i'll be giving it my bestest

& i know two posts in a day is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit much, just a teensy bit - but i'm through moping over my shitty lit exam.

i am looking to kill my comms research paper on friday, same goes for media writing on monday. so...

i'll be giving it my bestest,
nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention
i reckon it's again my turn to win some,
or lose some.

-- listen to the music of the moment & maybe sing with me.



PS: to all who have tagged my board recently, i've replied to all of you but you gotta scroll down cos my board's too small and can only hold one reply at a time.

PPS: Althusser?!

happy endings

okay, nobody throws rocks at me or whatever, but i think love is a choice. it's not something that 'just' happens, that happens cos you have no 'choice'. i'm beginning to think that maybe initial attraction happens, but after that, you choose to stay in love. cheating doesn't 'just' happen either, in that same vein of thought. you choose to cheat. well yes, of course everything isn't always that simple, 1+1 isn't always equal to 2, but mostly, it is. theories deal with big pictures, with what usually happens - hence my theory on love does just that: explain what is the general situation for majority of the people in the world.

and i know this is going to sound totally off-tangent, but it really irks me how all movies/shows have a happy ending. even my video games have happy endings, for crying out loud. if movies are supposed to be a depiction of reality and not a fabrication of a construction, then how come all endings are happy ones? i think it's escapism, i think most people like happy endings, i think everyone wants a happy ending for themselves and so they project that wish onto their means of escape. duh. if not why would they call it escapism anyway, right. you escape from a reality that you don't like. to someplace better, someplace that suits your fancy, someplace where you don't feel miserable. but i'm beginning to wonder at how this all works, cos reality as we all know it, isn't all as it's cut up to be in the first place. i'm not trying to complicate an already far-too-complicated world, no siree, but reality is constructed. my experience of reality is different from yours, because the way i perceive what happens around me is necessarily not exactly the same as how you have processed it, cos hey, we're all unique individuals, aren't we. so since all reality is subjective, it should follow then that all experiences of "reality" is constructed, too - by ourselves.

i'm not a scrooge, i love a happy ending just as much as you do. probably because i'm hoping i'll have a happy ending myself, just like anyone else. but i think it's totally unrealistic to keep forcing every single situation in the movies into a happy ending. happily-ever-afters don't always happen in life, let's not talk about reality here, anymore. i'm just talking about life. take the show 10000BC - it was a perfectly lovely action show with lots of fighting and of course, a guy with a love interest. now, if you haven't watched it AND intend to catch it on dvd or on the internet, don't read this paragraph anymore and stop right here. love interest gets kidnapped by other barbarians, he goes to find her, almost saves her, she gets shot in the back by an arrow and well, dies. and it could have ended there, because how do cavemen or cavewomen, for that matter, come back from the dead. heck, even modern men can't. but no, some shaman woman had to give up her life from 10000 miles away to revive love interest who miraculously, comes back from the dead and guy marries her, and they live happily ever after. i mean like seriously, that whole coming back from the dead thing is just too uncalled for, obviously scripted in to give the show the happy ending that (almost) everybody wants, but i didn't.

anyway. i should be studying. not ranting about the abundance of happy endings. stats calls.

f*ck.

it is immensely difficult to comprehend how i simultaneously began my exams today, and at the same time, also kissed goodbye to a decent cap this sem and hence a decent cap (ie. anything remotely close to 4) within the next two semesters.

i hate James Carey and his ritual/transmission model of communication - you have screwed me over with your false importance which has fatally been misconstrued as unimportance to me, and for right reasons too. i cannot believe i spent the entire weekend and some part of the previous week imbibing readings for 2113, which were NOT of any use in my exam today in whatever imaginable form whatsoever. i could have done far more productive things, like sleep well or take care of my mental health. much thanks to this screw up of gargantuan proportions in my academic choices, i have effectively bidden a decent cap score farewell with one f*ck up. well, considering how my comms research presentation went disastrously (as i expect the report the presentation was based on went, too), and how for some unfathomable reason certain members of my writing mod have gotten significantly higher marks than others even though it is a f*cking group project and thus have reason to suspect foul play somewhere in our peer review collusion - idealistic idiot i was - i am therefore looking forward to two consecutive Bs, B+s, if i'm lucky. we shall not even delve into psycholit, in which i have been averaging the grand total of a B- this entire sem by virtue of being bloody 0.5 marks below the average score. my cap this semester is beginning to look disgusting already.

