On Common Tests and Theme Parks

First up: a brief breakdown on how badly I did for the Common Tests. Since it was heartbreaking, I shall not dwell on it too much.

Monday: Economics. Now, I'm sure i blogged about the first subject (GP) a long time ago, so I shall not talk about it any more... not like i can remember anything. I'm unique in the sense that once I've finished doing an exam paper I immediately forget most of what I've done. So I need to blog about CTs immediately before I really do forget...
Back to the point. Economics. I only studied up till [I forgot- something about intro/ scarcity and the PPC(production possibility curve); elasticity; and concepts of elasticity(Price Elasticity of Demand, Income ED, Cross ED, PE Supply)] and then there was firms. Something ablout long run and short run, and then classifying markets into different structures- monopolies, oligopolies, and the like. Hence, half of economics was not studied and I obviously didn't know how to do the case study and essays. Hence, I will die for econs.
One trend i observed was that for all subjects, I start off each paper very slowly, taking my own sweet time, and ending up having to rush (even then, not so much of a pick up in speed of thinking and writing); therefore, I managed to not complete nearly every single paper. The one or two that I did were very, very rushed, and therefore insubstantial.

Tuesday: Chemistry. I regard this, with Biology following close behind as the subject that I like the most and hence will excel in. So when I left about 20 marks' worth of questions undone, which means that the maximum I can get for the paper is a 70% (not even an A1 in secondary school O'lvl standards). Since that will be unviable due to careless mistakes and the like, this generally means that I am not going to do very well for chem. And  if it's going to be my best subject, then i really don't want to think about the remaining subjects.

Wednesday: Math. The paper was relatively easy if i were to measure it in terms of JC standards. However, I obviously still flunked it. I forgot my secondary school differentiation even after reading past year notes; another 20-25 marks left undone, and the rest mostly unsure of. Nothing more needs to be said.

Thursday: Biology. Another relatively easy paper which I didn't manage to finish (essay question, part a and c). Now for part a, which asked candidates to name a fibrous protein and how its structure relates to its function. I wrote on my question paper "cellulose" (a carbohydrate polymer); then i went on to write the first paragraph about cellulose and its main function (structural support in plants, facilitating pressure potential due to turgor pressure, giving plant cells their shape, high tensile strength etc.). The second paragraph became the beginnings of a lengthy elaboration on collagen (the correct example to be named). Then I realised that I wrote about cellulose, hurried to change "cellulose" to "collagen", and had to stop right after that as the time was up. So, I wrote how collagen has functions in plants. You may deduce the humor of this situation... I would laugh at it too, if the person writing such things was none other than myself.

Friday: Chinese. Halfway during the composition, my chinese e-dictionary died on me, and it was a permernant death. So I had to struggle my way through composition, ending very lamely, and then struggled through Paper 2- again, I was too slow. So I didn't finish in the end, with my two fellow female counterparts in the same class staring at me in astonishment. This is what I mean when I say that my chinese standard is really, really low.

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After CTs on Friday, I decided it was time to finally relax for a bit before sleeping (early- at 10pm). So I invited my friend CTs (not referring to Common Tests this time round, it's his initials) to play billiards with me and shop for weights. The shopping failed because the shop did not stock the type of weights that him and I wanted. Then billiards failed because the place apparently moved out. So we went back to the same shopping mall we begun our journey from after the harrowing experience, blew away money on arcade games, slacked around for a little more (I got CTs hooked to pro-looking bicycles) and went home after dinner and slept.

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So for today (saturday): I was supposed to go for an optional chorale session but i realised i was going to Universal Studios Singapore (USS) in Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) so i had to decline.

Then, family logistics were really, really bad most of the time. So i shall not talk about it, apart form a sneak peek: it was so bad, my parents and I didn't even bring a camera. So all photos were taken using Iphones.

This shall be a complaining session about USS.

After finally going in after a few more minor problems, I looked around me. The area was called Hollywood. Buildings left and right mimicked shops in America, pandering to the 60's or so era. The buildings had fake facades, protected by a white canopy. When I first saw the opening of RWS in Singapore, I thought to myself: Singapore has fallen. Two casinos and a theme park with Disney attractions and so on... Something found in most countries. Why go to such great lengths to increase economic revenue? By turning what used to be a unique place into something ubiquitous? Something so commonly seen elsewhere globally? Something so extraodinarily fake and unreal? I don't find the kick in visiting these sorts of places. If I want to visit pyramids I'll go to Egypt; if i want to see America in the 1960's I'll visit small, less developed parts of America; and so on. Rather than sit down waiting for the queue to slowly inch forward and feel as though I was wasting away my life in there, in rooms reverberating with mindless chatter and noise emitted from giant, loud speakers.

Anyway.

My parents and I walked along USS in an anti-clockwise direction. USS is shaped like a rough circle, with the entrance/exit from the Hollywood area. First, my mother went to stand with a fake Marilyn Monroe for pictures. I pity the fake personas, who have to act the part, pose, blow kisses (Marilyn Monroe); act stupid (fake Frankenstein just before going back); act weird (Betty Boop and the female version of Woody Woodpecker- my mum said it was cute; i said it was not. And i told her i'll laugh if the female character was actually played by a guy in the suit.)

