close our programs so I didn't get to do the last question, which was just using the "sort" function to sort all the data in ascending order according to certain criterias. Which I could easily have done. :P Marks gone for nothing.

But still, I shouldn't have made too many errors (if any) in the first two sections, so that A is still possible. Maybe an AD with some luck.

*Jessica apologises for not making sense to the reader in the above paragraphs*

Then as I left the lab, I realised my classmates were all scrambling to label A4-sized envelopes...and I realised the class rep was in charge of collecting the projects! Wasted my time coming early! Grr.

Convinced my mother to meet me at Tiong Bahru Plaza for dinner, ate at the foodcourt then went to NTUC where I stocked up on some, erm, stuff to tide me through Wednesday and Thursday morning. After which I insisted we stop at McDonald's for dessert - tried that new Flavour Burst thing Sam told me about; my mother got mocha and I got - duh! - grape. Nice, although they could perhaps have given me more grape. :P

While eating it started raining heavily and soon turned into one of the heaviest storms I have ever seen. The bus stop was full to capacity and since we had to transfer buses along the way, I was all like, "Aiya, take a taxi!" and my mother pointed out that it was unlikely we could get one.

Our bus arrived but it was packed so we couldn't get on. Then lo and behold, a taxi arrived behind the bus and dropped off a passenger. Miraculously no one got on, so we got on instead. Hahaha. Except that I was all wet 'cos my mother for some reason forgot to shelter me when she went to open the door, and thus spent the whole trip - it was pretty short actually, just took longer than usual since visibilty was so low - shivering in the backseat. But we got home and I happily went to have my bath, after which I read something not French-related and fell asleep.

Woke up at midnight and as yet (it's almost 2 a.m. now) have not started studying for my French test. Oh well, only need to go to school at 5.30 p.m. :P

Jessica wrote home at 1:10 am

I just spent almost 9 hours on that stupid CC project!!!

*collapses*

I don't know how I lasted through everything. I nearly fell asleep around 2.30 a.m., in fact. And I seriously need some sleep now.

But oh no, that 9 hours was only for the print ad and pamphlet. I've yet to complete the blasted concept paper!!!

*pulls hair out*

And it all looks so amateur and fake too. Except maybe the "milk spills". But whatever. I'm not going to change anything anymore. I'll just cut and paste the pamphlet together when I wake up. If I do it now I'll probably cut myself; I'm that tired!

Oh. About yesterday. I will not even begin to tell you how pointless it was to spend only 2 hours at Changi Airport. My total travel time was more than that. And all we did was eat at Swensen's (to Sam: as if you were hungry enough to have a Cookie Summit on top of the Gold Rush! :P), then drop by the candy store. Okay, and I managed to get my light purple shoelaces.

For some reason I kinda lost my mind at the candy store; bought two items - some sour thingy Sam recommended, and gummy Skittles. I have a soft spot for Skittles. Some game we used to play in primary school. Red, green, yellow.

ANYWAY, Sam also wanted to buy some stringy cola candy, but she didn't have the money, so when the sales assistant asked me which were my purchases, Sam conveniently handed her the sour thingy, the gummy skittles...and the bag of stringy cola candy! *evil glare*

Actually, the cola strings are quite nice. But I think I'll stick with something else for next week's soccer matches. :P

I didn't go straight home though. Thought since I was out, I might as well stop by Raffles City and walk around. Ended up with a very long wait for 131, and when I finally entered the house, I found out there was a pink letter from SP waiting for me.

Firstly: unfortunately, SP isn't kicking me out.

The letter had the heading "EXAMINATIONS OFFICE". Which was weird because, well, out of my seven modules, only three of them have final grades so far - OC, CD and DTP. There's Monday's ITB test, the dratted CC project, and my FOM and ICP exams to factor in.

Well, so what was the letter about?

Apparently SP sent out letters to every student...

...just to tell them where their exam venues are and which seat they are allocated to at the venue!

Sheesh. What a waste of paper. Like couldn't they post that online or something.

ANYWAY, it turns out that my ICP exam is going to be held at my French class' block, so I know where it is. And it happens to be right in front of the MRT, so I can run home after the exam (at 11.10 a.m.)! Whee!

