i do not feel like reading. anymore.

for the strangest reasons ever, my biggest headaches in the mornings are now what to wear to school. i can't seem to find anything i'd like to wear out of all the rows of clothes hanging in my cupboard. which is quite worrying cos i dunno... i feel like such a bloody bimbo.

school work is steadily piling up. i'm rather behind on my readings - as the days of illness and unwellness have robbed from me precious reading days. i'm more insecure than ever this sem cos i'm aware of the necessity to do well enough to boost me up from my lowly second-lower honours to a better second-upper. i want to apply for my double major thingy, which i sincerely and fervently hope nus will approve. nus seems to hate me as much as i hate them these days, so anything could happen. look at my sucky 6pm-7pm tutorial slot for new media research.

i used to think that Freud was an interesting guy but i'm honestly quite sick of him. he writes so much, it's almost disgusting, the volume of works he has. i have to re-read him a couple of times cos he uses ye old english which just escapes my modern-literature fed brain. thank goodness for the invention of italics, which the editor of the book i'm reading kindly uses to highlight Freud's main point of the essay.

i have 5 chapters of my media writing textbook, 4 chapters of my media research textbook, and a gazillion pages of Freud waiting for me on my desk to inhale into my brain. i have a lit paper to start working on soon cos for some strange strange reason, i find that the first draft is due in 3 weeks. funny, how things like that are just discovered like that, as though ivle has a mind of its own, making up deadlines as the weeks go by.

&, my finances are in dire straits. after my shopping spree last week, i all-too-suddenly find myself xxx dollars poorer and in desperate need of the abovementioned xxx dollars to reappear in my bank account. i have all of 4 dollars left for this week, and i think i shall have to survive on charity and my ability to have the appetite of a rabbit when necessary.

i shall not even begin to blog about what i owe the ridge. it is far too embarrassing and i can't even bring myself to start thinking about what i owe my editors.

sph still owes me my rather meagre pay. entirely of my own doing - with regards to the meagre portion, that is. not the tardiness. i am hence contemplating whether or not to return there to intern this coming holidays since i will not be going anywhere for exchange and do not need to plan for any overseas stint. i do really want to write for urban, but i also do really think i am not fashionable enough. perhaps life would be a better option, but then i also do think i am not with it enough. so what should i do? i feel like just quitting this sem and going to sleep.

by the way, this is totally random, but we have found squirrels in my garden. hooray for my garden being home to another type of cute furry animal besides cats, cats, and more cats.

irreplaceable.

i'm having a lot of trouble sleeping even though my eyes are DEAD TIRED and i look like a goldfish with my swollen eyes from all the crying. but emotional outbursts aside, i've been enjoying my last few days after recovering from the flu from the earlier part of the week.

shopped a lot yesterday and the day before and got so many new pairs of shoes. i didn't know my shoe fetish had become so bad until i realised how many pairs i got! 5 pairs i think! and would you believe it i still have another pair i want to get. it's funny cos my feet are probably one of the most sensitive parts of my body, blistering reallyreallyreally easily. and i get so many pairs of shoes that hurt me like crap nonetheless, just cos they look good.

walawala last night was actually pretty fun! my alcohol tolerance has increased quite significantly i think cos i didn't feel like puking or anything. but i was super high and was saying all sorts of funny happy things. poor Alison had such a time though! heh.

so allinall, i didn't sleep very much or very well last night.





so you don't make promises you can't keep, so you don't promise me forever when you know you might fail me. so, thankyou for being honest and for not saying things you don't mean. so i say lovely things that make your heart go all a-flutter, but i don't say things just like that to just anyone. so i keep thinking i'll die young and i keep talking of death. so i wish you'd love me for forever.

so.

bloodyhellihatenus.

the nus admin system is a bloody pain in the ass and i hate nus to a million gazillion bits and tiny pieces. i fricking got rejected for my SEP application, and they don't even have the bloody decency to let me know. i have to ASK and what do i get? an automated rejection email from their automated system.


"We regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful.

Regards,
Miss XXX"


i spend so much time on my fricking application and they KNOW IT, because the SET THE BLOODY FORM, and WHAT DO I GET WHEN I DON'T GET A PLACE? bloody fricking fools i tell you. who treat those who get their wonderful little exchange places like fricking royalty, whom, if i may add, have been chosen via God-knows-WHAT criteria, and what about poor rejected people like me??

i am so mad i could throw dog poo over someone's immaculate front lawn now and not feel bad at all for messing up someone's precious prize-winning petunias.

i promptly emailed back a tad sarcastically about their helpfulness and AGAIN, asked WHY THE HELL i got rejected when half the world gets a fricking place. if they can't even tell me why, then i will jolly well ask until they get sick of me. i want to know why. i don't care, i want to know. i am so pissed off that they can't even tell me WHY. it's like being killed for apparently no reason. if i were the murderee, i'd want to know why i got killed by my stupid murderer.

okay so i know like i'm acting like it's my God-given right to go on exchange. but i guess i'm feeling sore and upset and extremely pissed off with nus and all their incompetent admin right now because my friends have all managed to get places and i do not know of ANYONE who gets turned down for exchange. ANYONE. i must be the only loser i know who has been rejected from nus exchange ever in history. i haven't gotten lousy grades, my application was complete. so why. the. hell. ARGH.

i am extremely agitated right now and if given the chance would bite off the heads of the people who processed my application. if they can't give me a good enough reason WHY. i know i know there's always next sem. but i was really looking forward to going the coming sem and actually after emailing back what i emailed back, they might black list me forever. cos i was so mad when i hammered in my acerbic mail and hit the send button.

omg i hate nus. right now, right here, i hate my school. i am so mad i want to cry.

