.06

Painkillers are amazing, don't know how I'd get through the day without them.

But the lesson learned is always do the past midterms, especially if the professor is the same. Guaranteed there will be the same questions, and if you're lucky (aka calc and chem so far) it will be the same numbers too.

Soooo grateful for easy chem midterm!

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A few things I've figured out from the 2 midterms I've done:

• I'm subconsciously very stressed about them. This sucks as I always get a terrible night of sleep right before exams. I've woken up at the middle of the night and the first thought that popped into my mind was Squeeze Theorem... (and yet I still forgot to use it to prove a limit)
• It helps for me to have a few lines of a song stuck in my head. Don't know how I would have survived studying for and writing both exams without Kanye and Adele.
• Having sips of water/doing some unrelated action in between finishing each question helps reset my concentration. The test is a lot less intimidating if you're just facing one question at a time, divide and conquer whoo. 
• Write each step out, mostly because I suck at doing arithmetic but makes finding an error at a later time easier. Though now there's more lines to erase if you do find a mistake...

.05

More wisdom from calc professor, in the context of word problems, paraphrased:

There's two things we test you on, how well you can translate from english into math and the courage of your conviction [...] it takes confidence to do well in math. Logical thinking we can teach you, but to be able to stare at an equation and believe that you are deriving it correctly is something we cannot teach.

and with that ends the happy part of the post. Below is a rant on the calc midterm, which was by no means difficult. I just make really stupid mistakes :]

...like subbing in values near 1 into f(x) when the limit was as x -> 0.
So there goes 3/4 marks, if the TA was in a nice mood I'll get a mark for writing down the definition of continuity <_ p="p">and then I proved something is true by assuming it's true. It actually makes more sense in context, but that's still not the way to prove anything "orz
annnnnd I lost marks for notation (prob 2 marks), brainfarting (2 or 1)
so thats maybe 10 marks gone assuming everything else is right. I'll predict a 70-85%, anything above 80 I'm happy with. 

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Plastic water bottle and boiling water are not good friends:

white dress

Ugh need to make a post totally unrelated to academics.
I hate Wiley so so much. Sh!t F!roshs say is a lot funnier a month into school:


ah crap. onto stuff unrelated:
Been talking to Rui a lot of a Sephora haul, so I thought to go through my stash to save my wallet from potential pain.
Lo and behold all my lip balms:

L -> R: Korres lip butter (from gritaly!), Burts Bee lip balm, Yves Rocher moisturizing lip balm, Fresh sugar and sugar rose lip treatment, Mary Kay lip treatment, and Kiehl's #1 lip balm.
(man beauty bloggers must have a lot of patient typing out all the product names)

The first 2 from the left is what's in my backpack. The Korres is extremely pigmented and makes me look less like a zombie for days when I'm too lazy to put any make-up on (so everyday but Wednesday). Burts Bee is pretty all purpose, the minty scent helps keep me awake in lectures as a bonus :]
Yves Rocher one is what I layer under other lip products, also pretty all purpose. The Fresh ones are the free birthday gift from Sephora. They're similar to the ones Mel sold for JA, feels the most lightweight on the lips.
Last two are more of a treatment. The Mary Kay one does wonders for getting rid of dead skin, and the Kiehl's is a bit too oily for daytime use, so I use it overnight.

Conclusion: do not purchase anymore.
(though I really want to try the Dior lip glow T_T)

carnival

Had dinner yesterday at Eat Fresh.
Despite it's slightly sketchy decor, the food is delicious! Portions are large, prices are reasonable, and the service is amaaaazing. Chef Dan and all the waitstaff were so welcoming and helpful, thanks to him I'll never make the mistake of ordering any steak of meat over medium again.
I don't know how I ever ate anything well done.

Anyways, presenting the food:











Definitely treating myself to this place after midterms end.

not a thing

Shad (and McKinsey YLF) covered a large portion of ESP. I feel like it's simultaneously a really useful and useless course @_@"

Done PR! Group made it through without biting each others' heads off, we get along rather well haha. Let's hope this continues into CDS and beyond.

This must be the nth time I've mentioned how awesome my calc prof (and TA too ofc) is. A graphical explanation for lin alg helps soooo much. I totally get eigenvalues and eigenvectors now, and yes they are cool / useful.


Onto midterms...
weekend say hello to a hundred calc practice problems :]

midterms

I forget whether I first heard this from my grade 7 or 8 teacher, but "the feeling of impending doom" is a perfect description of how I feel at the moment of the titular subject.

and ESP, just ughhh. 

hurry for tea & music for keeping me sane focused.
(it's not thaaaaat bad, I'm prone to exaggeration when stressed)

.04 & others

So the $300 I spent buying textbooks won't be so useless after all. Chem was already fun to read (or as joyful as reading a textbook can be), but turns out that Lin Alg textbook explains the concepts quite well. And just maaaaaaybe I'll finally be hitting the Statics textbook for practice problems (though I much prefer to do past midterms and problem sets from other sections).
ESP...yeah shouldn't have bought that.

ANYWAYS
Had a good afternoon, so I treated myself to some donuts and internet wishlist-ing :]
hehhehehee (in the least creepy hehe possible).

Some office wear lusts from Club Monoco:

jacket / shirt & skirt, perhaps together?

My point: I actually have no business formal wear. Yes I have blazers and pencil skirts, but none of the match (navy and grey for blazer and black for skirt, plus the skirt is quite short). Debating between whether to get a really nice wallet (either this (can't decide between green or black) or this) or a pencil skirt (why nice ones cost the same price as a leather wallet is beyond me, but it'll be an investment).

I was going to get a watch with a metal band, but luckily I was able to mooch off some super glue and fix my current watch (leather band broke). Really happy that I get to wear it again, it's

• light weight
• comfortable (leather whoo)
• has both silver and gold colours on the face so I can wear whichever other jewelry that I want

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Woah haven't made a long post in a while, so therapeutic haha.  Signing off with a view of the sunset:

(disclaimer: photoshoped, but to match reality)