Now...FOM. Venue's T1A55. So I'm like, "Hmm...T1A? Where's it? Don't tell me it's at the other side of the school, the block numbers there are smaller..."

*checks school map*

*screams*

It's at the Science block! The Concourse, behind which is FC 2 (and McDonald's)! Otherwise known as...VERY FAR AWAY FROM THE MRT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, pray tell...WHY am I at seat no. 3? I'm register no. 9 in my class, and my class is the fourth class in DMC. And DMC isn't the only course taking FOM...

And the exam ends at 5.10 p.m. too. Gee. Not much time to celebrate. Think I'll just celebrate with an extra-long nap.

*yawns*

Okay, I'll die soon if I don't sleep. I don't know about that crappy concept paper, but I'm going insane at any moment. Not to mention I just found out my Pokemon Sapphire and FIFA 2003 files erased themselves! (The problem with buying fake cartridges...) Do you know how many hours I spent searching for and training those rare Pokemon, and competing and winning all those league titles and trophies?!

*weeps*

Jessica wrote home at 5:01 am

Ahem. What happened on Thursday. It was quite a delightful day really:

1. Someone didn't come.

2. Our group got the highest marks for the FOM project.

3. FOM ended about one hour early so I went home to sleep (and missed my ICP lecture again)

4. ITB was only revision (if I had known then I would've stayed for ICP and gone home at 2 p.m.!), and I realised I'm not that dreadful at Excel after all. At least, I can do nested IF. And I finished my work in less than one hour so I slacked the rest of the time away.

5. Received more good news on the way home.

Friday...not so delightful. For starters, I got this last-minute SMS from my CD group saying they wanted to meet half an hour early. Was too annoyed with the last-minuteness to obey their wishes, so ended up telling them my reflections over the phone instead.

The presentation was okay; I suppose it's not unrealistic to hope for an A overall. We finished CD early though, and I happily skipped (kidding again) to the MRT station. Sam didn't take too long to appear. We went straight to Pizza Hut, where:

1. We took a long time deciding what to eat, mainly 'cos Sam wanted to share a pizza (and I didn't want to). Oh, and it was hard finding someone to serve us.

2. My food arrived a lot earlier but the pasta seemed to never finish, for some reason. :P

3. We crapped. A lot. As expected.

We left the place at 2 p.m., took a brief detour to the swimming pool and gym at the Staff Centre. (Sam: "What's the Staff Centre?" Me: "A centre for the staff."; Sam: "What do they do there?" Me: "I don't know, do I look like a staff member?!")

After which I lost track of how many times I uttered, "hurry!" as we made our way to the Science blocks. Didn't really take a long time to find the Main Library; lingered outside for a short while before I convinced Sam to just stroll inside. Then we had to figure out which floor the Biomed books were on, and spent a long time looking through the shelves. So many haematology books! And even some on genetics!

Ahem. We were pressed for time when we left, so we gave up our plan to drop by McDonald's, and managed to find our way out of the yellow blocks and back to SB, where Sam left and I headed to for my lecture.

A little unsurprisingly, I sat all alone - at the other end of the aisle from, erm, the usual classmates. I could've joined them but I much prefer sitting next to the door, thank you. To my astonishment, the lecture ended in one hour! But I stayed a little longer to listen to some research the lecturer had done a few years previously.

After which was a total nightmare - which I shall not touch upon - culminating in my return home at 6 p.m. Bleargh. Freaking bad luck that was.

And now I better go do SOMETHING about my CC project or I'll be in hysterics later. I still need time to study for Excel and French! And I have absolutely no inspiration or motivation left in me for the project...I've had enough of this term.

Jessica wrote home at 1:03 am

ANYWAY, I managed to get to the lecture theatre in time for FOM. Nearly killed myself rushing all the way there from the MRT station.

To my utmost surprise, there was like only one other person from my class there - even when the lecture started. So I had to go down and take the class register to mark attendance. And by the end of the lecture, I had only ticked off 4 people (including me)! So I had a bit of evil fun writing "0" beside the other 13 names. Mwahahaha.