now, we all know i do not curse and swear flippantly, for no good reason. hence, you should all realize by now the gravity of my situation and the extent of my frustration and my annoyance at some screwed up group project grading system - and i hate people who turn their backs on agreements, by the way. of course, i have no proof to validate any of these claims, so i am trying my darndest to will myself to purge myself of these poisonous thoughts - but to no avail. but, i am succeeding in putting my energies into this post, and will attempt to divert all my frustration towards studying for comms research tomorrow morning when i get up.

house rocks, by the way. i am hooked on it, and i love axn for showing two back to back episodes on two consecutive days. i am hoping house will be aired again tomorrow night, and maybe with all these little distractions, my dangerous sort of mood will dissipate and i will revert to the harmless, happy being i (think) i normally am.

FOOOOOOOOOD!!!

these are the kinds of food that please my palate tremendously, and pander to my gastronomical cravings: seafood, especially of the crab variety; steamboats; pastas and italian food in general; western food; barbequed food; dim sum, fried local fare which includes char kway teow, hokkien mee, and prawn lua; japanese fare; thai delicacies; pratas.

these are the kinds of foods i would like very much to try cos i believe they would potentially be added to the list above: turkish/middle eastern food with lots of grilled meats and pita breads and the special kind of rice; indonesian food; korean food; all other kind of indian food besides prata; greek food (where Cheryl promised to take me when i visit her in Sydney!!); European fare (i draw the line at escargot and foie gras).


i have spent a good portion of my night at http://www.hungrygowhere.com sussing out food places to visit after the exams. i think i need to find a site that promotes good hawker fare, too.

and i just had toast & eggs, - influenced by Chelsa all the way from Milan when she told me she eats it for breakfast.


speaking of breakfast, i am FINALLY having Macs' breakies with Fiona tomorrow morning, after weeks of procrastinating.




sigh such a food-filled post has not made me feel any better about my unsatisfied cravings. but. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO CRAB DINNER WITH TRI ON MONDAY NIGHT. :)

i am sick of people who think that the world revolves around themselves. get with it: IT DOESN'T. no one has to accommodate you, no one has to always pacify you - pacify yourself, why don't you, if you think that the whole world is against you. cos it ISN'T. for heaven's sake. grow up, pleeeease.

i have half a mind to wash my hands off this all. you are obviously not appreciating anything i am trying to do, you are obviously not trying to make things work. it's almost ludicrous, how it's never your fault. please, either get with it, or leave me out of it. thank you.

and no, this is directed at none of you who read my blog, promise.

i have a plan.

i have finally decided on something to write about for my psycho essay. i just hope it will stretch for ten pages, and i just hope i will not end up contradicting myself throughout the insanely long argument and exposition.

strangely though, my inspiration for the essay came when i was doing the laundry this evening. after ploughing through almost the entire book of Kristeva, Psychoanalysis & Culture which i borrowed from the lib, and forcing myself to sit through Kristeva's Power of Horror essay on abjection.

i will have to read Shelley's Frankenstein again to make sure i know what i'm talking about, and i'm not really looking forward to it cos it's such a bloody depressing book. i know it's such a silly reason for choosing this over Turn of the Screw, but well, i decided against doing an essay on the latter cos it scares the crap out of me, with its ghosts and eerieness and all. it scared the willies out of me the first time i read it, and i will not put myself through that torture again for anything.


