Pato-chan on the ACET

My schedule:
September 15, 2007 (Saturday)
1:00 - 6:00 PM
Ateneo High School
Room # 11

Yeah, so obviously I haven't taken the dreaded exam yet. And I'm not yet terrified out of my wits, hopefully I never will. Because a witless Pato-chan plus one scary exam doesn't mix well.

I don't have much to say (yet). But I would like to express my happiness. For what you may ask? Well, my pretty new books. Yep, my pretty books from Powerbooks.

Boredom

To tell you the truth, I shouldn't be bored. I've got loads to do, but the thing is I really don't want to do it know, setting aside the little known fact that I don't know how to do it as well.

I've got tons of Filipino homework, but I figure that's the norm for Mrs. Caspilo, assign every major, or at least semi-major, work at the beginning of the quarter and leave the small ones till later. Apart from Filipino, we've got English. It's turning into a quarterly thing, having a book report. Now, for Filipino, that was actually announced. We are to review the entire El Filibusterismo ten chapters at a time. But for English, sigh... At least it's a self-help book this time, though that doesn't really mean anything to me as my book is as thick, or a bit less, than an average novel, not to mention the terms the authors use terms that leave my mind wandering the skies, trying to guess the definition. Don't expect me to carry a dictionary around everywhere I go (unless it's one of those tiny electronic ones). I'm not that much of a geek.

Did you know that at one point in the last quarter I worried for my the card grade in History, I mean, Economics? Scary that it came to that since I was a minor history, ahem, social studies, geek last year, and the year before, and the year before. Basically, if it's in English, I can understand it.

Math not included. Besides, our math teachers speak in both English and Filipino. Technically, it's math teacher, since he's responsible for both our Algebra, Advanced Algebra, and Calculus. Surprisingly, this past quarter wasn't so bad. I could actually understand it. It's amazing, isn't it? That goes to show for those out there like me, slightly impaired in the math department, there is hope. Or maybe it was just that our lessons weren't hard... I can't tell anymore.

I won't make a fuss about Science, apart from that my elementary and high school grades can't be compared, because there's that much of a difference. 99! My goodness, how much I've sunk.

Why am I blabbering about school right now? Because the NCAE (National Career Assesment Examination) has left me partially brain dead. Not because it was super-incredibly-extremely difficult, quite the opposite actually. It was easy. The only challenging portions were the ones with cute faded little pictures, meaning non-verbal ability, manipulative skills, and entrepreneurial skills. Would it do any good if I said that I didn't attend the review for the NVA and ES?

Anyway, why I'm brain dead. Because I was that bored.

...

...

Were you expecting that?

The "main" subtests were allotted so much time that right after the reading comprehension bit, I just fell asleep immediately. Take note that as always I was up late.

Where was I? Ah, the pointless, meaningless, rambling.

That kinda ends now...

Pato-chan on the UPCAT and AS4

Well, if you didn’t realize the UPCAT, my schedule at the very least was yesterday, at 12:30 (though it actually started at about 1:30 because the examiner took his sweet, sweet time) in the College of Arts and Letters. Sadly, I didn’t see anyone I knew. Even though I visited the campus the day before and was on the lookout for any Makati Hopians.

I’m alive, therefore I survived.

Yes, the UPCAT has forever scarred me. All the waiting in the hot, hot air, with insects flying around, crawling all over, and swinging from their little threads.

Isn’t that a bit screwed? It probably is.

The actual exam was, well, tough. I guess. Overall, yeah, tough.

The English and Filipino sections were overplayed by the review class I attended. Now, I’d give you a sample of the vocabulary and talasalitaan I can remember, but I can’t remember the unfamiliar Filipino words, so I won’t bother. But, all the words were used in a sentence, at the very least, and the context clues were pretty clear, so it wasn’t too difficult to guess what the words meant. The *cough* most difficult English word used as a vocabulary word I can recall was disheveled. *coughing fit*

Now, the Science subtest was, hm, moderate. I felt that I had wasted my time studying Physics, because they were totally focused on Biology and Chemistry. Which sucks even more, since I can no longer recall most of the stuff we had taken up in those classes, and I don’t believe I was paying much attention in those years in the first place. So, yeah. I guessed my way through 25% of it.

Math. Math was like blah… Here I guessed my way through 50-75% of it. There were a few questions where I was wondering if I’ve ever seen these things before. There was this weird rounded “E” symbol, which I just stared at for a few seconds and moved on. What I’ve got to say about Math to future examinees… Dearies, study your Geometry.

The Reading Comprehension… Hmm, not too hard, but I always imagine myself getting higher scores than I really do. So, oh well. Ah, the thing I hated about it most was that most of it was in Filipino. Most of the essays were centered on Filipino topics. Cory Aquino, the “joke lang” culture of Filipinos, neologism in the Filipino language, the three names of the Philippines, stuff like that.

By the way, did I mention that I only had a tiny breakfast before it? J After the exam, I was whining like hell, “I’m hungry…” And so, I disregarded the fact that I’m on a diet and ate a bowl of rice, Chinese style. Damn, I missed Chinese food.

Now, after that lovely dinner, I had fun. Waiting. There was this short line at the AS4 machine, and the two guys before me were pretty good, I guess, so it was a “learning experience” watching them. The friend of the guy playing kept giving me looks, so I wonder why. Is it A) I’m a girl watching the guy play. B) I’m a girl watching the guy play, and holding an IC card for it. Or C) I’m a girl watching the guy play, holding an IC card for it, and wearing a skirt, a pretty long one, by the way. But, bah, who cares. The two were really loud, too, if I might add.

Also, if anyone from TIDPH is reading this, I heard them talking about you guys. They were saying that, well, the guy with the name ANINO, he though that you guys were kinda mayabang, but fast anyway. This part, I’m not quite sure about, but I think he wanted to see you guys go against CKF, or some other top player. Then they went on about which of the top players went to the forums, and blah…

Ah, and before I forget, there was another guy playing with the name, Manu. Yeah…

Anyway… Previously, though I didn’t make an account of it, I had already beaten Lake Akina, Myogi, and up to Kyoupon on Akagi. Now, Kei-pi wasn’t too hard, I think I beat him on the second try, like yesterday. Then went off to beat Ryoupon on the second attempt, I think. Then Akina. Ryoupon was the challenge here again, three tries, and he was off the chart as well. The FC’s startup is, well, amazing. I had to ram into it just so I could get ahead. Then I just bypassed Takumi.

Now, Irohazaka had been calling out to me for some time now. So, I decided to play Sei-pi then realized that I don’t know how to play Irohazaka. At my third try, in CP3/4, I think I just about got the formula, but just about, since it only worked on some corners, others… well, I just ended up reversing myself. Either that, or ramming hood-first into the guardrail.

Since, I was running out of time, I decided to skip him and move on to Tsukuba and just try out Dai-pi. The first CP, or did it last to the second, was relatively easy to grasp, so I was able to overtake Dai-pi there. Past that point though, he passed me and left me in the dust.

In the end, I have about 60-70K points in my card, with two cars sitting in my garage, the S2000 and the RX8. I’m keeping that third space empty for the time being, since I simply cannot decide what car I’d like to put there. I’ve also heard several suggestions on how to play, like taking the card out after each race, so you could tune it faster, now I’d do that, except that it takes a lot of time putting it in and taking it out, so whatever, I can tune my cars in time and I really don’t have much time to play. And, I don’t even know yet if you can renew it, so I’m not taking any chances and taking my sweet time.