Yeah, well, it was kinda obvious all of them didn't turn up 'cos they were stuck in the Digital Media Studio doing last-minute DTP work. Too bad for them, who asked them to leave so early last Wednesday...:P

We were released 15 min early so I was pretty delighted, and skipped (okay, kidding) all the way to the MRT station again, happily calling Sam's hp.

No answer.

Call again.

No answer.

ARGH!!!!! Decided to take a chance and ring up her house.

And she was still at home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*bangs head against pillar in MRT station*

So ensued a one and a half hour wait at the MRT while my blood sugar level steadily dropped.

So by the time Sam finally showed her face, it was past 11.30 a.m. and I had to be at the DMS at 12 p.m. :P Therefore dragged her all the way to FC4 while Sam took the liberty of laughing at my sketchbook. *kills Sam*

We had like less than 15 min to have lunch, so I was eating too fast to notice anything. Finally we just left our plates and bowls there (haha) and I yanked Sam to the Business block, where I promptly dismissed her. Haha. Kidding. I meant I quickly told her the way out to the MRT, then disappeared into the DMS, where I listened to my lecturer's last talk before I realised I couldn't go out and meet Sam again. So SMS-ed her whilst she headed for Jurong Point and I continued to await my turn.

To cut a long story in the DMS short, it got to my turn around 1.40 or 1.45 p.m. and I went into that little private room to do my little presentation.

Considering I had conveniently left my script in the sketchbook (and it was subsequently brought into the room so I couldn't revise), plus I was half-asleep...well, let's just say I was overly nervous. Like I forgot to bring in the CDs and had to go out and get them, after which I had to refer to the script a little too much, and make an amazingly large amount of gestures (which my lecturer kindly pointed out). BUT she also said my design was nice! :P And that it was a good idea to make Clay's picture a little lighter so it appeared "cleaner"...and that the Clay silhouettes were nice...and that the striped background was a good idea, as was the idea to keep everything in shades of blue...

*ahem* Yeah. So I left the place feeling pretty happy.

Called Sam again, who didn't take too long to reappear at SB, whereby we finally had our little tour. Pointed out the DMS to her, along with FC6 and the library, then went up to the Red Bridges, etc. After which Sam wanted to drop by the CLS blocks, then she said it was too far away so we left the school and went to the bus stop instead.

Took 106 to Orchard Road. Was a pretty long trip but didn't really notice since we were talking so much. (Let's quit and join engineering next year!!!) Oh yeah, and we happened to pass by Gleneagles Hospital, where it turns out we were both born. Cool right? Born in the same hospital exactly 3 months apart. Hahaha.

We got to Orchard and went to check for the strawberries and cream drink...............

*bursts into tears suddenly and refuses to talk about it anymore*

Then we went to Esprit, where Sam wouldn't try on her blue-and-white shirt if I didn't try on anything either. So too bad! :P

After which was Zara, where we didn't see anything, and then Topshop, where Sam freaked out after finding out The Truth About Her White Shirt.

Then we went to the Esprit at Wisma Atria where I got convinced to try that purple fencing shirt (too big) while Sam finally got to try her blue-and-white shirt - which, after a WHOLE lot of convincing, she bought.

Next stop was Kinokuniya. By then it was getting really late so after walking around the stationery section, we decided we wouldn't be heading to Queensway after all. Haha. At the children's section Sam found a new HP guidebook while I realised there's a new Horrible Histories special edition, Rotten Rulers. I WANT!!!*pouts*

Sam wanted to open the plastic on her book, so we went to the (quite secluded) French section. Then we had a brief stop at the Ancient History and Fiction sections before Sam practically chased me out of the place. *pouts again*

ANYWAY, we were both thirsty again so we went to buy milkshakes at Mos Burger - vanilla for Sam, strawberry for me. Then we went to one of the benches to sit and crap around. After we finished our milkshakes it was time to go. *sniff*sniff* Took the bus home whilst Sam left by MRT.