Next was Battlestar Galactica. All three of us sat the blue one first (Cylon). I found it quite impressive but also an impressive waste of money. The sound effects were good, but after hearing it looped more than several times after a 30+ minute queue you begin to think that it's really, really annoying. The walls looked really gross and simulated red flesh with wires running through them. I imagined that being my flesh and shivered. The ride was alright, but not too exciting. I find rollercoasters very ordinary... perhaps the ones in Singapore and Malaysia (Genting Highlands) are not enough to stimulate me. Since there are actually two rollercoasters for this ride, i tried to go the red one (Human) next. Their budget must have ran out because Human was simply decorated with just a aeroplane replica in the holding room and the walls, sparse concrete. Or so i thought till i knocked it and found it hollow. Cheapskates. After 20+ minutes of queuing, I could see the rollercoaster. And then I waited for another 20 more minutes because there were 'technical difficulties'. And then I decided I was being stupid, and ran out.

My parents sat The Mummy rollercoaster while i was queuing fruitlessly. It looked quite fun... I took pictures of the fake-but-impressive-looking figures outside. The figures outside were supporting slabs with heiroglyphs on them. I thought: "I hope those heiroglyphs mean something...". The entrance to the ride was flanked by two jackal-headed gods (Anubis, if I'm not wrong; too lazy to check Google)- as if an entrance to a temple. I met my parents and continued walking. Walking, walking... most of the time spent was done so walking or queuing for rides. Which was quite pointless.

We sat down somewhere in Jurassic Park area (i think that's what its called) for a little rest and nachos (salty). Then we wanted to sit a water ride, but the wait time was 100 minutes long... not worth it at all, unless you had an express pass, which required more money.

Onward to Far Far Away, where we sat through a 4-D movie which was quite horrible; there was water sprinkling down on the viewers as part of a sneeze (twice) and other stuff; ghosts were simulated by air on the back of the neck (really noisy) and horses galloping by moving seats. The most disgusting effect was spiders by funny things that darted around shoes rested on the floor.

Then, lunch at some Friar's Restaurant place. The windowpanes showed a friar licking ice cream, eating more food, and a painting on the wall showed a friar surrounded by a circle of sausages. The wooden roof beams were, of course, fake. At least the food was acceptable, if expensive.

More walking back to Hollywood. My mother decided to rest while me and my father finally sat the Human ride. It was, apparently, up again, before it broke down- AGAIN- after another 15 minutes of queuing. I sat down and silently boiled with some unknown feeling inside me. Luckily it was repaired. Then when it was my dad's and my turn, we sat in the roller coaster, unmoving, for a few minutes, before the 'technical error' message came yet again. For the 3rd time. And we travelled backwards to the start/end point and got off, and the thing went around twice as a safety check before we finally boarded, took the ride, and got off. Utterly boring. Adding on to the long queue times and the despise i now had for USS, consumer satisfaction was at an all time low (what I still remeber from econs). And finally: the last ride. I forced my father to take The Mummy ride with me again. The interior looked alright at first... until we got slightly further, and there lay fake sarcophagi (the stone caskets Egyptian mummies lie in), fake heiroglyphs, fake walls, fake everything... with an empty Lay's wrapper in the crook of a joint between two wooden planks (it felt fake, but the wood was probably real). And the noise by people was unbearable. So after yet more queuing, I was nearing the start point for the ride... and i saw a big figure of a god. Chinese have their 牛头马面 to guard over hell; apparently the Egyptians had their "马面人身" as well, as my father said. This figure was interesting as I tried to take pictures of it but failed; my 3rd generation Iphone had no flash, so nothing could be seen, and my father's 4th generation Iphone only captured white because of the flash. Perhaps, something more spiritual... as it is supposed to be in a temple. They reduced a previous king (Amenhotep) to a mere skeletal figure, shouting out random bits of "you will never get the Book Of The Dead!!" and evil laughter, and so on.

This is the whole point of why I didn't like USS one bit at all. Selling false information to those visiting; being utterly sacreligious, reducing stained windows to such abhorrent scenes of modernity and ice cream on windows; whittling, stripping culture down to it's bare, naked self and calling that being "universal"... this is something I will not pay for. For the rides along, yes; for everything else, count me out. I prefer originality, enjoying these things where they belong. If they made The Mummy attraction into something educational fine, by all means do so; even if for amusement, perhaps; but this is going overboard.

To conclue, I won't be back there in a pretty long while, unless I'm dragged there by friends. Who should know me better after this post, really.

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On a lighter note, I spotted many, many DSLRs when I walked around the place. At one time I counted about 10 in a 360-degree spin around the same spot. Once a guy went past me carrying a hybrid interchangable lens camera! I was really jealous and stared at the camera till he went past... (e.g. Sony Nex 5; basically, compact DSLRs are smaller, cuter, sexier versions of DSLRs, and without the bulk that a prism for reflection confers.)


**Please note that this is a very skewed version of USS by someone who so quite biased against it. I'll admit that the rollercoasters were quite good (my dad even shouted on both red and blue rollercoasters) and the Mummy attraction had good effects. Even if they were fake. The fires especially left we wondering how they did it.. and how engineers design rollercoasters too, for that matter.