and i know this is off tangent, but i can't wait for the exams to be over so i can play all my final fantasy games on my ps2 again. AND, order the pc version of ffxi. and wow. and make my sims grow up into adults and grad from university. and finish up crisis core. and watch movies like there's no tomorrow. and sleep. and exercise. and read all my books. and watch other countries' versions of antm. and shop. sigh.

facebook is EVIL!

facebook is sucking my life and time away. i spent 40 min on facebook doing absolutely nothing of worth, just looking at photos and facebook profile surfing.

when i should really be reading Kristeva and Lacan so that i can start on that dratted assignment.

now how do i disconnect facebook and msn? - so that i will not waste any more time this coming week doing next to nothing, and feeling sleepy soon after having spent too much time staring at the computer screen.

realize what i realized

if you realize what i just realized,
we'd be perfect for each other,
& will never have to find another.
just realize what i realized,
we'd never have to wonder if we missed out
on each other, now.

screwed over am i

screwed over am i, when i have absolutely no idea what to write on for my ten-page psycholit essay. at first, i thought i'd do a piece on Frankenstein, using Kristeva's theory on abjection. but the latter set of readings is just beyond my puny understanding. so now, i am thinking of doing my essay on either Henry James's The Turn of the Screw or Hitchcock's film Vertigo, which requires my adept knowledge of Lacan's theory on the unconscious. which i am, sadly, not very familiar with, either.

it's during times like these when i wonder what i've been absorbing for the last 13 Wednesdays in psycholit class.

it is too early to panic, as my essay is due the following Monday - but it is also too late to attempt to relax so that a solution will pop into my head. hence, screwed over am i, when i need an A- for this essay to secure a B+ for the module so that my cap will not crash this semester.

i am almost resigned to the possibility of being stuck with a second-lower hons. almost, but not quite, and i can't decide if the fight to haul my cap up to a 4.0 is really worth the pain.

think Kelly, think. something has got to make sense somewhere.

if i forfeit my soul, it ain't worth having.

the last day of school has passed by me, and i ended it with nary a whimper - with a horrible presentation. i had all of a min and a half to present my four slides, and i tried to rush through them all. but of course, i couldn't finish them. but anyway, it's all over, and i have the next week to write my ten-page psycholit final paper, and study for my three exams.

three exams in about a week, and i have three months all to myself. especially since sph has not replied me about my internship and i have been heavily dissuaded to work as an ice-cream scooper or waitress or anything that take me out of air-conditioned office comfort.

i am happy now, but at the same time, i'm slowly but surely losing faith in myself. i feel me holding myself by my very threads oh-so-tightly, trying to keep myself together, the way i like me. but the littlest things set me off lately, make me question myself, doubt my own self-belief, wonder at what i'm doing wrong. i don't know what i want to do when i graduate, suddenly. my ambition at wanting to do journalism has been shaken, prodded at, and scoffed by countless of people, each one questioning whether i have the mettle to pursue such a hard-line kind of career. and because of all this external doubt, it's rubbed off on myself, leaving me wondering if i'm overreaching, somewhat. it's all making me wonder if i should just settle for a shitass boring 9 to 5 job in some cookie-cutter office in Shenton Way, making me wonder if this is all i could ever reach for and hope to achieve.

it doesn't really make sense to me, how i can be so swayed by what other people think of me and my ability. but psycholit class made me think the other day: what am "I" truly made up of, anyway? my identity, my selfhood, everything i know about myself - it's not something imbued in me from the day i was born, as much as i'd like to believe. i'm struggling to come to terms that how what i am and who i am, is defined as much by others and how they perceive me, as well as how i see myself. and when both perceptions of the me that exist meet, that's when i discover myself for who i really am. so if people see me as ABC, it must be somewhat true, just as how i see myself as BCD is somewhat true. so since both B and C are perceivable to both parties involved in identity formation, i MUST then be BC, without a doubt.

but the whole constructedness of what makes up a person makes me want to scream bloody murder. it's too put-together, calculated. i'm not an equation. i'm more than that. but at the same time, what exists in me can only exist if other people are able to see that it exists. one is always reflected in the Other, and cannot exist without the Other, frustratingly enough. while i feel that it is not fair for me to be negatively defined ie: i am ABC because i am not XYZ; it seems increasingly apparent to me that i can only derive my identity from being negatively defined by another person.

