At last, the end of summer has finally arrived. This means time to go back to school. Time to constantly keep my tie up, shirt tucked in, and wear the infamous Harrovian boater. In addition, it’s time to start A-Levels – similar to Harry Potter’s N.E.W.T. levels [and IGCSE's were like his O.W.L.s] – and the hard grueling hours of constant work and revision. Anyway, will get into detail for that bit later… First of all – August. This month has been quite a fun month filled with so many things, e.g. people’s birthdays [Pat, Nun, Boom, Prang, etc], going out for some people’s birthdays, visiting RIS, and having our long-waited IGCSE results to come out. I’ve decided that I’ll update the pics up from Nun’s birthday, Boom’s party, and the RIS visit some time later since I have no time. So, here’s how the month of August went…
———- August 10 – RIS Visit
Went by RIS to see how their Sophomore year is. Several changes around the school, including the horrible canteen now and the cancellation of the long-used Block system. So basically went to Tanya and Lee’s Homeroom then followed Lee to Math class before I was chased away due to the fact that “there weren’t enough seats” and was offered to go to the library instead. Well, the library didn’t appeal much to me and I saw Mandy on my way out so she took me to her math class instead where I was allowed to sit [and do a Math Diagnostic test, too].
After Math was break and I went to wait in front of Ms. Walker’s room where I will be attending Biology lesson. This class was fun and had lots of fun looking through a whale’s eye, disected pig, rat bones, an armadillo, an EXTREMELY huge spider, etc, etc. Heard that Prim was crowned as “Top Cat” for that class since she got the most correct out of 50 [I think she got 32], so that means she can skip a quiz in Term 1. If you got all 50 correct then you won’t have to do any work, quizzes, or even tests and you’ll get a straight A! Now, I would want that!
After Bio was lunch and I got to get a taste of the new canteen. One word: crowded. So crowded it took me 10 minutes just to get a plate of carbonara. And they’re now using a card system where each card’s worth about 100 Baht. Interesting, but it just slowed everything down since the canteen workers weren’t use to using this new system. Also, the food was rather cold. Jirayuth told me a few weeks later that people just order food from outside [e.g. pizza] or just go and eat at the RIST canteen, which is way better, as they said.
Later, I went to Spanish class with Lee and had some fun remembering how it was learning Spanish 7th and 8th grade – even though I probably forgot half the things I learned! After Spanish, I went to English with Jenny where they were learning about Lord of the Flies, which I read in 8th Grade for English Plus. If you’re planning to read it or anything, I’ll just say this: It is very boring. Not something you would like to read during your free time.
Lastly, I went to Lee and Ray Fong’s Biology class, with a different teacher of course. Similar thing as Ms. Walker’s class but with more detail and scientific stuff. Ray Fong and I were paired and had to do this activity with two other girls, one who just moved from Harrow [Nami was her name]. When I told her that I knew Yuka and Kanae, her friends from Harrow, she started getting excited, which sort of surprised RF and the other girl. After Bio, just basically went to the Montri bus and got on the same bus as Erk and came back home. That’s it for the RIS visit – nothing much… Oh, and Julie also came and visited from Korea and had some fun talking to her.
August 11 – Nun’s Birthday at Major Ratchayothin
For this day, I met up with Nun, Por, Kitti, Raghav, and Nun’s sister at Major Ratchayothin to celebrate her birthday. First met up with the guys, who were playing this driving game [Raghav kept crashing his on the side] to buy some presents for Nun. Kitti bought this big Hello Kitty doll and Por and I shipped in and bought Nun a bear-looking thing with angel wings [we weren't even sure what it was!]. Finally, at 1:15 PM, we started to call Nun to find out where she was and realized that she was already at the karaoke room! So off we went to the Karaoke area where it was extremely crowded since there was some sort of Karaoke competition going on for TV… Well, because of that, it took us awhile to get there and we realized that Nun wasn’t there! Then Por remembered that Nun said she would be at the Karaoke in the Major Bowl section. So off we went to Major Bowl and found her there in the private room.