Over You.

okay i think i'm sick. i'm chilled and have goosebumps all over me even though it's not particularly cold. my hands and feet are frozen. i can't smell a thing and rahhhh okay i shall not whine anymore. it is unbecoming.

on a much better note, childish adults aside, i've got a lot more figured out and i'm finally happier. it's sad how it's come to be like that in my head, how people cease to exist as the people that they are but become mere concepts.
ie. "Jessica Alba" screams hot babe, nothing else.
similarly, person-in-my-head screams annoying person, nothing else anymore.

but that's the way the applecart falls, i suppose. i don't hate Person, i don't like Person, i feel nothing towards Person except when i get lost in reminiscing, when i feel the twinges of hurt. reminiscing. an activity which i'd like to stop for good, now. what good is it, to me now?

Now that it's all said and done,

I can't believe you were the one

To build me up and tear me down,

Like an old abandoned house.

What you said when you left -

Just left me cold and out of breath.

I fell too far, was in way too deep.

Guess I let you get the best of me.

Well, I never saw it coming.

I should've started running

A long, long time ago.

And I never thought I'd doubt you,

I'm better off without you

More than you, more than you know.

I'm slowly getting closure.

I guess it's really over.

I'm finally getting better.

And now I'm picking up the pieces.
I'm spending all of these years

Putting my heart back together.

'Cause the day I thought I'd never get through,

I got over you.

You took a hammer to these walls,

Dragged the memories down the hall,

Packed your bags and walked away.

There was nothing I could say.

And when you slammed the front door shut,

A lot of others opened up,

So did my eyes so I could see

That you never were the best for me.

Well, I never saw it coming.

I should've started running

A long, long time ago.

And I never thought I'd doubt you,

I'm better off without you

More than you, more than you know.

I'm slowly getting closure.

I guess it's really over.

I'm finally getting better.

And now I'm picking up the pieces.

I'm spending all of these years

Putting my heart back together.

Well I'm putting my heart back together,

'Cause I got over you.

Over You

Chris Daughtry

blow blow blow

oh i'm veritably dying from sinus problems. i kid you not. i was up practically the entire night sneezing my throat out of my mouth and trying to breathe through my periodically very stuck nose. right now as i sit here to type this, my eyes are watery and there's green icky stuff threatening to come out of my nose. for some strange strange reason, my stomach aches too and is uncomfortably turning around. i couldn't sleep very much, only falling asleep when the sun had crept through my window and jolting up at 10am with a gigantic sneeze from deep within me. sigh. class later. i have a good mind not to go and to try to get my nose in order again, cos class's gonna last till 8pm today. and i have to get well by tomorrow's psychoanalysis seminar cos attendance is very much taken.

sigh. i'm dead tired but i can't sleep. my nose is itchy, my throat is scratchy, my eyes are watery, my head's achy.

i hate my sinuses. i want to have them drained so i can live like a normal person and not have to blow my nose every few minutes and have the whole world turn around to stare at my trumpet-blowing cos that's what it sounds like.

gripings of a student.

i've taken the last few days easy, catching up on sleep and alone time. and listening to my music. i've been neglecting me a bit lately, i think, which has resulted in me being uncharacteristically sticky to the boyfriend and uncharacteristically vocally insecure about a million and one inane things - from my weight to my brains.

spent the last two days at home just doing my own thing. sleeping a lot, reading a lot, playing my favourite games a lot, and catching up on some prayer time. i do admit that God's becoming increasingly distant these days even as i try my darndest to find Him in prayer. i'm extremely disillusioned about the way certain things have played themselves out, but at the same time, rather resigned and getting used to the way these certain things have played themselves out. perhaps a part of me cannot reconcile how God would allow these things to be like that, a part of me wonders at what game God's playing at - but then a part of me feels bad at even thinking this way cos i know God didn't plan for any of this to happen cos hey, we've all got free will after all. but knowing how God doesn't ever plan for me to be stuck in a discomfitting situation doesn't really help much when i'm actually right smack in the middle of it. i feel bad for blaming God, but at the same time i feel mollified cos it would seem that things are beyond my control anyway so i might as well suck it up the way it is.

and exchange. where do i even begin. there i was, so excited about going on exchange at the start of it all when i began to do my applications - that i didn't even think of the possibility of me not being able to get a place. and there i was, worrying about financing! everyone's gotten their offer emails already, and what about me? i'm still checking my nus email 30 times a day hoping to see some mail with any smell of the word "STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME" - but to absolutely no avail. there was this once last week when i got an email about the Singapore Exchange and i was so fricking excited. then when the mail opened after an excruciating 20seconds of loading, i remembered to breath again when i saw that it was some mail about the Singapore STOCK exchange. right.

i didn't even think that i mightn't get a place on exchange. so much for being cocky eh. that's a crash landing for you. of course, my application status still says "PENDING", but i'm not kidding myself anymore at this late date. of course, there's always next sem to apply, but i feel so deflated at the moment that i wonder if i'll be able to summon up enough energy and excitement to apply for the next sem.

i can't even begin to imagine about my second major in lit anymore. so far, all i'd been concerned about was getting my cap up to 3.5 so that i could apply for the second major thing. with last sem's miraculous results under my belt, i thought i'd nail it. but now, i'm not sure about anything anymore. i mayn't get it after all - very possible.

and cors has screwed up my week. i now have a stupid tutorial on fridays from 6 to 7 pm. so much for doing my research project with Jerome and friend. there're just too many people taking the module. kick some of them out, i say. give second years priority in tutorial balloting, i say - cos we're older and more senior after all. why won't nus subscribe to the Singapore government's ideology for once of a flawed meritocracy? but ALRIGHT, because i have several good year one friends, i'm glad that there's equality la. somewhere in me is glad, anyway.

