Propagator

So I finally cleared the SAT Reasoning on Saturday. The morning was good, with no sign of rain and without particularly scotching sun so it was actually a perfect day to be outdoors – too bad I was going to be trapped in some stupid building for the next 5 hours.

Starhub Center is really a great place to take your tests at; the chairs are comfortable, the tables are big enough for you to place your sharpeners, water bottle, calculators, entire boxes of wooden pencils, your admission ticket if necessary as well as both the question and answer booklet. As we have alternate sitting to reduce proximity between candidates, there’s space to put that gigantic bag full of snacks beside you. The room is not too cold as well, a good news for those who forgot about bringing a jacket (trust me, you’ll still perspire rather profusely or feel particularly warm at some of the sections regardless of the room temperature).

The first couple of sections were considerably manageable; if you’re lucky the variable section should hopefully not come out first because that’s when you’re performing better and answering stuff correctly. We’ll never know about the variable section so this is an example of the role of luck in test-taking. Towards the Section 5, one gets a little tired and even having been through two 5-minutes break prior to that, I find myself getting very tired and I became conscious of this intense headache that has been brewing since the end of Section 4. At Section 6 one almost feels like giving up as the excruciating headache almost takes the life out of me. I was clearly aware that it was a result of focusing too much on the paper and not letting my eyes rest by looking far. But I can’t help it because I didn’t want to bring up my head for fear that the examiners would suspect I was trying to give myself any ‘unfair advantage’. Moreover the room isn’t exactly that big to have objects ‘far’ away for me to glance at.

When I finished Section 7, I felt more relieved and the headache started weakening in intensity upon the realization that the coming sections will not last as long as the preceding ones, it was a happy sign of liberation that I gladly embraced. Working on the questions is not at all any easier though; I just continued working at the same pace though I know that the fatigue is probably going to pose a drag on my performance and judgment of what constitutes the correct answer to each question. Finally, when I reached the 10-minute Section 10 I find myself overwhelmed with joy like I experienced before the previous time when I took SAT Reasoning. It’s a moment when you declare to yourself: What score I’m getting doesn’t quite matter anymore, I just want to get out of this freaking place. Of course you change your mind about that as soon as you step out of the test center and embrace the reality of life – scores and grades take a substantial part of the ‘everything that matters’.

Time’s Up! The examiner declared, but before the dismissal, Collegeboard needs to know a couple of things you have to say about the test this time under the ‘Special Questions’ section. Many people forgets about that of course; well, it won’t affect your scores anyways so everyone just hastily fill up that section, all ready to get out. Booklet collection: Examiners go down the row and you happily pass them the ticket that entitles you to leave the room. In my mind, I was really grateful I took my test there, in that room (although the guy with a large automated battery-powered wooden pencil sharpener who sits in front of me really gets on my nerves when his gadget emits that drilling noise whenever he sticks his blunt pencil into it); the examiners were nice too, particularly conscious that no one gets an ‘unfair advantage’ during the paper.

I left the building, less hastily than those people who looked like the Perfect-Scorer-type but with more speed than the grumpy crowd at the lift lobby who are probably waiting for their friends so that they can whine about how the paper was. I was hungry, so I took out the packet of Milo I brought, and sipped on it as I walked on to the streets of Orchard Road…

There’s a couple of things you go out of touch with after long time in army. For quite a couple of times, after staying in camp for more than 10 days, I realise I lost my ability to weave within crowds and I either walk really slowly behind someone trying to SMS while walking or stand still in front of a huge group of people walking towards me because I don’t know how to walk in-between them. It takes a while to get over the trauma and re-learn that ability but just when you start walking on streets normally again you realise you’re booking back into camp again.

Then you lose out over your control of eating – camp food is not exactly that bad but when you leave camp you almost inadvertently find yourself munching on something very frequently. Somehow the fact that you only gain access to food (snacks not included) during the stipulated meal times appears to be quite a deprivation. Of course there’s the mess but paying for things in camp isn’t quite my style.

Worst, you lose touch with intellectual stuff like reading and studying. I’ve been trying to study for my SAT and I’m using the methods I used to study A Levels, making notes, doing practice, reading study guides but somehow I feel restless and the sound of PSP in bunk at night can be quite irritating. For reading, I’m starting to read more slowly than the past and I find myself re-reading the same sentence many times to catch what it means. This is extremely worrying; I really hope it’s just army and not me!

I’ve always manage to see the positive in many stuff and while in the past I’ve always perceived gaining pleasure as something pretty extravagant and somewhat wasteful (despite my acknowledgement and acceptance of Economists’ assumptions that hedonism often accounts for individual actions even if they appear selfless). While in camp, I’m forced to look into the fundamentals of an ‘modern life’ and I find myself enjoying simple pleasures that I would never have looked at that positively if I had not been through camp life. These are things like:

Feeling really glad the sun is scotching because it means your clothes will dry quickly and smell really good

Soaking in the rain during training both because you’re feeling hot with all the physical activities and that you’re secretly hoping you would fall sick and get MC the next couple of days

Enjoy Tuesdays & Thursdays because camp emart is open and you can get Fruit Tips from there plus also because there’s western food at the cookhouse (although sometimes they’re not necessarily better)

Being able to stay in bunk alone to read and not hearing PSP noises coming from the beds around you

Seeing trainees’ marching and singing song while you stroll leisurely around

Getting your greetings acknowledged by those of higher ranks when you greet them; it really makes a difference how you would perceive those guys after that

Feeling happy about being able to wash your clothes when you walk to the toilet 20 metres away and realise no one is using the washing machine

Jeering at people when they walk pass the lousy TV antenna we made ourselves and causing an interference to the signal

Proud that you have the courage to voice the truth when you select the ‘Lousy’ option on the Cookhouse Survey

Chatting with mates about the ‘outside’ world and everyone’s ‘past’

Just plainly looking at the sky and wondering how nice it’ll be if you could bring a camera in to capture the clouds

Life can be really nice if you decide it’s so.