Into the Karaoke room we went and Kitti and Raghav got this big singing mode that they went on singing for ages. We also ordered some food and ate as we sang. At one point, the Karaoke thing turned on Happy Birthday but then we switched it since we thought it was a mistake. However, we realized later that it was MEANT to be turned on so that the Major staff can bring in the cake. Anyway, we ate the cake, sang some more, and it was time to leave. The others decided to stay a little longer for bowling but I had to go. So I said goodbye and that was it for that day.
August 18 & 25 – IGCSE Results
IGCSE results. All of you probably remember me when I had my IGCSE exams and we were just studying, studying, and studying. Here’s an entry that I wrote in July about it…
MAY – Written: June 15, 2005
I.G.C.S.E. – Those five letters were something that always gave us the chills whenever we hear it. “Intensely Gross, Crappy, & Sickening Exams”, as we called it, was the international standardized exams that all students in Key Stage 4 [Years 10 + 11 a.k.a. Grades 9 + 10] have to take after they finish the IGCSE course at the end of Year 11 [Grade 10]. IGCSE exams came and went so fast we didn’t even realize that it was May. Let’s see, for me, 17 exams to do was a hell lot. Some people had the same amount exams as me but I guess the person with the most exams in our Year would probably be Toy, who had 20 exams. How was she able to do it? I don’t know! Anyway, about one month before the whole “IG” period, you can begin to see people stressed, carrying all their books home, staying up late all night, and doing many other things you never see throughout the whole year, well, except for the Mock era where we had to bury our nose in books, too. Yet, people were getting serious – worried – anxious – and of course, sleepy. During that time, we began to adapt and become use to the many nights of sleeplessness and staring at a pile of books and notes as we try to stuff everything into our heads.
Now, when the first exam came [May 4th], which was Thai, everybody freaked out. Well, not that much, but everyone was worried, because, hey, Thai isn’t an easy subject to study for or do for an exam. You have to make sure you get straight to the point, write up in paragraphs that are divided according to opinion and content, spell correctly, and make sure you don’t put irrelevant information or something that’s not related, e.g. Harry Potter and how he saved Buckbeak the Hippogriff into an essay about Greenpeace and their “Save the Earth” campaign. So, you see? It is hard doing Thai. For our first Thai exam, we had to write three different essays: one about the way Thai students act in the social community, one analyzing why they behave so, and one in which we write about Greenpeace. Our second Thai exam [May 6th], which was two days later was a continuous writing essay between 350 to 500 words about any topic we want from the 9 given choices. There were topics on sports, your life, cultural stuff, and many other things. I chose the topic, “Is war the best solution for solving a problem?”. Reason? It was the easiest of all and we can add anything related to it in there – so because of that, I added in all these history-related stuff with world wars, Hitler, Treaty of Versailles, Cuban Missile Crisis – basically, if you didn’t know the topic, you would’ve thought I was writing a history paper and analyzing the wars! Anyway, after the exam, I realized that all the other History students did the same thing, too! At least I’m not the only History freak! I think I wrote about 600 words, which isn’t too much…
After we had our Thai exams, our Study Leave began where we are not required to come to school unless we have an exam on that particular day. Also, we are allowed to leave after our exam, if it’s in the morning session, or come to our exam in the afternoon, if it’s the afternoon session. So, after May 9th, which was when Study Leave started, the real thing was here. The really hard subjects were on the way and we better get rolling for them. For the people who were doing Geography, they were unfortunate and had their exam on May 9th while others didn’t have to come. Thank God I didn’t do Geography or my whole week will be full of exams! On the 10th, we had our Science Paper 6 [Practical] exam in the morning and History Paper 1 exam in the afternoon. Science Paper 6 was quite easy and I think I did OK. Surprisingly, it barely had anything on Chemistry, which was what everybody studied for since we had to remember all the color of each element if we add it with sodium hydroxide or put it in a flame test and all that stuff. For the first question, it was about plants. Plants – something that none of us expected and we had to label the “Stamen” and the “Ovule” of the flower. Luckily, I kind of flipped through it as I reviewed it. As for History, well, just like the Mocks, we had to write a lot and I think I wrote approximately 6 or 7 pages. We had to answer three different questions, which each had three minor questions in them that we had to answer according to the points [5 pts – half a page, 7 pts – three-forths to a page, 8 pts – a page to a page and a half]. Surprisingly, all the topics that we learned were on it – instead of the usual 3 out of 9 topics! As soon as we turned the paper over, we were shocked since it had every topic and we spent so much time reviewing certain topics! Anyway, History was so-so. So much writing that my hand ached like hell.