saddd. :(


it escapes me how some adults behave like children, too. adults of all ages, from 25 to 50. go figure, really. but upon reflection, i realise i shouldn't hang it over their heads for choosing to behave this way. it's their prerogrative, as Britney Spears sings sultrily (when she was still young and passably hawt).

i will not be pushed to behave in a way that i don't think is right or befitting of myself. even if these child-adults do it to me, cos really, tit-for-tat behaviour is really so unbecoming. grow up, let loose, life's really too short to be so uptight about everything. i don't mean to come across as being sarcastic or holier-than-thou, reallyreally. it's just honestly what i think.
cos i know we're cool.

eye problems.

my eyes hurt like hell. something is in my right eye and it's annoying me. at first i thought i was some sort of mucus so i tried to push it out. but after trying gently, it seems to part of my eye and i have no bloody idea what it is. on one hand it seems like it's part of my eye that's formed a bubble or something, on the other it's really irritating and making my eyes water. i hope it goes away soon - like all my eye troubles always eventually do. i don't fancy going to the doctor and hearing him tell me that my retina is detaching itself from my eyeball or anything like that. i'd faint on the spot. i even promise not to rub my eyes so scarily hard and fiercely if my eye clears up by itself. looks like i have to eschew the contacts again and put on the glasses for school later. i hate it when my eyes give me trouble.

too many things

i really own a damn lot of things. i always have something to throw away, something to discard. there's always not enough space in my room. i have two options. a) get a bigger room. b) accumulate less stuff. i think b would be a lot more feasible, seeing how it'd be impossible to enlarge my room in any way.

spent the last dunno how many hours throwing out stuff from my room - again. stacked up all the new books i bought and nearly fainted. i have 12 spanking new books i haven't touched. and that's not including all the titles i inherited from Koko Jo when she moved to Vietnam. all in all, i may have 30 books i have not yet read.

so why do i keep feeling compelled to buy more books? it's getting to be like my shoe obsession, except that i actually do wear the shoes i buy, but i don't always finish all the books i buy. but at least the clothes buying has stopped somewhat these days.

i've been thinking a lot about too few things, which then compels me to think about how to stop thinking about them. it's silly, really, how things always seem to pan out. you think that you're in control of it all, you think nothing can ruffle your feathers anymore, when wham - something perfectly innocuous happens and it really messes you up and you think now where did that come from?

and yet i can see something like that happening a mile away. so does that make me stupid, or stupid?

i am not trying to create ripples in a still pond that's calm and oh-so-serene. i'm not trying to mess things up when they seem so prestine and well, neat. but amid my current contentment, i can't help but feel distinctly disgruntled at the way things have turned out. i can't help but wonder sometimes. okay i'm bluffing. a lot of the times. but well, sometimes i think it's all too dangerous, wondering.

first day of the new school term tomorrow. i'm still waiting for Clem to call, but it seems like he's not gonna call tonight. it's so late already. hmm. i hope he hasn't taken me all-too-literally when i said i was gonna sleep at 3-ish or 4. cos it seems like he is. taking me literally, that is. sigh. guys.

screw the new paramour.

certain circumstances

last day of work today. i'm glad to be able to finally sleep in a bit, morning hours just do not agree with me.

even school allows me to sleep in considerably, since i always manage to wrangle a late-starting week out of all the possible modules available. i am thoroughly amazed at my ability to work things my way to satiate my laziness and need for sleep. heh.

met Clem for supper just now. sort of. ended up trooping to his place to eat the taken-away beancurd, and hanging out. which i haven't done in the longest time ever since work started.

during mass today, i realised that i'm only distinctly disgruntled under certain circumstances. very certain, very specific circumstances. that realisation distressed me cos well, circumstances be damned, really. why do things irk me, bother me, rankle me, hurt me still - when they shouldn't? makes no fricking sense at all. i think i need to just let go and breathe. i'm not consciously clinging on to my baggage, but somehow it refuses to be disposed of for good. it's like one of those annoying trick birthday candles - the ones that you blow and blow and blow but the stupid little flame refuses to extinguish itself.

i spent one entire afternoon during work composing an email to person. i typed and typed and typed, reeling things off the top of my head.

Dear ___, my email started, (it really began like that, with no name. i didn't type in a name.)

Once again, you've been beleaguered by one of my lengthy emails.

blahblahblah, then,

I meant and mean everything I said. That I liked you very much, had strong feelings for you and a lot more things I think you've heard more often than you'd like to remember..

and towards the end,

I don't blame you for anything; if anything, I was probably at fault for being so silly about liking you, anyway. Silly, not because you are a silly choice to make, but silly because I was so hopelessly in like with you that I couldn't let go even when I should have, long ago.

and finally,

If I could tamper with our memories, I'd make it such that I never met you and you never met me, that we never knew each other. It'd be so much easier for myself, then. Perhaps not so much for you, since things are okay for you as you told me once. It saddened me, but I know now that not every event has the same significance in different people's lives.



i thought i should hit the trash button upon completion of my wonderful masterpiece. that's when i realised my mailbox is full of mail i wrote that i never sent out. letters that i never meant to send. never mean to send.

i'm too sentimental. writing letters that i don't intend to pass on, wasting my time writing letters to nobody. the keyword here is wasting my time. on more than just inane letter writing, trust me. i think i write letters to nobody to stave off my loneliness and isolation. i don't know if it's just a teenage phase, though i suspect my teenage years have already zipped by me somewhat - but i feel so un-understood. and it's gotten to the point where i already don't even want to bother to let people try to understand where i'm coming from. i don't know why people are so mean to me. okay i lie, i do know. but it's unfair, how people base their judgements on mere, baseless assumptions.



bruise your ego, why don't you. but that's all that's hurt, your ego. 1+1=2 became 1+3=4. lick your wounds, bare your claws. up yours, i say. up yours.