and while it doesn't really make sense to my egotistical mind, it makes perfect sense to my questioning, doubting self. of course i cannot do the things i want to do, because it's not in me to be able to do it - how can it be, when my Others say it isn't?

yet, some part of me doesn't agree with this fatalistic point-of-view, that ascribes far too much agency and power over others in external loci.

i need to rediscover myself for who i truly am in this noisy world, surrounded by people with good intentions, but who inadvertantly tear me down. my mental tenacity is at an all-time low, as is my own self-esteem. and when i get these episodes, i start feeling unworthy of everything - from the way people perceive me to be someone i perceive i am not, to the way i am loved by people who i unconsciously and consciously place on a pedastal.



sometimes, i wonder at the ones who wield power in your life. who wielded power, who held you in such a trance for such a substantial time. what was it like, when you knew nothing except that? when you listened to that one voice most of the time, when nothing else mattered? such power is almost scary in its effect, but i cannot help but look back in wonder at how one ever did hold you in such a bind. i cannot hope to repeat that again - once bitten, twice shy, and boy, how quickly we smarten up to bouts of stupidity. neither do i want to, though a part of my megalomaniac self wants to have a taste of that kind of control, sometime in my life. while i recognise the stupidity of such a position, i cannot help but discard that rational thought when i look back in my own mind.

we're all what we are today because of things that happened in the past. i am as much a product of my past, as i am of my own present. when i apply further thought into the matter, it would actually seem that my past has a greater portion in the formation of self - it has shaped attitudes, worldviews, perceptions, and ways i deal with things. all of which i apply in my present day-to-day life, all of which shape my future. who you are today is based on who you were last time, even though we hate to acknowledge any form of agency the past might have on who we are today. ghosts shouldn't haunt us, dead things should stay buried.

what if i squeeze myself into any shape,

& i still don't fit?

what if i bend myself so much that i break,

& i can't mend it?

what if i burn so bright that the fire goes out,

& i can't stay lit?

what's the point in it?

i could get good at crying crocodile tears,

just to get along.

i could carry on telling you what you wanna hear,

till my voice is gone.

but if i finally get to the place that i think is home -

& i don't belong?

what's the point in it?

where's the benefit?

- when i'm gaining all,

but i'm losing it?

it's not worth having,

if it's too much to hold.

you can dig so deep,

that you're left with a hole.

thirsty in a desert, with a bag full of gold.

don't wanna end up like pirate bones -

what i thought was precious,

just a pile of stones.

i might have the treasure,

but i'd be lying alone -

just a pile of pirate bones.

if i forfeit my soul, it ain't worth having.

if it's something i stole, it ain't worth having.

what if i stake everything i am on a dream,

& it's counterfeit?

if i reach the end that justifies the means,

could i live with it?

& if it's true that having too much of any good thing

could only make me sick -

what's the point in it,

where's the benefit?

- when i'm gaining all,

but i'm losing it.

it's not worth that much to me,

if losing out is what it means,

to swim in shallow victory.

it's empty,

it's just not worth the price.

it's onl a fool's paradise.

if it's draining every drop of life,

till i'm dry like pirate bones.

Pirate Bones

Natasha Bedingfield

i am sick.

i have fallen ill and have lost my voice. on top of that, every muscle in my body is aching - from my back to my butt. the uncertainty of my new media project is killing me cos everyone wants a say in everything - which is good, but why does everyone have to be so vocal about every single bloody detail. i'm tired of it, though i don't even know if i have the right to be so. my readings are piling up at an alarming rate but as usual, i am too tired to care. story of my life, i am always too tired to care about something or the other.