Jessica wrote home at 10:56 pm

I actually forgot school starts at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. Was rushing off to sleep at 4.30 a.m. (don't ask) when, whilst setting the alarm, I thought, "Why am I even setting it...it's 7 a.m. every morning...well, except for Tuesdays...eh...wait a minute..."

After which I was pretty darn glad to have the extra two hours of sleep. I even woke up before the alarm rang for the first time, and when it finally did ring at 9 a.m., happily lazed around and kept jabbing the snooze button on both my alarm clock and handphone.

I left the house late and barely made it into the lecture theatre on time. So much for dallying about finding clothes and cleaning my shoes. :P

Okay, I admit, the lecture was rather worth it: the lecturer told us the important parts to study for the exam. I didn't know they do that in poly, but whatever. :P ICP looks way easier to study than FOM, at any rate. Doesn't help that the FOM syllabus is never-ending! Unfortunately I can't start studying anything till the middle of my study week, a.k.a. next Tuesday night or Wednesday. But at least I've got something to occupy myself up till 2.35 a.m. on both nights.

Ah, excuses to stay up late. :)

(Fine, I have tons better things to occupy myself with - especially napping after Tuesday's French test, but let's pretend I'm a hardworking, good little girl who has nothing to do but study. :P)

Anyway, you might've heard of my super long nap last evening, from 7.20 p.m. till 11.30 p.m. Haha. I was so tempted to just continue sleeping.

But no, there was that stupid CC project to work on.

After hearing Sam's numerous product ideas, by 2.30 a.m. I still had not decided on anything. Was getting annoyed and hungry and starting to crave for Oreos...

Hey...Oreos...

So I have my print ad idea now. Well, ideas. Depends on whether I can execute them; or rather, depends on whether the pictures turn out the way I want them to. Maybe I shall just stick with one print ad instead of a series. Makes life easier. I just have to buy a pack of Oreos and make sure the milk doesn't run out before then. Oh, and get permission to wreak havoc in the kitchen. But since I always do that accidentally...

Ahem. And then I can have a snack after my hard work.

Ah, excuses to eat. :)

If I keep using food products for my projects, I can conceivably keep myself happy till the end of the three years.

*sighs*

Now, enough of typing. Have to go do my concept paper, since I was so horribly unproductive yesterday. Want to get everything done by Saturday latest. Have to study for stupid Excel and French tests after that. Speaking of French...bleargh. It better not end at 8 p.m. again today! And please please PLEASE don't let there be French oral this term...*sniffs*

Later...

*is extremely annoyed*

So here I was, almost one hour into my booking time, happily surfing for Oreo pictures (did you know "Oreo" brings up about five thousand photos of pets with that name?). As expected the usual "your-time-is-almost-up-do-you-want-to-extend-your-booking" message popped up, and of course, having an extra hour of break, I clicked "Yes".

And the stupid thing tells me there's an error 'cos somebody already booked it for the next hour.

Like what the hell! Wanna book also book an empty station right? How would you like it if you were working deep in concentration on a project, and the same thing happened to you? *curses person who booked the station, who happens to be at the station now and is in full view of Jessica*

So I had to close my image search, eject my thumbdrive, close all the open windows - my half-done concept paper on Word, etc. Then I gathered all my stuff (which I had scattered round the table) and went to book another station. Didn't put everything back in my bag 'cos it would be a plain nuisance to drag them out again, so I had to balance that big pile on my arm.

GRR. And that station wasn't even in any special, convenient location, nor is the computer area especially full at the moment. :P

Jessica wrote home at 12:09 pm

Probably seeing the project requirements sapped my energy away. One 600-800 word concept paper. One (at least) A4-sized print ad. One pamphlet.

Yippee. Someone's gonna have her hands full for the rest of the week.

Now if only I could actually decide on a stupid product to do on! I was going to use some cool-looking Sony speakers, but they're a little hard to do creative print ads that don't feature one big close-up of the speakers. Then there's GBA SP (a little outdated), DS (don't know much about them), PS2 (ditto). Oh, and a very cute Swatch watch (limited product details).

GRR.

I need to go home and think. Okay, I need to go home and sleep. Except that class doesn't end till 5 p.m.