On the 11th, I had to do English First Language along with History Paper 2, which are the killer subjects since we will have to write so much we could cripple our hand. So, English. For this one, we will be given two different excerpts, one was from “The Hounds of Baskerville”, which was a story about Sherlock Holmes, and another one was by Anita Desai, which was about a girl who lives in Botswana. The first two questions was all about “The Hounds of Baskerville” where for the first question, I had to write an article for a Travel Magazine about the creepy cave in the mountain’s forest that Dr. Watson went to. Ok, this would be fine if they actually gave us more information besides two out of five paragraphs that talk about the area! The second question was about how the author expressed fear and the use of sunlight. The use of freaking sunlight. Now, fear and pathos would be easy since it would be clear and we all prepared for it. But no, there wasn’t a question on pathos. So we had to get all dramatic and imaginative with the way the sunlight and sunset was used to describe Watson’s feelings. One thing my classmates said I realize is now true, “When you’re doing English First Language and English Literature, you have to get all imaginative and think of how something like a saw can symbolize life, as in Robert Frost’s ‘Out-Out-!’ poem.” Well, I didn’t really expect us to be asked about the sun’s rays. Anyway, writing the essays itself wasn’t that easy either since we had to organize the paragraphs by the different topic and opinion, and we can’t get them mixed up or we would get deducted points. Argh, how frustrating! The last question was related to both passages, which was a compare/contrast essay where we have to show what each of the character was searching for and if they found it. I found something funny as I looked at the two passages – For “The Hounds of Baskerville”, it was mentioned in the book I just read, which was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime”, and it was the main character’s favorite book. As for the Anita Desai one, the setting was in Botswana, which was the country Chris and Raghav had to represent during the IASAS MUN Conference in Singapore. I don’t know, they just seem like a funny coincidence to me. In all, three essays and about two pages for each essay. Anyway, after English, we had the last History Exam, which was Paper 2 where we have to analyze different sources. Same as English, we have to use all our imagination to see how something like a vampire and bats can be related to the Big Three during the Treaty of Versailles. Funny, eh? Anyway, one of the really big coincidence in this particular exam was that one of the source, which was a picture of the Big Three holding a guillotine, was a source that our teacher used to teach us on how to answer source questions! So, there were about 8 to 9 questions in all and I wrote 8 or 9 pages. And yes, my hand was practically shaking by the end of the day due to the overuse.
The 12th. We had two exams, again, but this time they were both in the afternoon session, one [Business Studies Paper 1] at 1 and the other [Edexcel Mathematics Paper 3] at 4. The reason was because the Edexcel Maths belonged to the Edexcel exam board and they wanted to let all students all over the world take the exam at the same time. I wonder how those in Japan do it since they’re 2 hours ahead of us! Anyway, Business was ok-ok. Easier than the past papers but also hard in a way. At least this was just short answers that only worth 2 to 6 points. After Business, we had a few moments to relax and study for Maths, which would be later and I have to admit it, Maths was easy! Easy as pie and I think I could score quite well on this particular paper. Poor Masa forgot that we had the Maths exam then and he went home after the Business exam. We had to call him up and had came half an hour later. Well, he finished on time and didn’t need the extended thirty-minutes that he missed, so no worries. By the time we were done, it was around 6 and the sun was about to set so we didn’t have much time to talk since we were chased out of the library, where the Boarders were hanging out at.
Friday the 13th. Wasn’t that scary for me since I didn’t have Geography exam, which everybody said was really hard. I just had to go there because I had Edexcel Mathematics Paper 4 at 4 again. This paper was a little bit harder but quite easy. People kept on mentioning that there was a mistake in the exam paper where we had to find the radius [r] but at the answer box, it said “C=_______”. One person actually crossed out the “C” and changed it to a “r”! Anyway, as long as my answer is correct!
