The darkest days in pictures

Part B Exams

Source: http://hapamama.com/2013/05/14/taiwanese-carnival-games/

8 exams, 8 hoops, 8 tries.

It was less of a test of abilities and more a test of luck.

It has been one 'ell of a roller coaster ride (mostly heart-stopping vertical drops) and also one that I hope I'll never have to experience again. Please let me pass all my papers and finally put these horrid days behind me. Here's how the past 1.5 weeks have been..

12 hours before exams

"I've clearly studied all of these two weeks back but why can't I remember anything now?! Worse still, why does it all look so unfamiliar to me??! Does this mean I have to run through everything again? But I'm running out of timeeeeee (goes into a fit).."

During the exams

Game rules: 100 balloons, pop 51 to pass.

After every exam

"I'm useless and I don't deserve anything."

To the exams:

I shall not elaborate on how difficult a time it has been (because who needs more negativity in their lives) but the past few weeks have truly helped me realise just how weak and fragile the human soul could possibly be.. and yet at the same time, I've also discovered that we are only as strong as we believe ourselves to be and that as long as we have faith, we are undefeatable.

It has started.

Music has no boundaries.

Stayed up to catch the final performance by Psy for the MAMA awards (Mnet Asian Music Awards) and boy, Psy did not disappoint. Psy completely slayed his performances tonight. "Bell-bottoms" is a real ear-pleaser and "Daddy" is a complete riot hahahah ("I got it from my Daddy" *shakes entire body in an 80s disco-esque fashion*)! Although many have criticised Psy for replicating the bridge/hook from Gangnam Style" in "Daddy" and accused him of being unoriginal and outdated, I think he did a pretty fine job with the latter. Personally, I'm not a fan of songs which contain similar (or worse still, identical) hooks/tunes/melodies or what not as the artiste's earlier works - just look at BTS's "Run" and "I Need You" (quite a pity) and perhaps even some B.A.P.'s songs - and hence, I initially shared the view that Psy had finally run out of ideas, that "Gangnam Style" was a one-time hit and I was quite critical of the odds of "Daddy"'s success. However, after watching Psy perform both songs consecutively (what better chance to compare both hits), I realised that this is very much a case of "same-same and yet, very different"! They may share a common bridge (say, 20-second portion of the song) but the feel and concept of the songs are totally different. Listened to in their entirety, strangely, the songs sound nothing alike at all! Haha is it magic or what! Psy's magic?! (I think he could pull off a decent magician look haha)

Anyway, I stayed up to catch his performances because I wanted to show them to my sister and dad so badly and yay, they managed to catch it on tv and LOVED the song to bits! Hahah I was so excited to let them listen to "Daddy" once it was released because I just knew they would love it hee ^^ so I was super looking forward to sharing the song with them! (the alternative to staying up would be to show them the MV on Youtube but there's simply no comparing a live performance on tv to a recorded version on my computer screen) My dad really enjoyed "Gangnam Style" back then ahahha and my sister was addicted to the dance (lol which till today, I refuse to do) so I just knew that "Daddy" would qualify as their latest Kpop craze :P I'm so happy and contented that we had that much fun standing in front of the tv for 8 whole minutes, united in our (futile?) attempts to dance-wiggle-shake and sing along to the music. Life's simple joys indeed. Few and far between.. but they do exist. I was truly happy in those 8 minutes. They were too.

To quote the MAMA Awards' tagline, "Music Makes One" and tonight, I'm grateful that Psy's music brought us together (even if for a short period of time) as a family.