head. ache.08.oct.25 
Dear Diary,
I'm writing this the next day but shit this day was a rollercoaster.
By the way, if you're wondering what happened the day before (7/10/2025), I basically slept involuntarily for half the day and spent the whole night studying.
First off, in the morning I didn't know if I'd slept again (I stayed up until ~4.30a.m. watching physics lectures to bring back my spark for physics to prep for my physics exam the next day), and woke up at around 6a.m.. I really don't know if I'd slept or not, I woke up with this extremely alert feeling. Then I ate breakfast and did a full physics paper in bed until around 7.00a.m. then I took a shower and went to school at 8.15a.m.?
Well ofc I made it to school in time and when I entered, I saw Rainne downstairs sitting on the bench outside and I asked her why she was there and then she pointed into the canteen and said, "Everyone is there." Then I asked, "Oh, haven't register yet?" And she said no. If it sounds like I'm just narrating my experience right now it's because I am. I'm too tired to narrate my internal experience right now, a ghost of the headache I had the days before are still here currently (I will get to that in a bit) and I don't want to overload again.
Anyway, I registered, I sat in the registration room reviewing some add math notes (light) and shook off tension mostly because I felt my hands shaking which I can't have for my exam. I also realised I accidentally took out my statement of entry from my bag in the car earlier when I was clearing away the English papers from my bag, so I paced outside the room while a teacher printed it for me. I think it was Teacher Lam; he told me to go to Teacher Shalini at first but she wasn't there and I saw Teacher Suzanne who asked me to go to Teacher Lam. Ironic.
Then the add math paper 1 test. Wow. Three words: WHat the hell? The non-calc paper I did the night before? Yeah, I got about full marks for that. This paper in the exam hall? I think it should be named a health hazard. The first page was ridiculously easy; I wondered if it was even add math at all. The second page, differentiation, classic, then approximate change...Wait what kind of approximate change is this? Special angle table given, no start point for x, was I supposed to solve the trig derivative? I skipped that question and moved on.
The next question: kinematics. Standard. But what the hell? We're supposed to use the area under graph to find the gradient? Are you kidding me? I skipped that. Next kinematic, same thing. Skipped. Next question, 11 marks. Intersection points between normal and curve. Standard coordinate geometry, my favourite, the easiest. I can ace this, I thought. I started the question, foudn the equation for normal and hit a blank. It was a cubic equation I got in the end by using simultaneous, but one of the roots was 0. How do you even? I skipped that.
Next question was ridiculously easy. It was just a special angle triangle. Great. Then a proving question. I tried this question multiple times and turns out the first few times I was just doing it carelessly, but by the last time I managed to prove the trigonometric identity. Great. Next page.
Seuquences. I can do sequences, I always get full marks for these questions. Great, I can do this. I got a bit stuck on GP but managed to do it anyway, it was just finding the first term and common ratio. EASY. Then the next question...what the hell? It was about two GP sequences to sum of infinity and we're meant to find the ratio of Sb/Sa or the other way around who cares same thing. So I tried to plug in some stuff into the formula, plugged in the terms, used the term formula to equate terms from across sequences a1 in terms of another term, tried using simultaneous. I just hit a wall here, it felt like a big bright brick wall. Skipped, even though I felt reluctant to.
Next page, well what exactly was it again? Oh right. The circle formula. This was ridiculously easy too, and I was overcomplicating it at first. Found the formula of the circle, next, proving using that equation, then solving the quadratic. EASY. Right? Wrong. I did the proving part and at first I was like, no way this method will work but in the end it worked so I successfully proved it, but then solving the quadratic? I tried using b^2-4ac = 0 at first sicne it was a tangent but that yielded a ridiculously large number and keep in mind this was a non-calc paper (it reached about 1500+, which I obviously could still solve, but I was skeptical that it would be so in a non-calc) so either they were seriously testing our mental math or my method was incorrect. But i knew it was correct. I exapnded it, got a quadratic that couldn't be factorised so I plugged values into the quadratic formula and man I don't want to think about this anymore. Skipped, but I knew I would get at least 2/4 for the proving part.
Next was this insane quadric equation + definite integration question. It was so complex that I could do it, but by the time I finished my answer was so complex that I didn't know again, if they were testing our mental math in a non-calc or if I made an error somewhere, but I basically checked it like, 10 times, maybe more. We had to use 2sqrt(3) repeatedly and due to the exponentials there were a lot of numbers that reached 1500+, and I don't know man, my final answer was in radical/rational form, but I guess at LEAST i finished arguabky the most complex question in the paper (It was area bounded by two curves and axes).
Next. Dude do I even want to go next anymore? You know what, let's just assume I could do the rest of the paper here, I remembered ticking off full oages by the end.
