Hey everybody! I was studying Biology today, and came upon a very very puzzling question.

First up, I am making the assumption that there is no such thing as negative pressure. meaning pressure is expressed in x pascals, where x > o.

Now water, in atmospheric pressure can rise up to a maximum height of 10m. This is just like mercury can rise a maximum of 76cm.

Now everybody knows that transpiration pull is responsible for water being pulled up the xylem vessel. This works as the water evaporates from the cell, the cell has a lower water potential and hence draws water from the next cell and so on till the xylem vessels. Now the drawing of water is something like pressure, where the higher pressure moves to the lower pressure. In essence, you are actually sucking the water from the xylem. Apparantly, at the height of 10m, the pressure there is zero right? So how then, is it possible for water to move higher than 10m up the tree if there is no such thing as negative pressure? the water would simply move to 10m and stop!

I have been thinking about this question for the better part of the day and as I was typing this post out, I came upon the answer! However, I am not going to reveal it and see if others can see what the answer is. Or it could just be that only I cannot see it at first and other people can. Whatever!

You can tell that i have been trying my best to study hard, but it is really hard to do. The closer the exams are, the less I want to study. But I still must stick through with it. Sigh. I wish I could just get all the papers over and done with as soon as possible but this does not seem to be the case. There is going to be 3 weeks of exams! Three weeks! Oh my god! Just let me die!

Last friday was graduation day. We got to wear those... erm... intresting (read:weird) looking corsages and walk on a red carpet where we tried to make those people in the uniformed groups who were, I guess, supposed to be saluting us laugh. Anyway after the talk and all that stuff, we went back to class, where ms chan wanted to talk to us.

As I suspected, ms chan did cry, and so did many people in our class when she talked to us as a class for i guess, the very last time. We were her very first form class that she was bringing up from sec three to sec four. She, I guess, was also our first form teacher in sec 3 and 4, considering that I am only in sec 3 and 4 once...

After she gave her heart rending speech, she made us even more sad by giving out pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with a name on each piece. One wonders if we would ever get the chance to piece the puzzle back together again... I responded by screaming wildly when every student was called up to take his or her piece of the puzzle.

I am sure that I am going to miss the days of secondary school. As we move up, we get to spend less and less time with our classmates. From 6 years in primary to 4 years in secondary and 2 years in JC. I think that secondary school was where some of the best memories of my life was. i will never forget zhss bball, even though it is going to be closed down and the gold we managed to achieve in our final year, our last swan's song.

I am going to miss the trainings at 3 on weekdays and 8 on saturdays, I am going to miss the warmup sessions where we would talk and laugh and try to make each other fall down when doing the squatting thing and gryate our hips wildly when doing hip rotations. I am going to miss the 10 rounds round the school, where we cut corners sometimes by jumping down the ledge, waving to people as we run, pushing richard along... I am going to miss the 6 pullups, 30 push ups, 30 situps and 30 jumps that we did, the 200 skips, the 50 times we had to touch the board, hugging the medicine ball and jumping up three flights of stairs was kinda fun too. I am going to miss the full court layup drills, 4 bounce layup, behind the back, turn around, fake, layup! I am going the miss the half court drill with the three actions, turn body, corssover and bodyfake. I am going to miss doing our shooting drills, beneath basket, from the left and right of the freethrow line, from three points every saturday till we all wanted to die from shooting so much. I am going to miss even the shuttle runs, two to three times, where we would all gasp for breath, the fast break 3 on 1, 3 on 2 practices. I am going to miss the DA DUI! Gonna miss the warm downs, running 3 rounds round the bball court, miss trying to wash my upper body without getting water in my pants, miss eating super rings and bon bons and drinking at the table outside the provision shop, miss all the lame jokes, miss going home with Joei... haha... Miss the feeling of carrying a heavy bag with all my clothes and my shoebag, reaching home at 8, then eating dinner and sleeping.

But above all, gonna miss all my teammates! linseng, ah beng, hon chan, sherwyn, douglas, alven, joshua, richard, vinnis, yuanxian, chao xi! And of course not to mention our great and wonderful and funny and strict and lame COACH! TATTOO TAN!!! Gonna miss him scoulding all of us... and forever remember to be smart and not act smart: kiam jiu ho, mai gei kiang!

thats just in basketball. I'm gonna miss all the camps, sec1 interaction (best actor! acted like i know how to dance), all the student leaders camp, the sec3 campfire night (im still pissed that the flying fox got cut! we spent DAYS rigging that damn thing up), miss the sec3 camp!AKELA! miss OBS!!! KURT and BOH SENG!!!