16th. There were no exams for me and I was so happy since it was the day for the Survivor: Palau Finale. Yes, I know I should’ve been studying but hey – this is Survivor! Anyway, I spent the rest of the day studying…
17th. Double Trouble – Science Paper 3 [the Theory Paper] and Business Studies Paper 2 [Case Study]. Both hard subjects on one day. Science was hard. I have to admit it. There were practically no questions on Chemistry, which was what we all studied for, and there were tons of questions on Biology – no, not on the body and organs, which we all prepared for, but on plants. Plenty were also on Physics, which were sort of ok. Lovely – just hope it comes out ok. Then we had Business, which was not easy and not hard. Too much writing though and it’s not just common sense like what you think. You really have to go into the theory and possibilities since it isn’t black and white. It isn’t clear and obvious. There are possibilities that something might happen to that particular business, e.g. if we increase the price, we may lose customers, if we decrease the price, we might not be able to pay all the costs, and if we keep the price the same, we might lose customers to competitors. Argh, the complicated world of business! I can never join “The Apprentice”! It ain’t easy like what you think!
18th – English Literature – Open Books. For this day, only those doing English Literature had to come, which was like, only 13 people or so. Thankfully, we were allowed to bring in our books since some parts were needed with text and we should use quotes to back-up our argument. In all, we had four texts – The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan, All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, and Poetry in the Touched by Fire book Section E. I basically avoided Poetry since it was done last year and I really just don’t get poetry. Again, this time we will have to write an essay [two pages] for each question. There will be three questions for each of the text we choose and we will have to choose one question to answer, where at least one of the three questions we answer must be a context question. So I decided to answer the context question with The Bonesetter’s Daughter where we have to read the Epilogue and say why it is such a good way to end the whole story. For this question, I tried to add all the relevant quotes into my essay since I tend to write essays that lack quotes from the text. For All My Sons, I did the question on whether or not Joe Keller, the protagonist, did the right thing in selling faulty machines to the army, which killed soldiers, but not admitting it and framing it on his co-worker in order to save his family reputation and business. This question was quite hard, actually. Lastly, for Twelfth Night, I chose the empathic question where I had to pretend to be Malvolio just after he confessed his love to his boss, Olivia. This was quite easy, actually, since I had to play him for our class play. So… Literature – I hope I did well. At least a B will be great!
19th. Cambridge Mathematics Paper 2. This was another exam board from the one I did previously and is the harder one. Our teacher got us to practice them by doing all the past papers and grading them. If compared to the beginning of the year, I think I improved in my Maths past paper scores but we’ll have to see with this. This particular paper was easier than what we expected [had a little calculator problem when I wasn’t able to find it and had to borrow Joe’s extra calculator] and I think I did quite ok, or if possible, good. Some of the Year 10 students [e.g. Deer, who is really, really good at Math as Kitti said she never got lower than a 90 in the Maths past papers.], who are supposed to be really good also had a chance to take the exam, too. Only exam for this day.
20th. Had our last English Literature [Unseen] exam. This exam is a little tricky since we would have one hour to analyze a prose or poem that we’ve never seen before. All of us prepared so hard for Unseen Prose since it was much easier than Poetry and we were expecting it to be a prose since for the last few years, it had always been a prose. As we walked into the exam room, sat down, and turned our paper over, we all gasped and looked around at the each other immediately. POETRY. Crap, we all thought. Anyway, we only had an hour so we better hurry. The question, which is always the same or in similar style, was about the author’s writing techniques. This time, it said, “Describe the author’s use of language and literary techniques that shows the mother’s care, love, and grip.” So off I went jotting notes all over the paper, highlighting, and seeing how they the use of language adds any effect. In one line, the author mentions about how she carefully turned the child over like cloth being turned in a washing machine – I got a little carried away and started using a little Biology and saying how that quote can symbolize the way the baby was in the mother’s placenta or amniotic sac during the pregnancy period and how it swam and turned around in the womb. Yes, I know it’s really weird. Then we had to use all these words that describe the baby and describe them of how they add effect. In all, I wrote two pages, which is what other people did. Except, amazingly, Tina wrote like seven pages!! She said it was because she analyzed every single line – wow, even I can’t do that!