life after the exams appeals to me very much, but at the moment, i'm a trifle lost cos sph has not replied me yet and i have no job and hence, no money, for the next three months. inspired by Naomi my research project-mate, the thought of working as a ben & jerry's girl suddenly appeals to me very much, even though the pay is peanuts. however, the thought of having to work my brains anytime in the next three months also distresses me very much - and so, i am leaning very much to being a b&j girl, if they want me.

i should really start on my studying for the final exams. but for some reason, i just cannot bring myself to, and my illness seems like such a convenient excuse to snuggle back in bed and heck everything else.

snug as a bug in a rug

ohgoshhhhhh i'm so fricking tired and it's gonna be a fricking long day tomorrow. and it was a long day today too. my back's aching like crap and my throat's hurting too. i think i'm gonna fall sick. :(

i wish i could curl up in bed - snug as a bug in a rug.

starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose.

i am, dare i say it, happy with the way my life is going right now. yes that's right, angsty, emo me - not upset or miserable abt my life at the moment. :)

EVEN THOUGH exams are looming, even though i'm dead tired from the past few late nights and stress of dealing with assignment deadlines, even though i have a 10 page essay still due, i'm in some sort of happy, exuberent mood beneath the physical exhaustion. i think it's the effects of feeling loved and safe and warm. ahhh mushy. ugh. i shall stop being sappy. but hey, thank you for making my life the way it is today, for taking my hand and building me up, for sticking with me through my little bitchy grouchy spats, for continuing to love me even though i'm quite unloveable so often. i never thought i'd hear myself say this, but i'm happily in love and i'm not raging against the world anymore.

dinner at Mount Faber last night was really really fab. the view was breathtaking, the breeze was exhilirating, the food was so delectable - the price, not so. the conversation tickled my fancy very much, as usual, as we talked about everything from the planets to visiting safaris in Africa. i love how i never run out of things to talk to you about, how you never tire of my constant chatter about the randomest things that pop into my head, how you think i'm so very clever when i'm actually not and just prattling on about things that come naturally to me out of interest. yes, the ego-maniac in me is talking here haha. i love how you don't stop me from eating cos i'm supposed to "have to watch my weight and figure" (bah, guys who do that piss me off), how you wait up for me at night until i finish my work for the day and am ready to sleep, how you hold my hand and make me feel so safe. you take me the way i am, and i do it too - i take you just the way you are.


& it starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose
cos you make me smile, even just for a while
when you kiss my nose - the feeling shows.

the primitive misery of being a body

It is not easy to play the idol, the fairy, the faraway princess, when one feels a bloody cloth between one's legs; and, more generally, when one is conscious of the primitive misery of being a body.

- de Beauvoir


and i so agree.

time of the month again.

while today saw the worst bout of cramps i'd seen in a long time, today also saw the shortest bout of cramps in my pubescent history. i haven't felt this close to fainting in a long while, and yet, i haven't recovered that quickly from such a debilitating onslaught of pain before, either. the queue at the polyclinic was ridiculously long. if i was in dire straits, i would never go to a polyclinic. when i stepped into the poly, i felt as though i was on death's door. it seems slightly exaggerated here, even comical, perhaps. but i honestly felt i was going to pass out from the pain. i waited for 15 minutes before i could even register to see a doctor, and had to wait another hour and a bit to actually see the doctor. by the time i was half an hour into seeing the doctor, i was so much better and could sit up straight and not have to close my eyes to keep the dizziness at bay.

this is the kind of torment i undergo every month. some months, i'm in so much pain i have no words to articulate what i go through. today, i'm blessed with my speedy recovery which thankfully left my mental faculties relatively untouched and unfuzzed. hence this semi-articulate post about the horrors of my menstrual cramps.

and i was also able to almost finish editing all the parts of the project. i'm left with writing my own bit in - which i hope to finish by tonight. and i'll slowly add in the appendices and clean up the biblio over the weekend, in-between writing my film essay. which i have not even begun on and some semblence of panic is starting to set in somewhere at the back of my mind.

i wonder if i'll survive the pain of childbirth.

i am wasting time. argh.

