surrealism

i'm the first in the office this morning! besides the cleaning ladies la. but yes, i'm Very Early this morning. slept super early last night cos i wasn't feeling too good, then popped out of bed this morning at 7.20am. well, okay la. popped out would be euphemic. dragged myself out would be more like it. =D

these early morning solitary stints in the office have such a surreal feel about them. it's like i'm the only one alive in this box-like place, walled into my cubicle. all i hear is the sound of the massive air-conditioners somewhere up in the high ceiling, the clicking sound of my typing, and my own breathing. that's it.

makes me feel like i exist in my own dimension. with just myself and absoutely no one else present. it's a somewhat nice feeling, cos i'm feeling myself so completely.

then i plug into my mp3 player but that doesn't change anything, cos it's so quiet still that i can hear my typing behind the music. every single sound is amplified in this silence. as i said, surreal.

results came out yesterday! that was a surreal feeling too, actually. i did rather all right this sem, and i'm still allowing the feeling of being a reborn okay student sink into me. i've been a lousy student the past year, according to my results. but now, i think i'm starting to be okay again. :) was really happy. and grateful to God for not abandoning me even when i abandoned myself throughout the sem. much thanks to Him to be given for this sem!

everything else in my life seems to have taken a rather surreal quality about them, too. my daily routine runs like clockwork now, cos of the structure of being an office-worker. at night, i have one thing or the other to do, one person or the other to meet. i haven't had time at all to laze around at home and nap or play endless games on my laptop. haven't had time to curl up in bed with my book. haven't had time to watch whatever's on the tv. i just do everything i need to do then plop into bed at night. the days seem both not long enough for me and too long for me at the same time. the former cos i have no time to do everything i wanna do, the latter cos i have too much to do and not enough energy to do it all.

even this morning, having had the luxury of almost 8 hours of sleep the night before (which is the amount of sleep i've had in the previous 2 days put together) - i'm tired and sluggish, and my eyes hurt. had a slight fever last night cos of all the activity, but i managed to shrug it away by the time i woke up.

have been having funny dreams the past few nights also. i wake up in the mornings feeling distinctly unsettled, but i can't remember why most of the time. the one that i remember most clearly was the dream i had of living my life backwards, seeing myself get killed and trying to live it such that i could undo my own death. that got me thinking - the thought of living life back to front. it probably couldn't happen in the natural world since it messes up the threads of time and chronology as we know it.


it's true, we're all a little insane/but it's so clear, now that i'm unchained/fear is only in our minds, taking over all the time/you poor sweet innocent thing/dry your eyes and testify/one day i'm gonna forget your name. sweet sacrifice/evanescence

enough is enough.

okay it's Christmas and supposed to be a happy day - & it has been, for most of the day. but you know, i've realised some things after all the busyness of the gift-exchanges and photo-taking.

i've decided that i'm not gonna argue with him anymore for someone who probably doesn't even appreciate it anyway. you can't just waltz in and out of my life expecting me to be there whenever you "feel" like being my friend. i feel like i've been taken for a ride and i'm getting off here, thankyou. go blow hot cold all you like, i won't give a damn anymore. and if it comes to picking a side - i used to always pick yours. you know it. and i would have gone on doing things like that, except now that fights are becoming more and more frequent over the most inane and irrelevant things. i'm not going to keep trying to be nice. i can't be nice without genuinely meaning it. i'm starting to not genuinely mean it, and so i think i shall not be hypocritical and smile and pretend i don't mind. i didn't mind, but it's getting a bit much now.

i don't like people who patronize me. if you patronize me, i shall not even deign to talk to you anymore. i'm through with being nice and easygoing and smiley. i don't like people who smile at me but hate me at heart. hate me to my face, please.

