5 February 2014:
You create opportunities, fate pushes you along the way.
It's no joke to say that being a J2 is busy. Right from the start there isn't a honeymoon period like J1 where people can nua and slowly get used to the JC system. Being a J2, you are expected to start from the first day of school.(Of course, your ability to start fast enough depends on whether you've finished your holiday assignments. For those who have the starting process is gonna be slightly easier. Otherwise, it's like starting an old car: lots of grunts before the tyre turns.)
But I digress. I haven't been blogging in a while and, while it may seem like an excuse, I really have been quite busy. And yes, some of the time was not well-spent. Instead of using it do finish my tutorials as soon as possible, it was used for social media.
Short digression again - in view that I am a very easily addicted person, I have decided to not use Twitter and Instagram for an indefinite period of time. It has certainly taken up way too much of my time and I cannot afford to continue this behaviour.
A few days before the Chinese new year, my Twitter account was suspended. This basically meant that I couldn't use Twitter as they literally stopped everything, including new tweets from others from appearing.
I sent an e-mail to Twitter, detailing how I did not violate any of their rules and regulations and terms and conditions as set out in a page that they kindly referred me to in the default suspension e-mail.
On Chinese new year day 1, my account was un-suspended, without notice. They never replied to my e-mail (which ended off asking for a suspension reason), so I will never know why I was suspended.
But what of that. The episode made me realise how unnecessarily over-reliant I was on Twitter. I was basically addicted to Twitter but didn't realise it before that. Now that I couldn't use it, I went into 'cold turkey' mode.
I constantly picked up my phone to access the app, then remembering that I couldn't use it anyway. So yes, this made me aware of how badly addicted I am and how potentially damaging it is to my life and studies.
Therefore two days ago, on Monday, I took the liberty to delete the Twitter and Instagram apps from my smartphone. Technically, yes, I can still access it from my computer through their web version.
Somehow, after deleting it, I feel less attached to it and will not even think of logging in through the web version. Maybe my phone has a curse; but anyway now my phone is Twitter-less and Instagram-less and I am freer.
(What turned out to be a small digression ended up quite long after all.)
Back to where I was, now that I have got rid of a major distraction, I really should focus again on my studies. Technically 2013 ended off quite well in terms of studies, having improved in most subjects (except history and GP).
Nevertheless, since J2 contains new content, there is a constant threat of falling behind others again. Therefore it is imperative that I shouldn't rest on my laurels and continue to fight on.
Thankfully, I completed 99% of my holiday homework - I left petty questions here and there empty: bad habit, I know, but I will improve it soon. So I wasn't lagging that badly since I had complete tutorials to refer to or assignments to hand in.
- I paused blogging and went to view my class Whatsapp group. There are ~20 messages of homework that is due tomorrow or Friday. This is why I should stop soon, or look forward to 2am sleep time tonight. -
As the previous paragraph has reinforced, homework is flying in fast and furious. Now even completed holiday assignments can't bide time since everyone now starts on an 'equal footing' with new tutorials.
~
This year I have started doing reviews. It's kind of stupid doing it only this year and yes I regret not doing it last year. Reviews are good because they jolt one's memory and the chances of it staying in the long-term area of the brain is higher.
This isn't just scientific bullshit. It apparently true; at least I experience its effects, or at least a placebo of it. Whatever, so long as things wrong that's just good for me. It takes more time, yes, but it's also better in the long run.
~
(After a dinner, my thought process is horribly scattered. Excuse my incoherence.)
One guess as to why my Twitter account got suspended is because some of my tweets are caustic. I am a liberal Buddhist-atheist and I speak strongly against religious obstruction towards science (e.g. evolution) and other matters.
Therefore, I'm suspecting that someone reported one or some of my tweets. If so: I offer no apologies. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, with their own consequences. I just don't want to be standing on the wrong side of history.
~
Why I actually started this post was because I chanced upon two blogs by juniors from secondary school that I do not know personally. Nevertheless, they blog extremely well about many topics.
The posts aren't 'serious' kinds like politics and all, but they offer a nice read. What's best is that they use more-or-less proper English with good paragraphing. To me this is the biggest draw factor to read a blog, which is why I do so for mine too.
These two have a tendency to intersperse their words with graphics; I personally am not into such a style so I apologise to any dreary-eyed reader. I aim to use words 99% of the time to illustrate my point.
(I also realise that the font of my blog is actually rather small. This is particularly unhelpful for text-heavy posts but sorry I have no intentions to change it currently. I love my minimalist skin so far.)
TTFN | comments at ask.fm/singzeon
If you realise, my blog post topic has next to nothing related to anything within this post. Reason being, I wanted to talk about what I did in the front, slowly leading to the topic. However, since my train of thoughts are scattered and I have little time left to blog (in view of the looming homework mountain), I have decided to prematurely abandon this post which is slightly over 1000 words.