DDE and two C5s

IF YOU HAVEN'T realised what those alphabets meant, they are my Preliminary Examination results. Yes, I have to face the facts - I did not do well. But then again, this may be subjective and undermine the 'fact' afterall. The quality of grades, or any other thing in the world, can only be determined when you have a standard rule to compare against. DDE and two C5s look bad to me as I had expected to score better. Honestly speaking, I was hoping for Cs for my 'A' level subjects and Bs for my 'AO' ones. Now that I know my targetted scores are merely less than 5 marks away from the actual ones, I must do something to get those precious points.

Upon reflection during QT, I realised I had been lacking in a few areas. My answers were simply missing the bull's eye - I was mainly regurgitating what I had learnt. Therefore, Lesson Number One is: SHAPE my response to ANSWER the question. But technalities aside, I knew that this was a wake-up call to my sins.

I was proud. I started serious studying for my Geography examinations only one or two days before. I practised less than five essay questions for each of the components, but the exact ones came out in the examination. Given that I had sacrificed the bulk of the syllabi to study in detail Population Geography and The Hydrologic Cycle, it was unbelievable that I was asked exactly what I ONLY learnt. So the devil made me proud and think that I had an advantage over others.

'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.'
James 4:6

O Lord, take away my pride so that I may learn and not self-delude.

I had been ashamed of doing QT in school. I decided that the school was a place quiet enough for QT, and that doing it before or after my revision helps calm my mind, heart and soul. God blessed with a place to do QT properly, yet I had abused it. I was embarassed to do QT as my Bible, my RPG and even my reflections were in Chinese. That is stupid, but yes, I have to admit that I am stupid enough to be ashamed of my native language, because the faith is still the same if it were in English. That reminded me of a verse. Although it doesn't exactly apply to my situation, I know that the same sin of denial exists.

'But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.'
Matthew 10:33

Dear Lord, please forgive me of my sins. You gave me new mercies each day, and even more when I was desperately cramming stuff into my head. Yet, I forgot about them and grew proud. Please help me to have the strength to get rid of these problems. I have only 46 days left to the start of the 'A' levels. Please do not let me succumb to the temptation of not keeping your Sabbaths holy too, but work harder and smarter when I can.