Bizarre Love Triangle.

Every time I think of you,

I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue.

It's no problem of mine, but it's a problem I find -

Living a life that I can't leave behind.

There's no sense in telling me,

The wisdom of a fool won't set you free.

But that's the way that it goes.

And it's what nobody knows,

While every day my confusion grows.

Every time I see you falling,

I get down on my knees and pray.

I'm waiting for that final moment,

You'll say the words that I can't say.

I feel fine, and I feel good.

I'm feeling like I never should.

Whenever I get this way, I just don't know what to say.

Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday?

I'm not sure what this could mean.

I don't think you're what you seem.

I do admit to myself

That if I hurt someone else,

Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be.

Every time I see you falling,

I get down on my knees and pray.

I'm waiting for that final moment,

You'll say the words that I can't say.

Bizarre Love Triangle

when i'm sixty-four.

When I get older, losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a Valentine?
Birthday greetings, a bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three,
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me?
- When I'm sixty-four.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating your point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say,
Yours sincerely, wasting away.
Give me an answer, fill in a form,
Mine for evermore.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me?
- When I'm sixty-four.

When I'm Sixty-Four
The Beatles



i came across the lyrics to this song while reading Love Life by Ray Kluun. it's a really good read - but damn sad. i'm up to the part where Carmen the wife discovers she has breast cancer, and Dan the husband tries to be a good husband but struggles to love his wife the way she needs him to. several times throughout the book, i started to tear cos it's such a human struggle. so real. to love someone properly, unconditionally. to not love the person for his or her youth and exuberence, but love the person for who he or she really is.

i think too many people in this world today are in love with youth. i think sometimes that i am, too. i want to be remembered as who i am right now when i die in 2058. as young, healthy, beautiful - alive and passionate. i don't want to be remembered as old and hunched and sick and weak and grey and toothless. when i die, i want to live on in people's minds the way i am now, not the semblence of me i will become when i age. it's too sad, how aging inevitably strips away life, sucks away life. why can't i die as i am today, without having to change into someone physically unrecognisable in 50 years time? in the end, i think it's all got to do with vanity. if the physical appearance is really just a shell, i should be able to relinquish my beauty and health, as long as the soul within remains whole. God gave me what i have physically, i suppose He can take it back and do what He wants to it in time.

it doesn't really make sense to me though. why would God want to sunder His beautiful creations? i'm not saying that all old people are hideous, but it is a fact that aging is not exactly a pretty process. diseases and sickness set in in old age, skin sags, teeth fall out, hair falls out. maybe there's a lesson here for me to learn, that sagging skin can be beautiful as well, that beauty is reallyreally subjective.

as Carmen and Dan in Love Life i'm reading now, i'm struggling myself, too, with what i can't exactly elaborate on here. i'm tired of being in a perpertual struggle, though, so i stop thinking of myself as 'struggling'. but at the end of the day, everyone struggles with something - and i have to quit lying to myself about my okay-ness.

everybody hurts. i'm not trying to overgeneralise and simplify everybody's pain into that all-encompassing statement. but it's a fact.

i'm on my way to choosing to live with the hurt, to not do anything about it anymore and resolve not to try to do anything. if it's not this thing that hurts, something or the other will eventually. so live with it. emotional pain never really leaves you, but it subsides and recedes into the recesses of your heart and mind. my heart and mind. unless provoked, it doesn't bother me. the only times when it gets to me and makes me want to do something is when i reach within myself to pull it out and talk about it, give form to it once again, breathe life to it once again. it becomes really difficult to chuck it back to where it all came from whenever i give life to my hurts, but i always eventually manage to.

i could let myself stay lost and inundated in my past. it's all-too-easy, and i know i'm perfectly capable of doing that. i see things that people cannot see, faraway in the horizon. i hear things that no one else hears in my own head. okay so i sound like i'm possessed. but isn't that what my past really is - a ghost that haunts me? my past, it floats silently and stealthily in the corridors of my mind and heart, and it bothers me when i face up to it.

many would say that this is a clear sign that all is not well in my life and i have to do something about it. but do i really? the last time i did, i just made things worse for myself. it still dogs me, that particular memory. the shittiness i felt was unmatched before that point. when i think about it, i can feel my heartbeat quickening, my eyes tearing up, my head hurting, my heart breaking - still. it's like falling all over again. who says that this time round, it's gonna be any different? i know it won't be.

i want to run run run, away from it all. but i'm realistic enough to know that running away won't solve anything. staying put might be the elusive answer.

running running, as fast as i can.

i had the most disconcerting dream last night, and i woke up very near tears. i wish i could control my dreams. stop myself from living a strange life in my head. i ran and ran and ran in my dream to rid myself of the grief inside me. and yet it didn't go away. and everywhere i ran, he was there. he didn't leave me alone, even though he was the cause of my misery. in my dream, the weird theatre in my head, i ran along an expressway for an entire afternoon to get away from it all. and i ended up in a church in Jurong. to my dismay, he was there, waiting for me. again i ran, this time to Aljunied. and when i thought it was safe again, stopping beneath one of those shop houses to rest, he appeared again and said he had been looking for me all day.

i woke up with the pain fresh and heavy in my heart, spilled over from the dream. i couldn't shake it off for a good long time as i lay in bed when i woke up. trying to forget everything i'd seen in my head.

perhaps it's cos i spent some time rifling through the pages of my diary last night and reliving some of those experiences as i read them. oh, it was so difficult. i could sense my exuberance, my hopefulness, my joy - and then all the pain, disappointment, frustration, confusion. all over again, the emotions came tumbling over me. everything i'd written about for the last 2 years, it was all the same, i realised. the dates between entries have become larger and larger as the months go on, but when i do write in my diary, i inevitably end up writing about the same thing still. maybe that's why i'm so averse to writing in it now. i don't want to write about these things anymore. everytime i write about it, i tell myself i'm purging myself of the emotions, putting them into a tangible form, putting them down on paper in words. but the release is only temporary, the purging never complete. will it ever be? i can't help but wonder now.