23rd. I had two different exams – Cambridge Mathematics Paper 4 and ICT Higher Paper. For Maths Paper 4, this is the harder one since we would have to show all our working and we had to write them on pieces of paper along with the answer. I bet students in Thai schools can do really well at this since they have to show every step of their working while we tend to just write down the problem then the answer with the help of the calculator. So this was different from what we usually do but at least we had some practice with past papers, which really helped. Anyway, Paper 4 was quite ok and I think I did quite well on it. In fact, all of my friends said that it was pretty good and they thought they did quite well, too. Yet, this dawned a new problem – if most of us found it easy, this must mean that the mean will be higher and the range will be high. Oh, crap. This must mean that instead of a 95 being an A* and an 83 [or something] being an A, it could become a 98 as an A* and a 92 as an A. Oh no! I hope this doesn’t happen! For the afternoon session, we had ICT, which was all on the theory of computers, internet, hardware, software, operating systems, user interface, and all these really confusing technology stuff. I thought I did quite good and honestly, I know no crap about computers… But say, I’m hoping that I get a B since my coursework has gotten me an A already so it’s likely that it’ll pull my final grade up to an A.
24th – The last day of the exams!! Well, for me and the majority of our Year at least. For this day, we had Science Paper 1 [Multiple Choice]. Some of the questions were easy, some were difficult. But overall, I think I did pretty well. Right after this, we were all so happy that our IG’s were over. Some people, like Nun, who take French have to wait until June to finish their exams but we are done!
I hope the results come out good… The results will be coming out on August 18th [for CIE exams, which is the majority of my exams] and August 25th [for AQA and EDEXCEL exams, which is ICT and Maths].
The day after my last exam, I decided to visit RIS right before they have their finals. Believe me, your finals are nothing compared to this – these were really hard and I am hoping that I pass… If we get lower than a C on a certain subject, we will have to redo that subject again. And if we don’t pass five subjects, we will have to redo Year 11 again. Oh God, just to think about it is painful. Anyway, went to RIS and had lots of fun meeting all of you and catching up on things. Glad your results for your finals were good.
The next day was the 26th and I went out to Siam with some Harrow people and lots of people came [Pat, Nun, Joe, Donut, Leng, Blue, Ta, Jeeb, Gaf, Syne, Tan, Julie, and myself]. Although some of us separated to go watch movies first, but most of us [Pat, Nun, Donut, Blue, Ta, Jeeb, Gaf, Syne, and myself] went to eat pizza and took some studio pics. I look totally hilarious. Anyway, too bad I had to leave early so I wasn’t able to watch Star Wars and eat MK with them afterwards. Pity. Anyway, we should go out again!
On the 31st, my mom got tickets for us to go and watch Miss Universe 2005 at Impact and it was great! Glad Canada, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela made it to the finals, though I kind of wanted Thailand [of course, since I’m Thai] to make it to the semi-finals or final 15, at least. I really wanted Venezuela to get in the top three though… Anyway, glad Canada got it – not USA… USA looked rather bouncy [no, not her breasts] in the swimsuit walk. But jeesh, talk about Latina power!
Anyway, that was what I wrote in June after we had the exams. On those two days, that I went to get the results, saw quite a lot of people, those who are leaving and those who are staying. Just to sum up, here’s my actual IGCSE results and my Mock Exam [Trial results] results. Please note: My mock exams results were really bad.
| Subject | Real Exam Results | Mock Exam Results |
|---|---|---|
| Business Studies | B | C |
| Coordinated Science | BB | BB |
| English Literature | A | D |
| First Language English | B | D |
| First Language Thai | C | B |
| History | A | A |
| ICT [Computers] | A | B |
| Mathematics [CIE] | A | C |
| Mathematics [EDEXCEL] | A* | - |
So overall, I did quite good [Except for Thai] and I either scored the same as the Mock exam or better [except for Thai, of course]. Remember that I mentioned earlier that some Year 10s did the Math CIE Exam, too? Well, Deer got her result and she got an A* [The highest grade to achieve, something like an A+] for it! That’s one smart girl! Anyway, I passed into the sixth form and will be starting my A-Levels very soon!