i'm so sick of trying so hard for nothing. i'm so sick of people who make my life difficult when doing just something small would make it less difficult. i'm bloody sick of people who think the universe revolves around themselves. of course, no one would admit that about themselves. i think i'm reluctant to admit that about myself sometimes too. but when i realise that about myself, i immediately feel damn bad and try to make ammends for my brattish behaviour. and admit to my selfishness and idiocy. but then, thinking about it now - who's being the idiot here? maybe i've been idiotic all this while, thinking that the self-centredness is the disease when in actual fact, selflessness may be the ailment?

i don't believe in tit-for-tat kind of behaviour as a general rule of thumb, but sometimes i find myself engaging in it anyway. you piss me off, i'll piss you off too. sometimes, i also remove myself from your being when you piss me off. writing it all out makes it seem unbearably childish, but i do it anyway.

okay so this post is unbelievably incoherent, and i don't want to seem like some heartless ungrateful piece of shit. but my realizations have been long overdue - as have my decisions. i'm through with putting up with all sorts of randomness - warned or not, hurtful behaviour is hurtful behaviour anyway. i don't think a murdered person would be understanding towards his murderer even if the murderer had warned the murderee that "i may decide to murder you someday." as an excuse, it doesn't cut it. if the murderer tries to use this excuse in court in his own defence, i am absolutely certain that the judge would laugh in his face and tell him off for trying to be funny.

a part of me still wants to be loving and accepting because the bottomline is that i cared and care. but a part of me wants to cut my losses and not allow myself to be treated like that anymore. it's all too human, but aren't i exactly that - human?

first workpiece! :)

i just finished my first report in my internship career! just waiting for the clock to tick by me and for 6pm to come..

first week of work, over!
it's been a change, i must say. having to sleep early and get up ridiculously early. it's No Fun! but work's been quite fun la. my fellow interns are fun. lunches are hilarious. tea breaks are fun. :)

thinking about whether i should go to Wala tonight or not. on one hand i really wanna go, but on the other i'm shacked and just want to slack at home - something i haven't done in the longest time, it seems.

but then again, people at home and around me seem to be pissing me off like nobody's business these days, so it's good that i'm working. less chance for abrasion and conflict. especially with my mother. she talks as though she's the one working at my job. like, hello.

and like so many other irritating people. it seems people are either becoming more irritating, or i'm more irritable. i'd like to think it's the former, but i suspect it's more the latter. my fuse has been running short lately. maybe it's the god-forsaken hour i have to get up in the morning that's getting to me. i am SO not a morning person. at all. and i'm not exaggerating.

weekend's coming though, so yay! i really want to shop whatever irritating people tell me about it, and i haven't bought anything in like, dunno how many years. might be shopping with the BT bunch on Monday, since it's a half day.

okay! i'm off to the toilet then off to home. :)

lots and lots of things to do & a bit of reminiscing.

having just got back from Vietnam yesterday, i suddenly find myself inundated by things to do. especially since i'm starting my Business Times internship on Tuesday! i can't believe i'm a little reluctant to start it, since i gave up SO MUCH OF MY EXAM TIME to go for the writing test AND interview. and the regular ol' dark cloud over my head all the time i thought i didn't make it through the interview. but when i received the email about the internship beginning on Tuesday while in Vietnam, i was like yay!!! at first. then it sank in that i just bade farewell to my December break. and that the new school term would arrive even before i know it.

i'm like, aaaaaahhh, nooo. i NEED a BREAK.
but nevermind. for the sake of my future, i cannot be a lazy bum. i'm really so lazy sometimes i amaze myself. all i want to do is sleep, eat, and do nothing but entertain myself at home. an occasional shopping trip or pampering massage, and i'm set.

my luggage is still strewn all over my floor. i haven't managed to unpack ever since coming back from Vietnam last night. woke up too bloody early this morning for the LFC convention at St. Theresa's. i'm mad, i think. why on earth do i put myself through this things when i know at the end of the day i'm gonna whine and whine and whine. went to Vivo after the convention today to pick up some office wear for my 4-week internship stint, seeing i have absolutely none at the mo. and yet my cupboard is bursting. something is severely wrong.

i shall upload photos from the trip tomorrow or something. and blog about the trip tomorrow or something too. i shall stop right here to scoot off to unpack the bigger luggage so i can walk in my room.