some things stay with you forever.

there're still so many things to be said, to be done. i don't feel like doing anything, i'm too comfortable with the rotten state of things. like wood that's been eaten up by termites and plastered over to hide the hollowed-out bits. i feel a lot like that now.

sometimes, i wonder what it'd be like without all the noise in my head. without all the questions, all the memories. it's so noisy sometimes, all the activity. sleep brings no respite now. it gets even noiser and more confusing in my dreams. it's like all my stifled heart's desire suddenly springs to life every night and takes on a life of its own in my dream universe, then when i get up, i realise it's still exactly that. but it takes me a moment to reorientate myself. sometimes, my worst fears find a life in my dreams and take an awful form, and i run away from them. but inevitably, i can't run and always have to face up to it.

i wish i'd manage to find some peace somewhere for once. find quiet for once. no noise in my head, just silence.




& you know what? i knew it - & i was right. though i wish i wasn't.

hello 2008

i've been trying to blog the past two consecutive days already, but to no avail. somehow, somewhere along the line, i acquired a severe case of writer's block where my own blog is concerned. heh.

i'd wanted to blog about my past year. about what i'd learnt, what happened, - so many things. and then, i got stuck at the third paragraph. both days, all i'd managed to type out was a paragraph of my year, then i couldn't go on. which is strange, right? i can type out paragraphs and paragraphs of my day, then when it comes to my year, i have nothing to say.

perhaps sometimes when too much has happened, you no longer have words for them. they're all just jumbled up into a mess of shapeless, formless visuals in your mind's eye. i'm no weary war veteran, not by any chance. i have much to be thankful for in my life yet, and i truly am, thankful for these. but grief, loss, hurt - these horrid emotions have a take no prisoners quality about them in the way that they strike indiscriminately. doesn't matter whether you're beautiful or hideous on the outside, rich or poor, everyone's been hurt before.

that doesn't make my hurt more real than anyone else's. but i guess only those who give form to their grief are able to hold their hurt up by the scruff of the neck and show to the world "look, this is the form my pain takes."

much has happened in the last 12 months to have made me who i am today. the Kelly of 2008 will be very different from the Kelly of 2007. a year makes a world of a difference, and i recognise it only now. i'd like to say i'm the sum total of happy experiences, and i'm only made up of the happy, sunshiney stuff. but upon reflection, i think that truly, those gawd-awful moments in my life were the ones that have made the deepest imprint in my life thus far. i rehash them over and over in my mind, learn whatever i can from them, and yet i don't let them go. i can't let the unpleasantness go, because it's so much a part of me now.

sometimes, i think i don't like the Kelly i see in the mirror these days. where's the optimistic innocent girl of 2005? she seems to have disappeared behind a carefully painted face, a whiff of perfume, bright clothes - all that seems so immaterial in spite of the heavy weight of their visibility. i'm a lot wiser these days, but that has robbed me of my genuine niceness. i'm a lot more demanding these days and hence am more comfortable as a result, but that has come at the price of my simplicity and concern for the wellbeing of people around me.

it seems more often now that a single event in my life has the ability to affect many other aspects of my life. life can't be compartmentalized as i wish it to be. no, the threads that make up me are inexorably knotted up with each other. cutting a knot out would sever another portion of the tapestry of my life. things aren't simple anymore. no wonder adults always say that things are simpler when you're a child. i used to scoff at that, putting it all down to adults' own conflated sense of self-importance. but now i'm beginning to see how there is truth in what they say yet. things WERE a lot simpler when i was a child, and they became exponentially increasingly complicated as a grew up. bah. would it be that i never had to grow up!

i'm also becoming increasingly certain of the possibility of forever. of always. for so many things. for happiness, for secrets. i wonder if i could die holding on to my secrets. or if it is as the Bible says, that everything in the dark will come to light one day. i'm not pushing that one, i don't really want to know, cos the day my secrets are unravelled will be the day life as i know it unravels rapidly. or maybe not.



some things will never be the same again. i know that for sure. so where i am now, just on the thereshold of 2008, there are things i need to decide on. so that at the end of 2008, i can look back and embrace the Kelly who lived in it for having lived as she knew best. i may not like who i've become through 2007, but i do accept me now because i know i've truly lived as best as i could and knew how then.


sometimes i feel like i'm a bird with broken wings. / at times i dread my now & envy where i've been. / but that's when quiet wisdom takes control, / at least i've got a story no one's told. / these days it feels naive to put your faith in hope. / to imitate a child, fall backwards on the snow. / cos that's when fears will usually lead you blind. / but now i try to under-analyse. / is the rope i walk wearing thin? / is the life i love caving in? / is the weight on your mind a heavy black bird caged inside? / i finally learnt to say: whatever will be will be. / i've learned to take the good, the bad, & breathe. / cos although we like to know what life's got planned / no one knows if shooting stars will land. whatever will be / vanessa hudgens.

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.

another bleeping sleepless night

aaahhhhh, i'm so tired! i couldn't sleep last night till 6am, and had to drag myself out of bed at 930 to try to finish an article before exam at 1! panicpanicpanic!! i was drifting in and out of sleep from the moment i got into bed at 330 to 6 this morning. and i was getting increasingly panicky cos i knew i couldn't wake up.

but here i am, awake. my head's so heavy though, it keeps threatening to drop like a ten-ton weight. I HATE INTERACTIVE MEDIA.


and Wendy Chun's article on cyberspace and orientalism is terrible terrible terrible. it looks interesting, and SOUNDS interesting, but it's a frightful nightmare to read. i only decided to try reading it one last time cos i'm damn scared it'll come out for the exam later. i lost the list of impt topics Daniela gave us during tutorial. can't find the bloody piece of paper anywhere. so i had to rely on my memory, which isn't very good right now i must sayyyyy.

and last night, there was a calico cat sitting outside my window. it scared the hell out of me, and i think i scared the hell out of it too.

