animal planet.

it had been a very tedious period during those few days. training from 0900 to midnight, inclusive of 2 hours' worth of break. the mind being challenged everyday, every minute, every statement uttered by the profs. doing questions and reading campbell (omg, just die la... pls be happy that h2 syllabus doesn't cover campbell cover-to-back) after training, doing questions at night, when no one else is awake. when two cups of kopi-o/kosong does nothing to stop you from yawning in the morning, you know that it's one hell of a training.

if that's bad, add to that the whole thing of coping with people. it's fine if you have 4 other people who are seriously enjoying the process of training (i know that's kinda ironic, but really, you CAN and SHOULD enjoy dissections, practicals and lectures) and belong to the type who can mug and play. but no, they are, in the words of a particular professor, "darn uptight". i had to convince people to play (like, OMG... but maybe that's why i became the reserve - play too much, do too little). the only time when they really spoke up was during formal training; there wasn't anything much beyond biology and science that transpired at other times.

maybe you think that i'm just being sore... but, to me, the biggest problem is not with the proficiency of the other team members. in fact, i respect them for being so knowledgeable and i admit defeat. the only thing i have qualms with is the way we are going to be seen overseas. sure, some foreign competitors will be very muggish (read: china, america (full of chinese immigrants anyway), korea, taiwan, thailand), but how are the singaporeans going to engage the others, who are interested in having fun? surely it's not through studying campbell together... my point is, the olympiad is not just the competition. there's a reason why it lasts 7 days - it's for you to make full use of your free time to have fun, appreciate others' cultures and immerse in some form of (perhaps, scientific) fellowship.. if all they are concerned with are medals, well, so be it... you only lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a spectacular showcase to the world, that's all.

people can also be so freaking insensitive at times. maybe it's because there's lack of female presence in this year's line-up, but that's not a good reason for being indifferent to others anyway! besides the whole not-saying-thanks-when-you-should thing, it is also gonna be very appreciated if you can control your anal sphincter muscles during a lecture... imagine emitting some noise from your dorsal posterior end (sorry, can't help putting in some nice, cheem-ified biological terms here :P) during the theory test, what are the other delegates gonna think? unless you have some bowel incontinence, i hardly think that this is appropriate. sigh...

sometimes, when you screw up, others tend to look very interested all of a sudden. especially in a competitive environment, people don't crowd around you to see how little you have bungled, but how much you have screwed up. they want to know how worse off you are, compared to them. quite saddening, isn't it? oh well, i guess most of us have been through that phase, some time or another, as either the onlooker or the person who screwed up. i rather you look nonchalant all the while, rather than be dao at the beginning and then concerned in the end... ignorance is bliss.

sigh, had to let it off my chest. been troubling me for the past two nights...