在我人生的十八年里,从哪一年起我停止了成长?

做了一个测试说我的心理年龄是12岁,幼稚度76%.

寒假在家里,有时找不到衣服穿,就拿出小学时候穿过的后来一直搁置的粉红色外套,上面印着小鸭子的,穿上去,很搭配.

从什么时候开始我潜意识里故意忘掉了要长大?

我的外形从小学六年级开始基本没有变过.

一年级升二年级的时候不想学乘法口诀表,10%的我停在了一年级.

四年级的时候尝到了写作的美妙和感性的美妙,10%的我停在了四年级.

六年级末尾的时候,为上好中学而四处奔波,苦恼,发现了人生的惨烈,10%的我停在了小学毕业那个下午.

初一的时候,彻头彻尾男生气的我,喜欢跟一群男生玩,不用勾心斗角,10%的我停在了初一大大咧咧的时候.

初一升初二的暑假,一个假期寂寞得如同深紫色曼驼罗在荒原里生长,无人在意,10%的我停在了那个暑假的寂寞里.

初三整一年,是我十八年里最美丽的,简单的,上课,考试,买碟,看电影,跟喜欢的和不喜欢的人,咀嚼着短暂的青春,30%的我停在了毕业典礼努力做出的微笑里.

高一,煎熬并享受着,最终决定要离开的时候,10%的我留在了省实的高中校区里.

还有10%,我不知道它是否已被撂在了牛津,但愿还没有.

否则,我已经没有什么可以用来成长了.

好了,现在可以低着头小小声说,DC DEFERRED我了.

一切美梦破裂,转头看看我还有什么.三个星期的圣诞假,接着是更辛苦的IB2.这样写的时候好象很冷静,但是当时一看到网页的时候,有多难受.

特别是听到别人都有被自己喜欢的学校录的时候,很郁闷,真的很郁闷.

我现在在刚刚降温的广州,等着吃白白的米饭,面前是低吟的手提,心里是一片荒凉.

并没有什么人知道我回来了,没有关系.

圣诞夜怎么过?谁可以告诉我.

我带回来了厚厚的ULYSSES, 还有MY NAME IS RED, HIS DARK MATERIALS之类的小说.唯有文字可以让我暂时忘掉尴尬.

好了,写东西了.

The interview season ends. And nearly does my fall semester. Failure or not, each interview is quite interesting on its own. And although a bit unwilling to share some of my unhappy experience, I still think it's a good chance to write them down in order. So let's begin.

 

Dartmouth College alumni interview
Unluckily I got the most important interview as my first time. In conclusion I didn't perform my best, but it was not a fiasco. I did a lot of preparation before the interview, like browsing the common interview questions, reading through DC's website, and yes, watching that clip of Dan talking to DC interviewer in Gossip Girl over and over again.
I was really nervous, so the smile, the warm handshake, were all fake. But the good thing about Alumni interview is that techniquely it's just a schoolmate of Dartmouth and as he/she is also a student, there's nothing to be worried about. Well, I kinda got the most outstanding alumni from DC, who was a Rhode Scholar, and who studied in LSE and Oxford University after graduated from DC. During the interview, we did talk about lots of thing from different aspect, and it last for approximately an hour. We even talked about the Spanish restaurant in Oxford. I tried to convince her that my "international" feature was ideal for DC, dunno whether I've suceeded or not. Anyway, the interview reached the topics like academic interest, social ability, being "international", hobbies, and lastly, questions about DC from me. I got to know a lot of things about DC from her. Overall, the talk was really pleasant, although I don't know if I made a good impression or not.
And yes, I'd like to stress that this interview might be a failure, because it's likely that I'm rejected by DC, so...

 

Open day and informal talk in University of Birmingham
I really shouldn't wear as a doll to the university. Blouse, skirt, hair band...all unworthy. The Chemistry Department was somehow...crap, as the teachers seemed not at all brilliant. The atmosphere was also too native, so quite boring. People weren't so easy-going. Anyway, the whole morning of the open day was too long to endure. But from the others, I heard that the so-called informal talk was really the interview itself.
Finally the afternoon. I was picked up by a dumpy professor and we went to his office. After glancing at my transcript, he began to repeat the word "prestigious" throughout the interview. I asked him first about whether this was the official interview. And he was like: "Oh, we're not going to bother you with loads of questions. It's just a chance to let you know more about us. And apparently you grades are prestigious, so no doubt you'll get an offer." And then he just asked me if I got any question. Well, what could I say, so I began to ask about the research project on hydrogen storage using complex compounds which I read on UoB website. He looked so pleased to be discussing these projects, so I kinda listened through the interview, while he continued to talk about metal catalysts, the perfect nanocatalysts which are made by bacteria, etc. And well, I managed to pretend to be interested, and actually it was quite interesting indeed to hear about some PhD research, but I'm not sure it's the exact form of an interview.
My suggestion: think twice before you make the decision applying to UoB's chemistry.

 

St Andrew's Offer
Nothing to talk about. They just gave me the offer straight away through UCAS, but still, it's conditional. 34 points in IB final.

