"Students should graduate with a library, not just a piece of paper...

...If they lack the library it is because they sold back all their books."

Pretty soon, I will not be able to perform a two-sample t-test, recall the life cycle of a CFC molecule or even explain the production of Bremsstrahlung radiation in X-ray machines. There's no use in denying it. As hard as I will try to retain all that I've learned, everything will have long vanished by the time I begin university next year. This may sound wrong but I must admit that I'm not as enthusiastic about the school holidays as everyone else is. Evelyn Waugh once said, "Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison." As the product of 15 years of formal schooling, the last two of which were spent doing the British A-Levels, I'm afraid I've become institutionalised.

Sure, the 10 months of holidays I'm likely to have (if I don't get booted off to an Australia school) is preferable to spending hours doing research on some obscure topic (I once studied the different types of Japanese toilets, both ancient and modern) for the rather obscure subject known as A-Level GP, or trying not to doze off in the middle of a lengthy lecture over trite issues in assembly, or worst of all, attempting to convince the disciplinary committee that my worn-out pair of Reebok shoes are actually black and that my socks are really white despite the Reebok/Nike logo. But that's all part of a parcel of school experiences that I've had to endure for the last few years, and as strange as it may seem, I think I'm going to miss all of it. However, I'll have to try to conveniently forget the delicate issue regarding the school plumbing.

Even as I fill out my application forms to schools in the U.S., exactly where I'll eventually spend my undergraduate years is still an uncertainty. At the very best, I'll be in Palo Alto next year walking around campus in flip-flops, and at the very worst, I'll have to cave in to the brainwashing I received earlier this year and attend NTU. To think that all of this will be decided by a few adcoms who are likely to be unfamiliar about Brunei...hmph.

But enough of uncertainties. At least I know what I'm gonna do tomorrow - sleep in late and revise for my SAT Subject Tests later in the day. And maybe watch an episode of Star Trek: TOS .