BAH i think i shall have to cab down later. i need more time to read. this exam is panning out badly and it hasn't even begun.

i am terriby terribly STRESSED!!! exams have begun and are not gonna end till 5th of dec.

and i have an sph interview tomorrow!!! was intending to study for my interactive media paper tomorrow, but my study plans have been somewhat ruined. ARGHHHHHHHHHH. i'm dying! i'm frantic! i.. i.. i want to disappear into a puddle.

i'm stressed. this is the dunno-how-manyth time i'm saying it but i'm feeling extremely pressurized. to do well cos i've been putting in more effort this sem and i have no more reason to not do well. to do okay, cos i expect myself to do okay. to not fail cos.. aiyah let's not think about failing. and to make it through the interview tomorrow too. omg omg omg i'm hyperventilating.

& i'm so tired, but i need to study for interactive media tonight cos tomorrow's study time has effectively been cut into half already. RAH. help.


I AM STRESSED AND I WANT THESE NEXT TWO WEEKS TO FLY BY ME.

me against the music.

i shall blog in point form since my brain is frazzled from studying - even though the studying has been rather limited.

- my dad just set up the speakers in my room! now i can listen to my music properly, and not merely from the laptop sound output. :)
- i am wanting to study chinese again when i'm free. i have forgotten a large proportion of what i'd learnt during my secondary school days, and i'm appalled at myself.
- writing test at sph tomorrow at 2.30pm! i am planning to head to school before that to do some nm2101 survey in the lab for extra credit before going for the writing test.
i am this desperate to pull my grade up for that mod.
- lit department is finally offering a second major for lit! my dreams have come true! (omg, i sound like such a no-lifer.)
- SEP application is DONE! now, to settle module preference, and some outstanding SEP & 2nd major queries.
- Carol and i did not manage to go to Sheares for supper this week. mom kicked up a big fuss abt driving on a wet road. i am sad! she is sad too! we are craving naan badly.
- i will play wow on a new server when the exams are over. I AM MISSING MY COMPUTER GAMES.
- i want to read more books! my library hasn't been expanding for a long time.
- i want to clean my room after the exams. it is grossly dusty and cluttered up, AGAIN, and i'm mighty irritated by the mess everywhere.
- ditto for my cupboard. it's not that i have too much clothes - i personally still think i don't have enough. but it's bursting, yes, both my cupboards. i have no idea how and why, but i plan to investigate once i don't have to study.
- wikipedia is extremely addictive. i spend 2 hours on average each day on wikipedia wiki-ing the most inane things. i found out how and why each of King Henry VIII's wives got deposed of and that they were mostly named Anne (Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleaves) and Catherine (Catherine of Aragon, Katherine Howard, Catherine Parr). i found out that Jessica Alba is part French, Danish, and Mexican - hence her exotic looks. i found out that Ang is a rather common surname in Singapore. and a lot more, actually.

dear so-&-so:

dear so-&-so,

fact: what happened is still etched in my memory. unfortunately.
fact: you are a ghost in my mind.
fact: you were a bastard.
fact: you were not nice. contrary to what everyone believes & tells you.
fact: i was not okay.

fact: i am not okay.

fact: i wish i never met you, & you've never met me.
fact: i don't want to see you ever again.
fact: you are totally oblivious to anything. bully for you.
fact: we are good actors.
fact: it all seems well now. bullshit.
fact: you are part of the furniture in my mind.
fact: i am part of the landscape too, in yours.
fact: i don't exist to you.
fact: i do. i exist.
fact: i still dream of you. & wake up wishing i didn't.
fact: i still talk of you. & end up wishing i didn't.
fact: i don't talk to you anymore. i talk at you.
fact: & vice versa.
fact: you are no longer my friend. what friends?
fact: i don't think you care. & i shall not either.
fact: i am now half the person you met.
fact: i wish i were still the person you met.
fact: i loved you.
fact: i hate you.

yours truly,
by-&-by

module mapping blahs.

i hate the module mapping i have to do for SEP. the system is bloody ambiguous & it's so time consuming. why bother to map my modules before i even get the place? shouldn't i only have to map for the school i get into? rubbish. 3 more study plans to come up with. it's taking foreverrrr.

on a happier note, CAROL AND I ARE GOING FOR SHEARES SUPPER ON MON!! i've been craving the super cheesy chicken naan since i moved home. & exams always make me hungry at odd times cos my brain's working at odd times.

back to work, it is!

my eye is swollen.

i think i caught an eye infection, my right eye is swollen to the size of malaysia. even after i tried sleeping it off in the afternoon! it's still swollen. my eye bags have swelled up like male bullfrogs during mating season. i feel like a bloody frog. ouchh.

everything is okay?

waking up i see that everything is okay.
the 1st time in my life, & now it's so great.
slowing down i look around, & i'm so amazed.
i think about the little things that make life great -
i wouldn't change a thing about it,
this is the best feeling.

this innocence is brilliant,
i hope that it will stay.
this moment is perfect,
please don't go away;
i need you now.
& i'll hold on to it
; don't you let it pass you by.

i found a place so safe, not a single tear.
the 1st time in my life, & now it's so clear.
feel calm, i belong,
i'm so happy here.
it's so strong, & now i let myself be sincere.

