Maths Quiz

1.45pm
Right now, sitting in cafe, just came back from Maths Quiz. No, I'm not the participant. Rather, I'm the helper for the event. Damn shit ah, I woke up at 6am in the morning just for the stupid thing. On normal day, I'm not awake till like 9/10am. If got morning class, just skip la. Hehe.

About to go even though not really awake

7am look like 1am
getting to work?

The sky still dark-and it's almost 7am-when I walked to DUP (Dewan Utama Pelajar aka Students' Main Hall aka exam centre) where the quiz was held. And guess what, I'm the ONLY person there. NOT A SINGLE MATHS QUIZ ORGANIZER WAS THERE!!!!! WTH...I'M SO GONNA KILL THAT FELLA WHO TRICKED ME!!!

DUP...looks how empty it is

I SMS-ed that fella, asking why he's not there when he's the one who told me to go before 7am only to be told that examiner (which he was) had to arrived before 7.15am! WTH...

15 min later,

7.07pm
Damn the Tekun (my hostel's name) WIFI connection. Around 2 something, it cut me off, leaving my post hanging. After much unsuccessful tries, I went back to my room to take a short nap. Set alarm at 4.30pm only to wake up at 6.30pm. 4 hours nap! Wonders how I'm gonna sleep tonight?

Anyway, back to the quiz. 15 min later, he showed up. Then, followed by others. It's strongly support my believe: puntualiality is a virtue not valued by us Malaysians.

The moment the others had arrived, things were getting busy and chaotic. For them, at least. While they were moving here and there, I was standing at a corner, watching things unfold before me. Not that I don't want to help. Just that the department I'm in-refreshment-only began to work when the foods had arrived. I did help out, OK.

I'm so free til can take pictures

Once the participants arrived, which were high school students from around Penang, the atmosphere was getting much alive. Most of them were pretty excited to take part in it. Around 9am, all the students and teachers accompanied them entered the exam hall to be briefed. All the organisers and helpers also entered the hall, except us from refreshment department as we have to prepare food.

Revising?

Soon after, when the students had their quizzes, the teachers came out to had their refreshment. An hour later, the students had theirs. In between these two, we had ours.

Students' nasi tomato...these extra fews were eaten by us refreshment people...hehe

Even between break also they had discussions

Those from the refreshment department can leave once we finished cleaning up the places. And we finished before 12pm, few hours earlier than the rest. Hehe. But we didn't go back. We went into the hall, watching the students getting ready for Round 3.

I must say, when I had children, I'm considering to relocate to Penang because these Penang students are so competitive. They really go all out. Even though in Round 3, they can discuss among their teammates but from what I witnessed, most of them tried to solve the questions on their on. That's rather sad because the time allocated for each questions are very limited.

And boys, their Maths skills are really amazing especially those from SMK Jit Sin and SMK Chung Ling, Penang. They're really good. After the questions were shown ala slide show, it took them only a small fraction of the time given to produce the answers. And most of the time, it's the right one too. Oh, by the way, it's a Siapa-Cepat-Dia-Dapat round (don't know how to translate, don't bother to).

Even I, the Maths undergrads, can't even compete with them. Out of 20 questions, only 1 I managed to find the answer faster than them. Using a new method they can't possibly know at their stages (I went through the same education, that's why I know) unless they had devour themselves with Advanced Calculus.

3rd round
Even teachers took pictures of the questions!

Overall, a nice 1st half of the day. Talked a lot even if I had to use my extremely limited Mandarin. Had to mishmash with Cantonese and Hokkien whenever necessary. I'm gonna improve on my bloody mother tongue.