strangely, many of my old ghosts aren't dead and buried as i thought they were (now, now don't jump to conclusions. i have several ghosts in my past, not just the one i seem to have harped on.) today's convention wasn't fantastic per se for me, as it made me realise for the umpteeth time about the many shortcomings in my own ministry and my own failure to do anything about anything, and it just frustrated the heck out of me. but somewhere along the line, either during one of the prayers or during worship, God touched me again for the first time in God knows how long (forgive the pun, please do.) something in my snapped and it broke down the feelings of invincibility and self-sufficiency i've been feeling in my life these days, these feelings largely due to the fullness of my life's activities the past few months. gone were the heady feelings of cockiness and arrogance that have somewhat dominated my life lately, and what replaced them was the absolutely shitty and humbling feeling of being totally unwanted.

it's a feeling that's dogged me for a long time, through things that have happened over and over again with many different casts. my deepest fear is just that - the fear of being unwanted. it's become almost a phobia that i've covered with layers and layers of self-assurance, vanity, and 'meaningful' activities all these years. as the feeling intensified with each rejection or abandonment took place, the cover-ups became more and more realistic and it became ever more crucial for me to remain masked just as so. lately, i'm starting to feel the feeling all over again. it began with Cheryl. then Dan, and Dan again. and it seems i'm starting to lose Chelsa too, now. it's hard when the person you love pushes you away, either by totally ignoring you, with harsh words, or with a cold demeanour. perhaps somewhere along the line i must have done something to these people who are 'not wanting' me. sometimes, i can identify what i did, but most of the times, i'm almost totally oblivious. and it frustrates me because i'm at the receiving end of some cold war that i didn't even begin and didn't even want to take part in. it's all starting to make me think that i don't want to even try to hold on to those i love anymore. what's the point, when the harder you hold on to someone, the more you love someone, and the more painful it is when he/she pushes you away and doesn't want you? the rejection becomes all the harder to bear, the abandonment becomes that much more acute a pain inside you, the subtle ignoring becomes magnified and all-too-obvious.

i'm through with church people, sometimes i think to myself. it's so odd right, that most of the people who truly care for me as a person are those from outside the community, especially when my community is supposed to be all-inclusive, loving, and a family? sometimes it feels like i'm only worth something because i'm "part" of the community. then i ask myself, what community? it's too hard a question to ask myself cos i can't give myself an answer i'd be happy with, so i push it all aside and just forget the unwantedness, forget the rejection, forget the disappointments and try my darndest to live for the future and not in the past.

now, i'm just plain terrified i'll lose Tri the way i seem to be losing Chels. she's too integral a part of my life to just say goodbye to like that. but then again, i thought all those people who didn't want me were integral parts of my life too back then. but i'm still alive now, without those "integral" parts. i can only spend that much time grieving completely. i know for some of my losses, i'll mourn the rest of my life for them. but in private. when no one knows, when no one's around, that's when i allow myself to give in to the hurts. just for that while.

i know i know. it's not healthy to accumulate hurts and let them fester. but how can i close the wounds when they won't allow me closure?



letting myself relive the feelings of being unwanted is something i wish i didn't allow myself to feel ever. it brings to my mind rejection Jesus must feel when i don't want Him in my life, and it makes me all the more aghast at myself. it makes me no better than the people who have inflicted that horrid hurt in my life. i don't want to think about this anymore. happy thoughts, please.
see. the covering-up is so natural now that i routinely replace my sadder thoughts with happy thoughts and thoughts about what to do on so-and-so date.

Waiting for Thelmas's Laughter. no, - goodbye to Colin's.

You wanna take the world
in hand
and fix-it-up
the way you fix your living room

You wanna reach out and crush
life's big and small injustices
in the fire and honey
of your hands.