I love Mondays and Tuesdays. *rolls eyes*

There's still that DTP presentation to think of. How to sell the bookcover?!

11.30 a.m. now. Think I shall have lunch after ICP. Not hungry as usual, although I have a surprisingly large appetite for breakfast. Every morning I have the urge to ignore the clock and just sit there eating and eating and eating and...

Oh yeah, and I got the highest marks for that scriptwriting CA thingy. Still think scriptwriting sucks.

Jessica wrote home at 11:20 am

Finally taking the time to "blog blog", as YQ calls it. Not that I didn't have time the whole day; in fact I didn't even do anything the whole day.

Woke up with the intention to go shopping - it was raining. So I went briefly outside to check the papers for any book discounts - nothing.

So, not having any motivation to go out in the rain, I went back to sleep. Woke up again at 2 p.m., had lunch in front of the computer, found there was nothing to do online. Nor was there anything to do offline, so I went straight back to sleep.

Didn't wake up till the sun had set at 7.30 p.m.

Amazing. I didn't know a person could sleep so much in a day.

Anyway, part of the reason why I couldn't be bothered to do something was because I was feeling grouchy. I mean, *grumble*grumble*, I have school later. And four more weeks till my holidays, in fact. Which happen to include two projects due, two presentations, two tests and two exams.

*grumble*grumble* some more. I used to think this term was pretty short, 'cos I was rushing to do so many things that I didn't have time to notice the weeks go by. Now I realise it's just dragging on endlessly because, from week one, the assignments and projects and presentations have just been going on and on and on and I'm getting crazily SICK of all of them!!! It's been nine whole weeks of nothing but getting all my stupid projects done and rehearsing for that stupid upcoming presentation.

AUGH!!!!!! *tears hair out*

And now I will tell you about the nicer parts of my weekend.

*clears throat and smiles sweetly*

Friday's CC class can be summed up as such: FINE, NO ADVERTISING FOR ME. CD ended at 11.30 a.m. after we had handed in our - you guessed it! - project. The lecturer asked if we wanted to work on our upcoming - you guessed it! - presentation in the classroom, and of course we all said we'd prefer to work in the library instead.

And of course we all went anywhere but the library. For me, it was straight home to have lunch, pack, do some typing, etc. before zipping to Tampines. I had wanted to take a short nap but time didn't permit, and even then I was very late getting to the interchange, where thankfully Sam was waiting at the usual bus stand.

(Anyway if she hadn't been waiting then I would've just gone shopping and not turned up at her house till 8 p.m. :P)

We took 18 to her house; dallied for a while before plonking down on her couch to wait for YQ. Sam was reading her C Math notes and I was getting tired of doing nothing (plus I didn't want to start on my work)...so I happily went to sleep.

Didn't wake up till 2 hours later, when YQ, by now VERY late, hadn't yet turned up. Sam was already done bathing and we were both starving so when YQ finally turned up, it didn't take long before we were all out of the house and walking towards 201.

We had dinner at McDonald's (no Subway!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahaha), where I found out that 1) since my old EZ-Link card was taken away, I can't get any points from McDonald's with my ugly new tertiary card...and 2) there's no more ice ceam float on the menu!!!!!!!

*bursts into tears*

ANYWAY, after dinner (my fries finished surprisingly quick), we all went in search of my sponges. When we finally found the right place, I rummaged through both shelves of sponges but just couldn't find the Manhattan ones! Finally, when I was about to give up, I realised it was one of those packs just sitting at the front of the shelf. Took it and went to ask the shopowner if there was anymore; in a mixture of Chinese and Hokkien he told me that the new stock would only arrive the next week, and please pay $2.20. :P

After that, we had a short stop at the next-door stationery store. Found out that Pilot G2 now comes in Blue Black!!!! My favourite colour!!!! But I have so many Pilot G2s (blue, black, purple, metallic purple) that it made sense to only buy refills...and there weren't any, so too bad.