August 20 – Boom’s Birthday Party at Patsiree
After a tough day at ROTC [R.D. a.k.a. Military Training], I went to the dentist and got ready for Boom’s 17th Birthday party that evening. The restaurant was somewhere around his house, which was in Soi Ruamrudee, and right across from his house. In all about 20 people [Por, Kevin, Prang, Aom, Cake, Prang, Nithi, Mek, Mew, Praew, Ping, Kwang, Mim, Tanya, Kid, Poom, George, Boom's friend from his old school, and obviously, Boom] came to the party, all at different times of course. Got there around 6 and saw that several people were there already but I wasn’t late, I think. So we ate, talked, had some fun, wrote some funny messages on the board for Boom. Around 8, we went across the road to Boom’s house and watched some Academy Fantasia before the cake came and we played some pool and some sang karaoke. The thing lasted until 11:30 PM but I left at around 9:30 PM since it’ll be about an hour and a half drive to get to my house. Well, the party was fun and it was great to see all of them before they moved onto England, America, and colleges here in Thailand. G’luck to everyone that’s moving abroad or into university and have lots of fun!
August 30 – Sixth Form Orientation
Sixth Form Orientation was one day before school. We met up in the library, listened to Mrs. Keys [Head of Sixth Form], and did some little advisement activities to get to know our fellow sixth formers. Note: The sixth form is made up of Year 12s and Year 13s, so a lot of us do not know the others in the other year. In addition, we got to meet and get to know the new students that are entering Harrow and the sixth form, too. Later, we did some activities on language learning and learned about the Sixth Form Award program and how we can earn credits from the different activities that we’ll be in, in which we will have to earn approximately 500 credits at the end of Year 13. At lunch time, I had to go and see Mr. Herbert, the Head of Drama, about the upcoming Drama production that will be performed at the end of January, which will be the Shakespeare play, “Twelfth Night” [in which I and some of the Year 12s learned in our English class]. We were basically told the different roles we’ll be performing as and will have to come and practice every Tuesday for an hour [now I already have two credits that I'll get per week!]. Here’s just some of the roles I remember…
| Character | Actor | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Orsino | Me | A lovesick Duke in love with Olivia |
| Olivia | Prang | A “mourning” selfish Countess |
| Viola | Kate | A shipwreck survivor disguised as a man |
| Sebastian | Chris | Viola’s believed-to-be-dead twin brother |
| Antonio | Nithi | Sebastian’s saviour who seems to be “in love” with him |
| Malvolio | Raghav | An annoying steward who embarrasses himself |
| Sir Toby | Golf Y. 11 | A misbehaved “knight” |
There are several more characters but I’m not sure who’s playing them. Kitti is also in it but he forgot who he was playing, though he said he would be playing a girl. [Hahaha] Anyway, after lunch, we went to the new Sixth Form Common Room, which used to belong the creche center [Pre-K/Nursery]. There was plenty of space and we had the entire first floor to ourselves. We had two relaxing rooms, one study room, a careers office, and Mrs. Keys’ office there. For the rest of the afternoon, we did a little role-play on bullying and our group, made up of me, Trin, Chris, Plai, Julie, Yuka, Toy, Bow [Y. 13], Charlie [Y. 13] and Nop [Y. 13], was asked to perform again, however, with a more pleasant ending. At the end of the day, Mrs. Keys gave some announcement on the uniform and the “privileges” for Sixth Form students, who can wear business suits if they want. Also, we have learned that from now on, we only have to wear the boater on Mondays [Hoorah!] In addition, because Thursdays are House Days, we will have to wear our House color shirt on those days [So green for Byron]. So, today was a great day and it was fun getting to meet the other new students [there were about 9-10 in all] and school’s starting tomorrow!
As for the A-Level subjects, I decided to take five subjects [like the others] and am doing Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, and Critical Thinking/English. I’ll probably have the toughest schedule since I have all three Sciences, in which people said are really hard. Oh well, we’ll see how it all turns out… I actually wanted to do History or ICT or even Psychology but then it clashed with the Sciences and Maths [didn't really wanted to do Critical Thinking but we had to choose SOMETHING in the last column and I would be really bad at Further Maths and I passed both IGCSE English and Math so I wouldn't need the retake.]. So far, I know that I have some classes with Kitti, Trin, Bifern, Tina, Toy, Raghav, and many other people. Can’t wait to let this year start!
Crap… Talking about school – I better get to bed now since I’ll have to wake up at 6:30! And it’s already 1! Oh, and I changed my mobile number already because I broke my old phone and stuff. If you want the number, ask, but I think I emailed it out to all my friends already. Anyway, here’s an entry so don’t complain! See you guys later…
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