it's a state of bliss, you think you're dreaming.
it's the happiness inside that you're feeling.
it's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry.

it's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry.
this innocence is brilliant,
makes you wanna cry.
this innocence is brilliant,
please don't go away.
cos i need you now;
& i'll hold on to it,
don't you let it pass you by.

innocence/avril lavigne


(& no, i did not have sex or anything like that, though it may read like something along those lines.)





all these things that're happening, i wonder if i'm dreaming, i wonder if they're real. it's almost too good to be true, my future seems almost too rosy to take in hook, line & sinker. it's like i was existing aimlessly with lots of dreams but no way of fulfilling them for the longest time ever, & all of a sudden, my aimless existence actually has an outlet of fulfillment. i'm almost afraid to believe all these, that they're actually real & about to happen to me. i don't want to wake up & realise that hey, it was all a dream. & go back to my floaty life. on one hand, it feels too surreal to be true, but on the other, well, it still feels too surreal to be true. there's so much of life to look forward to, it's scary. what if it was all a mistake, & it turns out that there is nothing to look forward to cos i'm not good enough? i'm scared to even think of the possibility of living the life i seem on the brink of living cos of the possibility that it might just be a lie. like last february, when i was on the brink of believing something & actually living in that belief, when it turned out to be a cruel mistake. it made me so scared to hope, so scared to believe in the rosiness of the horizon - it's made me the cynic i am sometimes. i wish i could go back to living in the optimism of those times, when i was less afraid to dream & less afraid to live out my dreams. now, i only believe what i'm knocked over the head with. the warmth of his hand in mine, the sound of his voice in my ear. i don't imagine about the warmth of his hand in mine, don't imagine the sound of his voice in my ear. i only believe that they're real when i feel it, when i hear it. similarly, i don't believe that i could be this close to living the kind of life i want, until i'm actually living in it, breathing in it, doing in it.

Business Times contacted me today about an internship with them during the nov/dec break. out of the blue. i'm to go down to sph for a writing test before flying off, & if i can't take this attachment up cos of insufficient time, i'll be able to take up a full 8-week internship with sph after next semester ends. providing i pass the writing test, that is. them contacting me about an internship is almost surreal, & i can't believe i'm this close to getting an internship without even trying this time when i tried so hard last June. it's so odd, & i can't explain it. my portfolio shoot on Tuesday went well, & i had tonnes of fun in front of the camera. & my last few weeks with Clem have been really good - lots of smiles & happiness, for the first time in dunno how long. SEP application is exciting me even though i haven't gotten any place anywhere yet - but the thought of going overseas for 6 months makes me weak with excitement. it's been my dream since secondary school to study in an overseas uni, i'd have gone if i had slightly more money.

everything seems to be going so right for me now, i can't help but feel there's something wrong somewhere. yes yes, shoot the pessimist, why don't you. but what if this were all unreal? stuff in my past have affected me terribly, even though no one thinks or sees so, cos they ought not to be any reason for that affectation. i've given up trying to even imprint on anyone how much impact all that have on my life even right now, because it seems trivial, silly, even, to most people. i've accepted that i can't change what people think or say, so i have to live with it & deal with it all. sometimes i feel all those things in my past slipping away silently, & i stand where i am & wave them goodbye. i know that i feel sometimes like by allowing them to leave me, i also feel like i'm betraying those memories & emotions that were so real & sharp to me then. but sometimes when i think i've put everything behind me, something in my subconscious wells up & reminds me of old ghosts & it just pisses me off that i'm not past it.

sometimes, i wish i could erase myself out of the lives of some people. i wish i've never met some people, & i wish they've never met me. so when i lay my eyes on certain people, it'll be like seeing a perfect stranger & vice versa. then sometimes, i become even more extreme & wish that i could erase my life off the face of this earth. not kill myself, cos that wouldn't erase the memories. but completely annihilate myself & any trace of myself, even the me that lives on in memories. i have dark days when thoughts like these crowd my brain & i feel so suffocated. but there are other days when these dark thoughts are a million miles away & i'm so glad to be alive.
for now, things are as they are & i don't want to touch certain things anymore. i'm not happy with the way they are, but i've accepted & i have no energy to want to do anything to make me happy about them. that doesn't mean i like it, but of course, you won't understand. to you, there's only stark black & white, & absolutely no shades of grey. so okay. fine. but don't make me conform to the black or white because it's too dark or too bright for me.

heh this has become a stream of consciousness rant, almost. but not quite. i'm still rather conscious of the sentences that form in my brain as i type them out.

erase me from the face of this earth. like an eraser, not like correction fluid. gone, not filled over.
i don't want to sleep cos i don't want to dream of things i don't want to have to face.

exam hibernation

we nus students are entering into exam season. slightly more than a week before the exams begin, 3 weeks till exams are over, 3 weeks till semester break comes!!

i spent 2 hours last night planning my study schedule for the next week. it's gonna be a long week! if i do manage to keep to my study schedule, i'll ace my exams man. haha. but rigorous as it is, it's also majorly insane, so.. well. heh.

ooh it's raining super heavily now. i'm trying to read secret agent again, but i'm getting so distracted. ha. and my SEP application needs to be done soon too! australia, US.. no europe, though. :( too expensive by far. the australian dollar has been rising, the US dollar has been falling, so whichever should be fine still.

i had a damn weird dream last night. i woke up mighty disturbed. oh well. i don't have as much control over my subconscious as i'd like.

time to change for school.

weekend escapades

it's a dreary Monday afternoon. the sky's grey, it's cloudy, it looks like it's gonna rain, & i just crawled out of bed not too long ago. these days, my body clock's totally topsy-turvy cos i've been staying up late to finish essays and whatnots. the latest essay to hit me is the project on the theories of new media. 5000word paper. thankfully, it's almost done. i'm just doing a final edit on it before uploading it tonight by 12.