Back at Sam's house, we did our work (YQ - C Math, Sam - Chem, Me - FOM) while in the background, either the TV or radio was blaring loudly. So sorry to say, not much of Marketing Information Systems, Consumer Behaviour and Market Segmentation, Target Marketing & Market Positioning went into my head, despite trying to keep alert with some glucose drink. I especially did not remember anything about Market Positioning, because by then we had given up and retreated to Sam's room, and it was time for my bath.

My bath over, it was increasingly difficult to study since the mattress had to be set out, YQ wanted to sleep, and Sam wanted to pose for pictures. :P So my notes ended up being scattered everywhere.

In the end, we left YQ up on Sam's bed and Sam and I went below to watch Clay's Back For More video for the gazillionth time. We ended up bouncing along to the song (on the mattress) and imitating his every action twice through. Except that many of his actions were questionable and so funny that we collapsed halfway in a heap and laughed till our throats were sore.

So by the time I settled down to sleep, I could hardly speak a sentence without my voice fading off. All Clay's fault. Hmmph. Oh, and Sam was still too hyper so it took a long time getting her to stop annoying me, before I could finally sleep in peace.

After a very interrupted night (the phone rang twice, Sam's alarm went off for what seemed like hours, and apparently YQ's phone alarm also went off), YQ and Sam woke up; Sam switched on the TV, did some stuff, then went back to sleep. An hour later I woke up, getting panicky because it was 1.30 p.m and I was supposed to leave at 2 p.m.

We didn't manage to leave until 2.20 p.m., because Sam kindly refused to wake up (despite our attempts to tickle her, prod her, fling pillows at her, etc.) and we gave up and asked her mother to let us out instead. :P :P :P

I got home at 3.45 p.m. - the time I was supposed to leave for Marina South, and went into a frenzy unpacking my big bag, packing my small bag, deciding what to wear, stuffing biscuits into my mouth...before YQ SMS-ed to say they were going to be late. So I took things more slowly - until YQ called to say ZY and co. had left by MRT and she and WH would be taking a taxi straight there instead.

Brilliant. Briefly contemplated taking a taxi too, but I realised I would probably be the first to arrive. Just so happened that there was a 145 waiting when I got to the bus stop, so I hopped on and SMS-ed Vanessa, and planned to meet them at Marina Bay's control station.

I can't remember how long I waited, but eventually ZY, Vanessa, Johan and Andrew turned up. Johan said he had seen me in school the other day but I hadn't said hi (heyyyyyyyy, not my fault, I didn't see him). Then we went out to wait for the bus, which as usual took a long time to arrive and was very crowded.

We got to the steamboat place where YQ and the birthday boy were waiting for us; went off to pay and get the food immediately.

The whole dinner affair actually took a considerably short time, during which ZY annoyed Vanessa with his comments on her cooking ("This meat is a bit hard...a bit a bit a bit only..."), Andrew amused us by going off to chop up the crabs...and returning with all the inedible parts, and WH, while trying to feed ZY with a piece of meat, ended up dropping it on ZY's beige pants instead. Of course, there were many more lame incidents, but I can't recall them now. :P

Then we all left the place and walked the usual long walk to Benjamin Sheares bridge. Below the bridge, with the city lights as backdrop, we took some pictures. Then we climbed up and walked on and on and on till we got to Suntec, by which time we were all sweaty and dusty.

At Suntec the guys couldn't decide whether or not to catch a movie; in the end we all chose to go for a drink. Ended up at the supposedly-quiet Cartel branch at Suntec, which was not quiet at all. In fact there wasn't enough space so we had to sit outside and get sweaty and dusty again. And the cakes weren't half-price after 9 p.m.! :P

Sat there talking separately for quite some time, before I took this nice "ghost" picture and, as it was being passed around, the talk suddenly turned to ghosts and horror movies. Hahaha. I still remember watching Ju-On 2 as if it was only yesterday...and that was one and three-quarter years ago!

Finally left slightly past 10.30 p.m., with some of us a little shaken by the talk. Got to the MRT where I sadly waved goodbye (as usual), and went to wait for my bus (Andrew went to a different bus stop, btw), which thankfully came very soon. Got home in exactly 20 min (11.24 p.m.), went to bathe, read the newspapers, then went online.

And now it's 3.15 a.m. and I better go to sleep or else!