You wanna scream
cause your head's too small
for your dreams

and the children
running around
acting like lil clowns
breaking the furniture down
while I sit through
it all watching you
knowing anytime now
your laughter's gonna come

to drown and heal us all

GRACE NICHOLS




***



i thought i'd be ecstatic that exams are over today - and yet, when i was done with my last paper, ecstacy didn't quite creep in.

must've been the news of Colin's passing on that's weighing me down. the thunderstorm is befitting of the mood today, i must say. much has been said about how he will be missed, so i shall not add on to the chorus because that is tacit. how the death of a friend affects those around him never fails to amaze me, and i amaze myself too. i found myself replaying all the times when i spoke to him in my head as i drove to pick Clem up after my paper today without even meaning to think abt it, found myself remembering the exact time and place i last spoke to him and the world youth day he was supposed to go for with us next year. i found myself constantly visualising him in my mind's eye as i went about my daily business without even meaning to call up those images. if it's so hard for me as it is, i can't imagine what it must be like for those who were really close to him. just the thought that we'd all never be able to speak to him again, see him walking jauntily around in the canteen again, eat prata at hupseng with him again - it hit me like a ton of bricks and went all the way down to my toes.

death seems so final somehow. even though i know he's in a better place now, it's the loss of a friend in your life that makes death hard to accept. i guess it's the selfish part in all of us that grieves, because we feel the loss.

life's so ephemeral, it's too true when they say you should live like there's no tomorrow. because one day, there'll really not be a tomorrow. speak to all the people you wanna speak to, make up with those you have rows with, tell those whom you love that you love them, don't live in fear of consequences but just live. i'll try. i always say i'll try when death strikes and my mortality becomes too evident for my liking. but then, the realisation eventually dissipates and i go back to my fearful existence.

but from today onwards, i'll try.

last paper blaaaahhs.

the title above is self-explanatory, i believe! gosh last paper-syndrome is terrible! i remember hardly studying for my last paper last sem too. i just wasn't in the mood to read anything. i guess this time round's a marked improvement, since i got hit with the motivation to study. but i must say i got struck by the desire to study too late, at say 9pm today only. aha. so here i am now frantically trying to cram (here the usage of such a brit word is justified cos i really feel like i'm literally cramming things into my head.) but not much is going in anymore! i've been at it at it since 11pm, so it's been almost.. 6 hours? no wonder my brain's getting mucked up and sluggish! like really, i'm reading but my eyes are glazing over. i decided to stop for a while to do something else - hence this post. lucky my paper's at 5 tmr. i can sleep in! & sleep late!

AH FREEDOM TOMORROW! can you smell it??? i can! i'm so excited! so many things i wanna do, and some i don't really want to do, but have no choice - like the packing for my vietnam trip and the clearing out of my wardrobe! i want to shop, rot, sleep, laze. i don't really want to work this holidays. yes i'm a walking irony i know. first i say i really hope i get the sph job, now i say i don't really want it cos i want to laze at home. ahaha.

and as a total side note, lit paper was crap today. but it's history, baby! and i'm not gonna mope over it, cry over spilt milk or whatever. i'll cry on the day of my results if it's necessary but from now till 27th dec, you're not gonna hear the word "results" from my lips. if you do, you're entitled to sock me in the mouth to shut me up.

my post is becoming a little hysterical, it's quite funny. i think i'm really getting tired.
& i thought Japanese film would be fun! well, it is. but i'm sick of studying it.

i want to sleep!
and shop!
and wow! a
nd laze around with Tri!
and eat!
and spend time with the boyfriend!
i just want to get this over and done with, pronto.