After the test when everyone was filing out I just stayed still. I just stayed still. I looked up at the ceiling as the teachers were packig away our exam papers. I heard Yen Win say, "What the hell was the whole paper?". I heard Cheng Hei say, "That was so bad, I didn't know four questions" (which made me feel worse given the number of questions I did halfway and skipped). I heard Yi Cheng say, "那张纸，不是人做的。".
See the thing about people reassuring me that "it's fine because everyone else also strugg;ed" is a wasted and worn down argument, because the point is, I'm not supposed to be like everyone else who did untargeted add math prep, who mindlessly did full papers without direction, who chat loudly in class and don't pay attention to academics. I don't like the arguemnt, "even Cheng Hei struggled" even more because suddenly he's the one everyone measures themselves against now? Am I really fading? It's so unfair how they've put me on a pedestal for basically all my life and when I need it most, this crucial moment, this crucial exam period, they lift another. I don't mind if using me as a standard breaks me in the long run. But just why choose to break me now? I was made to be dependent on this validation and the time I need it most, they give it to someone else who won't need to bear the break in the long run.
Well, a few hours after that was our physics test. It went insanely well, and honestly even better than I'd expected given the fact that I was crying after add math. I flew through the paper with around an hour remaining (Meaning I finished the whole 1hr15min paper in around 20 minutes!). I was so in the zone. I felt alive. There's one thing bugging me though, which is the last question, because after the test Zhi Qing and Rainne were discussing it and I overheard them saying light years should've been changed to metres and wondering how to do that. Of course, I knew. (9.5x10^15)(Number of light years). So I told them. But i didn't change it in the test...or did I? Not even sure, but it's been bugging me a bit. I'm just going to let it go, because I can guarantee at minimum, 76/80 for that test.
Then the episode TM. Just as bad as the one on October 6, but in a different way. Here's what I wrote in real time:
My head hurts. A lot. It hurts A LOT. I feel like I’m about to pass out and that I can’t breathe but I’m in the car the engine is off tho the window is partially open but the open window is making me feel more suffocated and I can’t get down because everyone’s blocking the walkway and I don’t want to meet anyone and also maybe it’s from sleep deprivation but I can’t SLEEP.
I can feel the air through my nose but it’s as if my body isn’t registering it. It’s not terrifying it just fucking HURTS and I doubt it’s psychological it HURTS A LOT. I got down the car and god the headache was still there, it’s the whole head and it’s like all my muscles are extremely weak and like my head is pounding like actual pounding.
What’s helping right now is listening to music with a really bassy pounding beat and it’s like my head is pounding along to it so it’s slowing down. I don’t have energy to eat. I was given lunch earlier and I ate a few bites and the mental rehearsal of even opening my mouth was so tiring. I wanna cry it hurts. But I feel like I’m dramatising but it really hurts.
It’s happened for a few days now ever since I told someone about how my lungs have been hurting for a 2 years well idk if my LUNGS but somewhere there like the sternum part but sometimes I literally wake up and one time there was this extremely sharp pain in my heart (this one I’m sure of because I I was clutching it and I felt an irregular beat. Well I wouldn’t know I’m not a doctor idk if it’s counted irregular or not but it’s definitely not the usual thud thud thud. It was like sickly. But this level of severe pain in my heart only happened once and in that moment I honestly thought it might’ve been angina even though I don’t have coronary issues).
I doubt it’s psychological because there can be no emotional trigger. It can happen out of nowhere they’re sporadic and unpredictable. I already told my mom she says I’m just nervous for my exams and I felt mocked because when I insisted it was medical she offered to bring me to a doctor who acts primarily as my dermatologist claiming they’re a gp??
I got down the car right and entered a room I couldn’t even enter my room cuz the doorway is blocked with a. Ladder. And I’m so. Dude I don’t know. And I turned on all the lights and fan at first and felt even dizzier like overstimulation kind of and I just turned it all off. I tried just the fan but the feeling of air that’s not cold or warm on my skin also made me feel dude it made the headache worse. I really think it’s cuz I haven’t been sleeping but I’ve been trying to and sometimes I sleep involuntarily anyway.
You know as my mom was driving me back home from school I was unusually quiet again but that’s honestly because of the headache and also the thought of doing anything or moving or talking at all made me feel so drained and sick and she kept looking my way like “wow I’m such a good mom I understand this is just a moody teen phase” NO ITSNOT. MY HEAD JUST REALLY REALLY HURTS AND YOU LOOKING AT ME and continually talking and moving rapidly is making me feel dizzier. I close my eyes and you start talking again. Really I wanted to just tell her to shut up but I dude I really didn’t want to do anything at all.
So yeah. Next day rn; I don’t even know how or when but I fell asleep and slept for at least 12 hours the moment I woke up it was already morning (5am) and the headache reduced to only a ghost of what it was. I cried when I wrote the Cheng Hei part of this entry though, but I'm done crying now. I really still feel the headache but compared to yesterday, this feels like phantom pain, that's how minor it feels now compared to yesterday, and this onslaught of physical symptoms is also making me want to monitor them exclusively.