Gee, feel like I haven't done much work...but that's what the study week is for, bleargh...

P.S. Champions League matches showing in the wee hours of next week (which, in case you've forgotten, is my study week). What luck - finally I have something to look forward to...

Jessica wrote home at 2:06 am

ANYWAY, you won't believe what happened yesterday morning. I'd slept slightly past 3 a.m. and set my alarm to the usual 7 a.m.

...then when I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that it was extremely bright outside. And the first thing that came into my mind was, "#$%^&*!!!! I'm LATE!!!!!!!!!!!" After which I was afraid of finding out the time, but I had to do it.

It was 11.59 a.m.

Ignoring the 9 a.m. FOM lecture (since I was highly tempted to skip it in the first place)...

My second (and VERY crucial) DTP class was due to start at 12 p.m.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Nearly in hysterics, I leapt out of bed and made a mad dash to wash up, change, tie my hair, yank some books from my bag (those that I had wanted to use during the day's break), toss in my phone, and ran out the door.

Caught a taxi almost immediately, which thankfully did not take me to the back of the school like the last taxi driver did. :P Couldn't drive in and up the hill, so I got out and rushed all the way to the media studio, SMS-ing one of my classmates to help me open the studio door ('cos it's always locked and the lab door is always closed so no one would see me outside).

That classmate didn't reply so I had no choice but to detour round to the glass walls of the lab, which faces the carpark. The problem with the glass walls is that they are purposely tinted so whilst you can look out from the inside, it's VERY hard to do so from the outside. I bent very close to the glass and could make out a few moving figures inside, so I rapped loudly on the glass. Then I saw one of my classmates (couldn't see who exactly), running out of the lab, so I ran round to the door again and got let in.

When I got to the lab, it occurred to me that there were some people missing, including the classmate I had SMS-ed. Turns out she had been in school earlier but left either before the class started, or just after it started. Tried to walk to my seat as surreptitiously as possible.

And by the way, I was only half an hour late. Not bad eh?

Well, the good thing was that I had started work on my cover from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. (possible reason for oversleeping, plus the fact that I didn't get to nap and therefore was awake for more than 20 hours) that morning, so I had only the copy (text) to worry about.

The bad thing was that the text took excrutiatingly long to do. For example, after kerning "CLAY AIKEN" nicely and making it opaque, I somehow deleted the layer so I had to redo the whole darn thing. And the words on the spine? Took a LARGE chunk of time rotating it 90 degrees, then also kerning "CLAY AIKEN" there.

After more experimentation, I found out how to give the text shadows and glow, so more time spent touching the front cover up. For added effect (to make him appear more holy, probably), I gave his picture a diffused glow.

Then came my biggest headache - the backcover, or rather, the blurb on the backcover. Seriously, before 3 p.m. I had started work on it, and not till 4.30 p.m. (when everyone in class had left at least one hour ago) did I finish it and send it for printing. First the white background gave me problems, then the text screwed up and there wasn't any spacing between the words. And of course, I didn't even know what to write in the blurb!

Finally when everything was done, I sent the file to print...and it took ages to be printed 'cos there were seniors in the lab who were printing their own projects. Finally ended up with 3 copies (one slightly different), after which I had to burn the file onto my CD-R (thankfully there was no problem here). Then as I was leaving, my lecturer (who had earlier remarked it was "the smart thing to do" for me to stay back and finish the cover) smiled at me and said, "Finally, a big sigh of relief!" So I said bye and rushed off to the bus stop.

Obviously by the time I reached home it was like any other day, and in fact I was also pretty tired (even though I had more than enough sleep the previous night!), but my first priority was food because I hadn't eaten anything yet. And you know how hungry I can get.

So after dinner (and an ice-cream float for dessert), I went off to nap.

P.S. Oh yeah, as I was pasting the print onto my sketchbook (whilst waiting for dessert), my mother scolded me. *sniff* I mean, all I said was, "You know, this glue smells nice!"

*blinks innocently*

And to all my wonderful readers who are probably confused by now, here's a look at the final bookcover design:

Jessica wrote home at 12:08 am