5 reasons why i don't want to study anymore:

1. i just got my period. my cramps are acting up. FRICKIT.
2. i didn't manage to fall asleep till 730am this morning. i am bloody tired. i want to sleep.
3. i've been playing games on neopets the last few days during study intervals and i'm hooked on some of them. especially the word games and the shanghai-like one.
4. i don't know how to study for soci tomorrow. i kid you not. my lecturer is an authoritarian.
5. i just don't feel like it.

elitism. yucks.

okay, so i am extremely behind in my knowledge about Singapore society. perhaps living obliviously in my rather comfortable middle-class existence? but while i was doing research for my soci exam on Monday and trawling the internet for news on Singapore, i came upon the Wee Shu-Min scandal. it piqued my interest because of her extremely elitist remarks (well, she unabashedly proclaimed herself as an elitist. whatever rocks her world.) and it disgusts me about the state of affairs in Singapore. i mean, her father, MP Wee of Ang Mo Kio GRC, basically shared her opinions and essentially shoved the blame onto the 'rest of society' who cannot accept the brutal truth. bullcrap. okay, so granted - it's happening in Singapore, elitism. so it's true. but that doesn't mean it's right. by saying that people cannot accept the truth, he was essentially endorsing his daughter's point-of-view.

it frustrates me now, cos i realise it's the fundamental ideology of the PAP that is behind all this elitism in our education system. it is no secret that the 'brand' of your school is extremely important in excelling in Singapore. it's a sad fact, which i think is not something that should be happening cos of its fundamental flaws, but it is something that is happening - and hence is a fact. and among the branded schools, there're the different types of brands. it's so dumb, but that's how it is. cos of the school culture. people who come from the top 5 jcs have a MUCH HIGHER CHANCE of getting a scholarship than someone who comes from a jc outside of the top 5. i don't have first-hand experience in this area, as didn't try applying for a scholarship after my As. but i've heard from so many people personal anecdotes about how two people with identical grades get offered interviews for different classes of scholarship - the one from a jc out of the top 5 gets an award interview, the one from the top5 jc gets the scholarship interview. if that doesn't reek of elitism, i don't know what that is.

it's no use saying that PM Lee should reprimand MP Wee or whatever. the 'upper' echelons of our society think this way because of the way the people in our government think. our education system has conditioned so many people like the abovementioned to think the way they do because of the way it rewards and punishes. the people who excel academically get scholarships whose selection panels reiterate over and over again that they're looking for 'the cream of the crop', looking for people who have the 'it' factor, who have an extra something - and the list of wonderful adjectives that're labelled on potential scholars just goes on. so these people just tend to think that they're really 'better' people cos of the scholarship they hold and what they're told the scholarship means. i'm not saying that ALL scholarship-holders think like that, i know of many who are down-to-earth and know that academic exellence isn't the be-all-and-end-all in the gauge of how 'good' you are as a person - my own boyfriend being one of this sort. :)

but too many people think this way, people who are in power. unfortunately.
according to the abovementioned, i'd belong to the working-class and i'd be a "lazy leech of society" if i ever got retrenched. i take it very personally because being retrenched and taking a pay cut to get a job again doesn't make a person unqualified or worse off. hell no. i'd do it.
i wouldn't think of myself as unqualified even though i'm not from any of the top 5 jcs or from a 'branded' secondary school. i'm on pretty good terms with the education system even though i'm not an elite nor a scholarship holder. i have a future waiting for me, one that i'm really looking forward to. and i do think many of my peers who are like me - not in an elite profession like law or medicine, and not from a 'top' school - don't see themselves as underqualified. and definitely not subservient to the so-called elite of society. sure, i accord them respect in a proper social setting because it's the norm and because some of them really do deserve respect. but there're some of the 'elite' who may be accorded respect and deference because of their position of authority, but solely because of that and not because they deserve it per se. there's much difference between the two. it's like paying lip service, and meaning what i say. the 'elite' who thnk they're respected ARE, on the surface. but cut to the bottomline of it all and i'm sorry, but it's all just lip service. or done out of fear. people in this country can get thrown into jail for any number of 'defamations' to high-ranking people in the government. in the old days, it'd be like King Henry VIII killing his wives for treason. draw the parallels and you'll see how 'uncivilised' it really is - that is if the linear flow of history is supposed to bring along with it progress.

