Didn't do any revision at all yesterday. But I had a valid reason for that, alright. I had a silat event to prepare for. Some western Java martial arts festival my silat group (Warisan Pendita Suci) was hosting at night. Yeah, by the way, the school of silat I'm trained in is of the western Java kind.

So yeah. I had to rehearse with the students several times. They kept forgetting their movesets and since we were gonna have a guest gendang (malay/javanese double-barreled drum)group playing the background music for our performance, I had to keep reminding them of the beat they had to synchronise their moves to.

On top of that, I also had to prepare for my own solo performance. Gah, the stress. And did I mention I also had to prepare for a friendly match with our guest silat group (Pusaka Karuhun)?

Oh well, the event turned out fine, thank god. The kids didn't freeze up in the middle of their performance when they made a few blunders. My solo performance went smoothly. And I also won my friendly match. Well, let me narrate how my fight went.

My opponent was taller than me, perhaps 1.8m. But I didn't let that faze me. The referee told us to get into our fighting stances, and we did. I opened up with a fierce tiger-like stance, just for show. "Start!" the referee began the first round.

We slowly inched towards each other. I launched the first move. A kick to his front leg, and he lost his balance slightly. A back-sweep followed, and he fell to the ground. Ouch. The referee awarded the points to me.

We resumed our positions. He charged towards me, a few punches then a kick. Instinctively, since we were so close, I grabbed him and kneed him in the gut. It was satisfying but unfortunately it is an illegal move in silat and so I got a warning from the referee.

After that, he executed a side kick, and promptly I caught his leg in my eagerly-awaiting hands. I raised it and my left foot swept his other foot and he went down on the mattress, hard. Ouch. Again, I was awarded my points.

We traded a few more blows, and then the gong sounded. The first round was over.

The second round began. And it was pretty much a replay of what happened in the first round. This time however, I decided to get a bit more serious. I kept going for his right leg, kicking it, sweeping it, doing as much damage as I could to it.

By the end of the second round, I was well aware that his right leg was in some pain. That was an advantage for me.

Third round, more sweeps followed. I anticipated his moves better now, since I had spent the first two rounds observing his fighting pattern. Each time he moved towards me, I kicked his vest, pushing him back. He couldn't get near me.

The gong then sounded. The referee held both our hands. And then, my hand was raised. I had won. =)

So the day wasn't so bad, I guess. Hahaha.

What was I rambling about previously? Wait, I remember. Priorities. Wow, that's deep.

I realised a long time ago that I needed to get my priorities right. That's an easy lesson to learn. But why didn't I do so? Circumstance was my excuse. A shitty life was my excuse. So it's a funny screwed-up cycle, you see.

shitty life -> thus the need to prioritise -> can't because life is too shitty and won't let me -> that's why prioritise, dammit -> no, can't ... so on and so forth.

Haha. That's probably what's been going on in my head these few years. Oh well, I learnt the second lesson, never mind whether I learnt it too late, that is, no fucking excuse is good enough.

Now get to work, dammit.

You know what? I feel quite proud of myself right now. Why? The reason being that I came up with this revision schedule for the June holidays so that I won't be so lost anymore trying to think each day what I should revise for that particular day. True, it might be a small thing. But you know the saying "it's the little things that matter" or something like that. I'm hoping that by doing all the right little things, this will finally make the difference in my revision, the change that I so need to score decent grades for the Term 3 Block Tests.

Well, studied a bit of Economics just now, in particular, market structures. And there was that one moment in time I got so pissed at myself because I forgot how to identify the deadweight loss on the diagram. Argh. I have to ask people for help regarding that now.

It's so true that 1 hour revision for 1 subject isn't enough. I spent around 3 hours on the topic trying to understand it (alright, maybe I did doze off in between a few times) and now I think that I almost have the complete picture in my head.

I've been doing some thinking about my priorities too. But hey, I'm feeling lazy now so I'll fill you guys in on that in the next update.

Skipped lessons today. The reason for that is a perfectly understandable one. I got lazy, honestly. Just leaned back on the couch and hovered between stoning and sleeping as I waited for the clock to hit 11 am.

Ironically though, I felt like doing some revision, most likely because my guilty conscience kicked in and demanded that I do something useful, for once. So I left for Toa Payoh library and read through my history notes till about 4 pm before falling asleep till about 5 pm. It was bound to happen. Revision just ain't my thing.

Wasn't a complete waste of time though. Managed to get the whole picture (at least, I like to think so) of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially the 1956 Suez-Sinai War. Even did two mindmaps on the Suez-Sinai campaign, and I'm so proud of those two pieces of foolscap paper. Just to prove that I know my stuff, I'll rattle a bit on the points stuck in my head.

Causes of Suez-Sinai war:
- Nasser's aggressive ambitions
- 1955 Czechoslovakia arms agreement
- Cold War rivalry: cancellation of loans for the Aswan Dam
- Nationalisation of the Suez Canal: conflict with Britain and France
- Fidayeen attacks on Israel

Consequences:
- Britain and France humiliated
- British and French declining influence in the Middle East
- Israel gained security against further attacks
- Nasser established reputation in the region
- Shit, forgot the heading for this point. Something about the Cold War framework being introduced into the conflict. Hey, at least I'm honest.

See? I did study. Cheers.

Oh, and for some odd reason, Toa Payoh Library just now was swarming with hot girls too. I mean, usually, I wouldn't notice. But I had to stay awake somehow, didn't I? Hehe. I guess today taught me that there are quite a decent number of pretty girls with brains.

All hope is not lost for the female human race.