Open day and interview in UCL
First of all, I LOVE UCL's Chemistry Department!
The whole day was a great fun. I arrived in London in a hurry, with rain pouring down. A talk on "oscillation reaction" soon began after I entered a lab full of people. By the way, why there are so many girls applying for Chemistry? I should've applied for Physics so I'm not surrounded by girls, but my parents just didn't allow me to. The professor was sharp, bright, cute...in a word, fantastic. The talk was so interesting and we got to see a beautiful oscillation reaction triggering waves at points of reaction. Wow, it was amazing. For some moments, my mouth and eyes opened wide and I thought, this was where I wanna be. The professor managed to combine biology theory into the explanation for the mechanism of the oscillation reaction, saying "male rabit and female rabit in beautiful Gloucester countryside in early spring..."
And then we listened to the talk on the course by the head of the department. Well, he kinda talked like Ian, which was familiar. This part was quite boring because it's natural that every university just emphasizes how wonderful it is to study here.
The lunch was as usual, sandwiches, fruits. I got so bored with sandwiches so I just ate a few pieces of fruits. There were student helpers coming around, one of them was from Hangzhou and another from Hongkong. And again, I think it's a mistake to dress like a doll for such events where so-called senior students take part. But apart from that, all of them were so nice and I talked to a student studying Chemical Physics and decided to change my course into Chemical Physics from pure Chemistry, because I love quantum mechanics. Then we had a tour around the college and I saw the famous "founder of UCL sitting in a cupboard without his head", funny. And also a fact, the scene of the fight with mummies in Mummy Returns was actually filmed in front of the main building of UCL, not the British Museum itself, wow...
Finally, the 20min interview. A student helper told me before that Dr Slate, who's my interviewer, was nice, but I kinda didn't see that. We went straight into an office, and right after we sat down, he began like: "OK. So let's start some questions. It sounds a bit like a quiz. Question 1..." Well, never mind, if my "doll charm" didn't work on him, my "academic charm" would. I answered the questions like the mechanism of electrophilic addition, the acidity of water under different temperatures, the working of catalysts, well, almost effortlessly. There was one question that kinda got me: Which has a higher rate of reaction, ethene with HF or ethene with HBr? The answer is obviously HBr. But I just stuck on it for half a minute and foolish me, even mentioned about electronegativity. And at the end, I told him I wanted to change to MSc in Chemical Physics.
I felt terrible after the interview, because of that HBr question. But it turns out to be alright, as I got my offer from UCL today. Dr Lewis wrote in hand: P.S. very impressive report from Dr Slate, well done.
Well, as I'm soooooooooooo in love with UCL, if I'm not accepted by the States, and Cambridge, I'll go to UCL. Or, if I'm not accepted by the States and kinda amazingly got accepted by Cambridge, I'll still go to UCL, if my parents allow me to do so.

 

Interview in Churchill College, Cambridge
Finally the big one. I don't know how should I write about it, I just don't know.
In the gloomy and windy night of Thursday I arrived in Cambridge and went straight to the college. Churchill College is unlike those old Oxbridge colleges which make you feel that you're in the middle of the Harry Potter film. The buildings are modern, logical, without passion, cold, just like those for scientific research. 70% of Churchill undergraduates are scientists, wow. Anyway, I got to my room through the dark night, and the building seemed empty and haunted. I wanted to read through my Chemistry and Physics textbooks, and Biology note, but ended up eating Brazil nuts and chocolate cookies in bed, and soon fell asleep.
Friday, sunny, cold with my skirt on. I went to the waiting room, sat there with half dozen of students looking confused and nervous as me. We chatted with each other and the student helpers, saying that it would be fine, but everyone knew it's a mere greeting. The student helpers were really nice and looked indeed intelligent, typical top students.
And then I was led to my first interview. No sofa, just desk and chairs, one woman and one man sitting at my sides. Well, at least they said "nice to meet you" with a smile. Then we went straight to the questions. The first question was asked by the man, on molecular symmetry. It was easy and after a few prompting I got it right. Here to share the main question: how many molecular symmetrical planes are there for a C60 molecule? And the second question was asked by the woman, on first ionization energy trend in the periodic table. It was easy, thanks to Ian.
My second interview was a lot worse than the first one. I was asked about my extended essay first. What's the theory behind the Coanda Effect. It was easy. But then came the terrible memory. The interviewer asked me to draw the graph of the function y=(x square)/(1+ x square). Well, if it was Tao, I'm sure it would've turned out fine. But I was so nervous at that time. I was going to do some differenstiation first but the man stopped me right away: "Don't do any mathematical transformation, just look at the function, just look, and draw me the graph." I was like...what...So I tried, kinda hard, well, even stupidly putting in coordinates. Anyway, I don't even wanna mention it as it took me a long time to get the graph and everytime I was getting there, the man stopped me by asking more questions. It was awful. Then the other man showed me two boxes, one with soaked washing powder and one with pure washing powder. He asked me how to turn the first one into the second one. Well, it was quite easy but I didn't get it right away when he asked me what was the quickest way to dry the powder. I went for low pressure first, but he said it would be expensive. Finally I got it and the answer was to "shower" the powder into a hot dry environment.
I wanted to just go straight home after the interviews because I felt I would never get in. But I thought, jesus, what would Liz say. So I managed to sit down and do the Thinking Skill Assessment exam, for another 1.5 hour. Well, I didn't finish it, but it's normal. I was doing the 48th question when the time's up (50 questions in total). It wasn't that difficult for me because I got the experience of another scarier one: SAT. What surprised me was that there wasn't any essay question, just 50 multiple choice. I guess my result for TSA won't be too low for a foreigner.
I was going to have a tour around Cambridge, however, I wasn't in the mood of doing so. A student helper from HK said that the decision would come right after Xmas, and he joked "take it as your Xmas present". Haha, very funny, in my opinion, 90% of it will turn out to be a rejection, just like my DC one.

 

After all, it's FINISHED (temporarily)!
Let's focus on other things, like internal assessment and ToK presentation...