Academic Year Wrap Up

Today marks the final lesson that I have to attend so I thought, why not do a short reflection on my new school before my exams? But before that, I'd like to wish all a happy Chinese New Year.
This school year has no doubt been an extremely rough one, meeting new people and following a completely different system of education. It has been tough meeting people I don't mix with, but it has also been splendid meeting people I'm on the same frequency with.
The first few months of the year were tough as I tried my best to juggle my job with school, but eventually my parents decided I had to drop the job to pull up my fast-falling grades. It was a tough decision, but it was pretty worth it. Apart from that, I also had to adjust from being constantly spoon fed to being fully independent. A few of my classmates are no doubt still needing that spoon feed, and I seriously hope they get over it quickly. You guys aren't kids anymore.
The workload was not exactly larger in anyway but there was quite a bit of pair and group work here and there, which made me really annoyed because my partner was inefficient and relied on me for everything. Thankfully, it all got better when I started to get better partners.
For all that hard work that we put for the first semester, the school rewarded us with a refreshing long holiday that lasted for one and a half month before we went back for another hellish semester.
The second semester was way better than the first - I met extraordinary teachers (not all), the hands on activities were better, and much more.
In this semester we had way more presentations that we had before, and the worst parts were 1) you had to memorise your script and 2) the teacher would pick on every single mistake you made, be it big or small. While the presentations gave me quite a hard time, I have to say that my final presentation for communication skills was the best that I ever did in my entire life.
The first great teacher I met would be my mechanics lecturer who I somehow ended up being really friendly with him. I noticed he wasn't just any teacher - he was the kind who would listen to you talk about anything and he would start up a conversation with you. To be fair to him, I decided to try my best to lift up his mood (even though I'm really terrible at this) whenever I noticed he was down. He also plans school events with me and my friends, and we annoy him in his office constantly.
The next teacher would be my previous mathematics lecturer who unfortunately only taught us for half the semester. At the start of the semester I really disliked him because I noticed he liked to pick on me to answer questions, but later on I gradually started to enjoy his style of teaching. Before he left, he told us a short story:
Once, there was this village that was preparing for a festival, and their tradition was that they served the sweet stuff before the main course as refreshments. So they were cooking and preparing, and they laid it all on a sheet that was on the ground. In no time, they had built a large hill of sweet food on the sheet.
But it didn't take them long to notice that ants were stealing their food. The villagers started to panic, and turned to a wise old man for advice. The man told them to put sugar around the mountain of food, and return to tell him what happened. And so the villagers did.
They noticed that the ants, instead of picking at the food, started to pick up the sugar. The villagers happily ran back to the old man to tell him what happened.
At the end of the story, he said, "You guys are like the ants, the mountain of food is the perfect GPA that you're aiming for. The sugar around the mountain of food is what distracts you - your phone, television, computer and whatsoever. So study hard and focus!"
What a story.
For this semester, we also had to build our own solar powered cars. My partner and I had a few arguments on this but what truly maddened us the most was that a day before our race, the car ran really well and smoothly. On the day of the race, it died on us. And this didn't happen to only my car, it happened to all of my friends' cars. Really unfortunate. Thankfully, the efforts of beautifying my car was not wasted - my partner and I each won a $5 voucher.
This semester was also the one I finally got recognised for my efforts in my new CCA. My friend and I spent lots of effort to plan out things that really tired us out, and we both won awards for our contributions. Thanks guys!
And now I'm just waiting for my final exams to officially send off my freshman year. Here's hoping the remaining years are manageable, also equally as fun and rewarding.