i'm no politician, i may be one of the mere masses who don't really count for much in the eyes of sad, shallow specimens of people that elitists are - but i have an opinion and i think that elitism, or any kind of discrimination, for that matter, is not right. it may be 'true' as MP Wee trumpeted because it is happening, so it's a fact. but truths aren't always right. while it is true that Jack the Ripper killed all those women back in Whitchapel all those years ago - the mutilated bodies of the women proves that and hence makes it a fact - it doesn't mean that what he did was correct. same for elitism. miss abovementioned saying something like that means that elitism is present in our society, but it doesn't mean that her way of thinking is correct.

i may not ever become one of the 'elite' of my society, because of the middle-class position in life i was born into and the career path i want to take. but i'm more than okay with that cos it's what i want, and i wouldn't have it any other way even if i were born as Bill Gates' daughter or as Paris Hilton. i grew up believing my family was relatively wealthy cos of our consumption habits when i was a child. i grew up doing well in school relatively easily. (well, for my primary school life for sure.) it was the perfect breeding ground for elitism to take root in my young mind, to think that i was better than everyone else. but as things turned out, i'd always met people who kept me perfectly grounded and who reminded me that grades and academic exellence are definitely NOT what make up a person (thanks Tri!) and that i was loved because of who i was and am and not because of the number of As i got in my exams.
i admit, i'd make a lousy politician cos i'm just so idealistic. but all i know is that this elitism thing in Singapore (and probably the majority of the wealthy capitalist countries of the world) makes me disgusted at the narrow-mindedness of the so-called elite, and these second-generation 'elite' ought to realise that it isn't that they're better people than the rest of us middle-class people - not by far. these people were just born luckier. either with a silver spoon in their mouths, or for some, up their ass.

forgetting.

i was just looking through some of my old posts (doing lit always makes me dig up things in the past cos of all its questions about memory and forgetting), and i realised i forgot the reasons behind some of the emotional outbursts. already. things i got so worked up over in September, i can't for the life of me remember why now.

i admit, it frustrates me that i can't remember. it was so real to me then, my pissed-off-post proved that. but right now, i can't remember and it just makes it seem as though nothing happened - when something did. i feel like i'm betraying my memories and the reality of my past by allowing myself to move on and ultimately forget. but i also admit that this effacement of memory is somewhat crucial to the process of moving on in life. i don't necessarily think that it's the happiest thing that could happen, i wish moving on didn't have to come at the price of my memories. but would i want to live in my past and die lost in ghosts, or live in my present for what it is?

so when i look at it from another angle, i'm actually glad (okay glad is kinda pushing it. i'm not sad. yes.) that i'm starting to forget, that the sheer intensity of the emotions of the moments are leaving me and disappearing further and further into the reccesses of my mind. i know i'm moving on in life, i can feel it day by day as i live my life for what it is and not what it was, and there's so much to look forward to. some things are starting to not have an effect on me, which is good cos i'm a lot less inhibited now, and feel so much more free and unburdened. i mean, of course it doesn't negate the fact that i still think certain things, but i'm no longer bogged down by the weight of poisionous memory.


okay i'm really tired now.
met Chels at 230 to discuss lit themes, then went down to Raffles City to meet mom and Carol to change the size of a pair of shoes and get some office clothes. if i get the sph internship. i hope i do! but then again, things have a way of not working out when you want or need them to. i'm a pessimist by training. i make myself believe in the worst-case scenario of every situation and make myself live through it so that if it ever happens, i won't sink into depression and cry my eyeballs out.
mom bought some really pretty office tops for me to wear, but the bottoms are giving me a headache. my body shape is irriating cos i'm big at the hip cos of the bone structure, but small at the waist and everywhere else on my body. so the sizes that fit my hip look too big on the rest of my body, while the sizes that're just right for my frame do not allow me to zip up my bottom. it's terrible. i tried on like 20 pairs of pants and skirts today, but not a single one looked decent. furthermore, it would seem that i have a slightly huger ass to contend with, so pencil skirts got crossed out cos mom said they looked obscene with my ass sticking out.

i'm tired. i am going to sleep. and i can feel my cramps. i've been having cramps on off the last few days. i hope my period doesn't induce a horrific bout of cramps this time round.