ESLS Investigative Study

Finally... after 6 months of hard work... numerous sleepless nights... much effort... and even more depression and dread... I have completed my ESLS Investigative Study Final Draft!

"Is the Kyoto Protocol an Effective Answer to Global Warming?"

Thats my investigation topic. Canggih rite? But damn hard to do.

This is how investigation works. First u find an issue, then the issue gets rejected. Then u find more issues and eventually 1 get accepted, but it wont be a topic that you're really sure u want to do after that.

But anyway, there's nothing u can do anymore. So next u come up with an investigation question regarding that issue. Then your question gets rejected. Then u come up with 10 more questions regarding the issue and watch in horror as they get rejected 1 by 1. Then u reformulate and reformulate ur question untill ur lecturer reluctantly accept it.

Then u start to find ur sources. They must be credible, well substantiated, of considerable lenght, full of useful information, in English, not biased, able to explain ur issue objectively and present arguments with concrete proofs. After that u learn to cite ur sources using the Harvard system (where the fullstop comes after the bracket). Annotated Bibliography comes next, where u make a summary and a critique for each of ur sources. Then when ur lecturer gives u back ur annotated biblios with red marks all over them it wipes clean any fantasy that u might have that u are actually quite good in doing this. You learn to accept rejection as a common thing in ESLS. Then, of course, u have to re-do ur annotated.

But more misery awaits, because u still have to do an outline. It must be 2 pages in length, 1" margin on all sides, font of Times New Roman size 11 line spacing 1.5, and some classes even impose a maximum of 300 words. Then when u r halfway through trimming ur outline, omitting some rather important details, ur lecturer suddenly tells u that its ok use line spacing 1 and page margin as little as possible. Then u start putting n all the info inside again but the outline will still come back smeared with red ink. Your apprehension deepens.

Then u spend days making a detailed outline coz ur lecturer request u to do it but after that dun need you to submit it.

Next, comes the 1st draft, which will later turn into the 1st and only draft. As at 1st u'll think that its only the 1st draft and is not that important, you will procrastinate, delaying and delaying until the day before the date of submission. When u finally manage to get urself to do it, there will be something to distract u (in my case a champions league semi final match). But then, u'll think that its only the 1st draft and there'll be a 2nd one so u do cincai cincai. Ur lecturer will then surprise u by announcing that you shall have no more draft to make mistakes in. Ur draft comes back, as usual, with more red suface area on paper than black one. It's not unexpected, but this time it'll be even more depressing because u know the next thing that u produce u can afford no red marks on it...

Then, hehe, the ultimate task - THE FINAL DRAFT. In a couple of long nights, u trim down the 3000+ words of ur 1st draft into 2000 while at the same time putting in more information ur lecturer thinks vital but ur draft lacks. It may sound impossible, but ur lecturer expects nothing less. On the day u r supposed to submit, the majority of ur class have not finished yet, so ur lecturer unhappily postponed the date for a few precious days. When D-Day arrives, u hand in ur work with "die, die lah" attitude. And that closes an important chapter in your life where u found a whole new dimension to the word 'depression'.

A little update

I am writing this as I’m having my dinner – nasi ayam berempah, packed from sup power restaurant. The food’s not bad. Can’t say that its really delicious, but with all the malay and mamak restaurant around here selling all normal malay and mamak food it at least provides us a little more options for dinner. T here’s always KFC and McD and Ayamas but those we can’t eat everyday or we’ll die. At least, that’s what our mother keep telling us ever since we were small. Because of my liking for fried chicken my mom just wont believe me when I vehemently denied her accusation that I must be having KFC once a week in Shah Alam. Doesn’t she realize that all the restaurants here sell fried chicken also? And they’re much cheaper than KFC (although not as nice). [Notice that the full stop comes after the brackets, which is the correct way to put it. Its one of the things that I actually managed to learn from studying ESLS]
I’ve just finished a book titled Eragon. It’s a fantasy/adventure/magical story about a dragon rider called Eragon. Notice how the spelling of Eragon differs from dragon by only 1 letter? (Its e and d, in case u are a kindergarden kid) The story is quite nice. No, it’s a bit nicer than quite nice. A little bit less than very nice. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it 8.7. That’s 87%, an A by AUSMAT standard. Now I just started First Among Equals by Jeffery Archer. Just read a few chapters, but already cant wait to read more. Jeffery Archer is a genius. If u haven’t read his book go and get one right now.
That day we had a Majlis Penyampaian Sijil, which was supposed to be our graduation day. Weird right, having graduation day before we even know if we can graduate? Its because Intec wants to do it together with ADFP and ALM seniors who are leaving soon. My ESLS lecturer, Pn Haz, would be emceeing. As it’s a big thing with parents and VIPs coming, there was a rehearsal on d day b4. During he rehearsal I wanted to sit at the back but Nat wanted to watch the choir performance (who are also rehearsing) and dragged me to the front. The emcees told the students what to do and what not to do during the big day. So there I sat, happily reading Eragon while listening to songs from Wong’s handheld and still managing to chat when suddenly my lecturer said over the mic, “…tomorrow (bla, bla) walk up the stage here (bla, bla) don’t walk like this (bla, bla, bla) shall we have a demonstration? Will MR TAN SZE CHING please come in front to show us how to walk on stage?”
A roar of laughter broke out behind me. I was dumbfounded. My mouth was left wide open as my lecturer continued to talk about walking on stage. Then, “Sze Ching, will you come forward please?” I carefully stood up, and proceeded calmly to the stage. As I walk, a thunderous round of applause resounded in the hall. I turned back to show the students a gesture of appreciation for their support. Then, as I waited under the small stairs leading up to the stage, my lecturer commented, “…of course, tomorrow Sze Ching’s hair will be combed up nicely and will not fall down like this. (laughs) Use Bryllcream®.(laughs) The green one, (more laughs)”
Pn Haz cleared her throat, and finally called out, “Mr Tan Sze Ching.” Again, deafening applause broke out as I walked confidently up the stage to a guy holding a piece of paper that was obviously supposed to be my cert. I posed and smiled at Yeam and Safura’s camera’s when he passed me the piece of paper and before leaving the stage, I managed to show the audiences a ‘V’ sign with my hand. The mock cert-receiving ceremony was thus successfully completed.
The moral of the story is do not read, listen to songs and talk all at the same time when your lecturer is giving a speech in front.

I have a competition tomorrow. Its called Kuiz Kimia Kebangsaan and, as its name suggest, is a national level Chemistry competition. There’ll be STPM and A-Level students coming to Intec for this. Mr Yong (my chem lecturer) already pointed out that the quiz is based on STPM syllabus and he doesn’t expect us to win, so I find no point in studying for it. Theres so much to read I wont be able to finish anyway. Im glad Yee Hong feels the same way. At least if I did really badly, there’ll be ppl doing badly with me. Better spend my time doing more beneficial things like updating my blog. At least my English will improve. No, studying for the quiz will not improve my chem coz if I were to finish the whole STPM chemistry book in 3 days the monstrous amount of information will kill a lot of my brain cells and make me even more stupid (This is what we call solid argument, another thing I learned in ESLS).
You should realize by now that this post is quite pointless. I’m just writing this coz its been very long since I update my blog and I want to keep it active. But still, hope u enjoyed reading this post.