All the warcraft, all the LAN!!! Goodspeed, Superbowl, the yellow colour coffee shop... chicken chop... ROU CHUOR MIAN!

Theres still tons of things i will miss. Lots of people, and events and habits that looks like its going to die off when I leave school... Tao hui.... 1e6, 2e6, 3e1, 4e1... Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Man, if i were a girl I swear I would be in tears by now... But thats the way the cookie crumbles...

You know whats worse, everything seems to be going at the same time... They are tearing down seletar market, and that includes the MAC!!! NOOOOO!!!! My dearest mac! Without you i would probably have failed my PSLE!!! How can you abandon me just when the 'o's are coming!!!! And all the people inside mac, the playground, in fact, mac was my third home! Now its getting torn down along with all the other shops... Seletar hills is becoming a ghost town. I pray that they would not bring the bball court down too, or I am just gonna commit suicide...

Wah... I'm very scared man... So far, i have totally NOT kept to my study plan.. So what else is new?

The closer it gets to exams, the less I seem to study. Hell, I've not touched a single book today. In fact, I have just finished watching the 9p.m. show about the swimming thing. Haha, most of the names in the show are people in Zhss.. Like Jingfang, Jiajun, erm... I guess Douglas can be called Ah Long, and Joey sounds like Joei! Wahaha. Obviously I have not been spending my time constructively to think of such stupid things. In fact, I cannot see myself studying for the rest of today. I am porbably just going to play warcraft, utopia, and then sleep. In that order.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

I'm in deep shit.

How, may I ask, is it possible to get BOTH oxygen and hydrogen at the same time when adding hydrogen peroxide to sodium hydroxide and copper II sulphate?

Nonetheless, that was what I somehow amazingly managed to achiever during the chemistry practical paper today. I do not have much confidence for this paper. In fact, I have no confidence at all. I think this is a sign that I am slacking too much and should try harder to study for my practicals and other papers. Oh well, I have relaxed today also. From tomorrow onwards, I am gonna start my Super Long A1 Collection Kampaign (SLACK).

Study plan: Fri and weekend: Study practical + 1 maths paper a day

After bio prac: SS with a vengence + 1 maths paper a day

After SS paper: Bio like crazy + 2-3 maths paper a day

After bio (1 wk break): Geography craze + physics + 0.5 maths paper a day

After Geography: Phy + Chem + 0.5 maths paper a day

After Chem: BBall, Movies, Relax and enjoy + 3 warcraft a day

Wow... I have not been studying for the past two days because I have been running all over Singapore trying to visit all the JC open houses.

It started on Friday when i went to Nanyang. Nanyang, due to its close proximity with Zhonghua and hence, Ms Tan, was rather a turn-off at first. But the facilities there were actually quite good and most of the classrooms are air-conditioned. We went into one of the rooms and listened to the GP tutor talk for a while and I must admit that I was quite impressed by what he said. We also listened to the principal talk in the LT and it was kind of a disappointment. Actually all of us were very surprised when we realised that the person talking was actually the principal and not some blur old teacher.

Next we went to Temasek JC. I think that TJ's open house was the best that we had experienced among all 5 JCs. The fact that we found the open house fun even after having made a wrong turn on the way there and then running in one giant circle to reach it speaks alot for the impression the open house gave us. The principal there was better I thing than NY's. She was probably trained in sales as she used lots of props and gimmicks to advertise the school. Aside from that, the people showing us around were really friendly as well. And another thing that made me like TJ was that the rock wall there was real big. I think that it was one of the biggest among all the JCs we visited.

Today, we went to NJ, AJ and VJ in that order.
NJ was all right, but I never really considered going there so I didn't really pay much attention there. I think NJ was the only JC that had a cheerleading CCA. The rock wall at NJ was quite high, but if im not wrong, narrower than that at TJ. The ushers there were friendly as well.

Then it was all the way back to AMK for AJ. AJ seemed like a primary school in terms of the decor and such. It was certainly not as impressive as TJ or NJ. It just seems like a normal, basic, average JC. The performances were quite funny, not in the content but rather in the presentation, or lack thereof. Overall, I do not think AJ is very high on my list. Perhaps 3rd or 4th.

Finaly, we went to VJ. Got there late, so the openhouse had ended. As such, I was unable to make an accurate assessment on whether the JC was comparable to TJ. I must say that I am biased towards VJ, so even though I was unable to check the school out properly, I still, placed it hight on my priority. Maybe because of the B^3 factor. Beach, Babes, and basketball. Haha.

So the finals go like this
1/2: TJ or VJ
3: AJ
4:NYJ

Im now really stuck on whether to go to TJ or VJ. So i guess I will have to rely on my friends and my trusty descision maker!