i am such a time waster. i spent 15 minutes looking at my msn contact list and sorting my contacts into their neat little labels of "family", "nus people" etc. i just spent over an hour on the phone with Clem inanely testing him on European capitals and finding some form of giddy entertainment out of it.

when i have work to do, it seems that i want to do everything but. it's as if work is the last thing i want to do, when in reality, it's the thing i SHOULD be doing. i have spent the better part of the actual day doing absolutely nothing by virtue of the splitting headache that had been hounding me the moment i crawled out of bed at 1245 (when i was due in my psycho lit seminar at 12). turned on my comp and thought i could get right down to work when miss Cheryl Sarah Lee messaged me on msn even though i was appearing offline. and she kept me entertained all the way till about 2 plus, ranting about her life's complications. i don't think i was very good company, being in my zombiefied state, but i did my best. at least she woke me up somewhat. but i couldn't take it after lunch anymore, and i folded back into bed till 6. the sleep was fitful though, and my eyes kept shooting wide open before they fluttered back down and i drifted off to sleep again. my headache was with me all the way till dinner time - during which i ate two dinners btw: one at my grandma's place, and one at my cousin's place.

after driving out to pick mom up from the station at 9, i started to do my work. yes, the war's still on at home. when will it stop. worked on the methodology part of my report till Tri called to ask if i was wowing, and i decided to go on for a while. showered, then the telephone conversation with Clem and the quiz on European countries' capitals happened, then got back to work at 215am after 15 minutes of stoning in front of my msn screen. i am happily, quite done with that section, unlike the stupid lit review portion i am very dissatisfied over. i've only stopped working on it cos i decided i need to get a move on in my editing or i'll never get through the entire paper. so very happily, i am on thereshold of starting on working on the findings section - then writing my own sections. and then i'll hop back to the lit review part to work on it until i'm moderately happy with it. i think i'm a bit of a perfectionist, which drives me crazy cos i don't stop working on something until i think i'll do well enough with what i've handed in. and when i know i'm not willing to put in the effort to produce a good piece of work, i don't even put in the effort and end up with a damn shitty piece of work. extreme, i know.

oh and very happily, the letter thing for sep's due on 15 April, not March. i emailed the sep office to check and to my great relief and delight, they told me that it was a typo. applications for 2nd majors are open soon too. so much admin to clear. but i'd rather do all these admin than my stupid 2102 paper, really. i am really lucky cos all the admin is due AFTER my flurry of project deadlines early next week. and 2113 presentation has been pushed all the way back to two saturdays from now, so i can just throw myself into the essay due on tuesday.

i can't wait for next tuesday to be over. while i'll still have my 2220 project due the coming monday, it's only that, which i foresee won't be too difficult anyway since my group seems pretty solid.

and okay this is off tangent, but talking to Cheryl today made me realise so many things. which was actually what prompted me to blog today - not the inane rambling of my doings. it was so strange cos for the hour or so i was online with her, i felt so detached from my reality now and felt my mind somehow being taken back to the Kelly of 2004 and 2005. hung up and miserable over a certain someone in school, not paying any mind to my school work as i came back each day from school too ready to wallow in self-pity instead of doing proper work. hence my dubious A-level results. but i digress. as she was telling me about the certain someone and how he was doing - surly as ever, i might add - i felt somewhat sorry for the me of yesteryear, an yet i felt exactly what i felt then, too. for that hour or so talking to Cheryl, i felt somewhat suspended in time, living in my own head again - surreal. maybe that's why some things just don't die, cos they live on in my head, merely buried in the sands of time as the grains keep falling with the passage of time. how strange it is that all these things remain a part of me, as much as i don't want them to. not only do they remain a part of me - they make up who i am. it upsets me greatly when i come to that realisation because i don't want these horrid experiences and feelings to have as much influence as they do actually wield over me - they don't warrant that degree of importance, my rational mind insists. and yet, fight as i might, all these things remain etched in my heart and i am, inextricably and irrevocably, as much a sum of these as well as these are what i am.