i can't wait for tomorrow! then i can start planning my revision timetable and start studying. oh, and start on my SEP application too. it's due really soon.

i have a portfolio shoot tomorrow. how to lug all my outfits to school! sigh. but no complaints! i'm living the life i want nowadays. :)


& i had a fantabulous birthday this year! had several mini-celebrations with the people who matter. manymany dinners & outings. on Wed itself, i had Japanese food at the Waraku restaurant at cuppage road with the family, then went to the cathay to catch the Bee Movie. it was only a so-so show, but i had fun laughing over it with Carol. then met Tri on the 8th for dinner and to catch Stardust! it is really good. & romantic. i'd like to be a star, then i'd glow when i'm happy & you can tell how happy i am by my glow. dinner with Clem on Fri at 2amdessertsbar in holland v. the desserts there are gorgeous! i am SO going back there again to try more of them. & take more photos. i love the place. movie marathon after that - Anna & Anna first, then Lust, Caution thereafter. well, the first movie was so that i could sneak into Lust, Caution. heh. it's quite arty, but it's also a little heavy on the sex. i guess the sex scenes were to explain why Wong did what she did, but even then, the scenes didn't directly address that. it was more of a understand-by-implication kinda thing. dinner at Spageddies at Marina Square with some of the zj girls on Sat after session! had yummy pretty desserts at tcc after that & took many photos.

but the aftertaste of Sat wasn't that fantastic, i must say. got into an accident on the way home at Geylang cos Chelsa and i were lost on the road. i was on a turning-only lane but didn't realise and went straight, and the car next to me turned - so we collided. thankfully no one was hurt.. if i got Chels hurt in that accident i would have felt so guilty. after i heard that gut-wrenching metal-on-metal sound, i screamed for a good 10 seconds before gathering myself together and stopping at the side of the road, hoping the man would come back. i was panicking when i stopped, and i kept thinking of the damages i'd have to pay. all Chels and i could say for a while was "oh my God". yes i think we were traumatised. so when he came out and looked pissing mad, Chels was like okay, we're not gonna let him bully us & we'll argue if necessary. i got out of the car all gung-ho & ready to defend my case, when he pointed out that i was on a turning-only lane going straight, & therefore was in the wrong - & i had nothing left to say after a while. i mean, what can i say in defense to that? so we exchanged particulars, i started to cry, and managed to convince him not to settle the whole thing using insurance. had to head down to the mechanic in Sin Ming yesterday afternoon to get the damage appraised and settle costs. i forked out slightly less than half of the entire repair cost but i'm not complaining cos it was my fault after all. i mean, i'm complaining that i was idiotic enough to get into something like that, but i'm not complaining that my parents aren't paying the entire cost. in fact, i'd wanted to pay for the entire thing. but it's just not possible right now cos i don't have the means.

but something i learnt from the whole escapade: Hyundai cars are tough cookies! my car was only scratched! after wiping off the paint that came off his car, my car'll be almost as good as new! heh.

it's been a long weekend..! time for the sedentary life again this week. even more sedentary than usual, especially with the exams looming & me needing desperately to hole myself up to study.

done with it.

i'm done with the dratted essay! it's like 2500 words of torture. i hope my tutor has more fun reading it than i had when i wrote it. caused me insomnia last night okay! couldn't sleep till 8am this morning cos i was so awake after my writing session last night.

it's quite an icky essay, actually. i don't really have a good feeling abt it, cos it was so tough to write coherently! i'm just hoping a miracle will save me and get me a B+ on it.

and today was an extremely infuriating day in school. i cabbed down to school after my fitful sleep last night for a 1hour project meeting. tutorial at 3 got cancelled, and I DIDN'T KNOW. lecture at 4 got cancelled too, and I ALSO DIDN'T KNOW. like what the hell. haven't lecturers been using the announcements thingy on ivle?? what happened?? i didn't go for class on Tuesday last week, being sick with cramps. just that one lousy day, cost me my time today. and i need to email my interactive media tutor abt the peer review exercise which i missed.

and my essay woes aren't over yet. one more due next Tuesday. AT LEAST that one's somewhere near done cos it's a group project. i'm gonna do an edit soon, when i'm rested from the trauma of this last essay.

i can't wait for exams to come. i can't believe i'm actually wishing for something like that, but yeah. this term's too draggy.

online window shopping

i am currently multi-tasking.

doing that STUPID Lily Chou-Chou essay, and online window shopping! i must say that the proportion of time i do stupid, inane things on my computer always somehow shoots up whenever i have essays to write or tests to study for.

i spent a grand total of 2 hours online window shopping, and i've concluded that American shops are more worth shopping at than UK shops. cos of the exchange rate - the pound is horribly inflated, somehow.

http://charlotte-russe.com & http://papayaclothing.com - 2 of the labels Koko Maggie brought back from her last US trip. they have pretty things at cheap prices cos it's gonna be winter there and they're clearing out their summer collection! i'm so tempted to order and get one of the American cousins to hold on to my stash until she comes back to Singapore for a holiday or for Christmas.

http://aeropostale.com is good too!


ahh, i really want to get a credit card. but i think i'm lucky i don't cos if i did, i'd be spending TOO MUCH on clothes and online shopping.

people like me can only afford budget shopping. which requires lots of time, which i don't have right now.
i am determined to shop after the exams.

All About Lily Chou-Chou.

it is a horrific film to do an essay on, a 2500 word essay, no less. my creative and writing abilities have all but ebbed away from me for this particular essay, and it's extremely painful to write. it's moving along slowly and sluggishly. it's been long since i've had this much trouble with an essay! ahh. well. perhaps i'm not cut out for film studies.

i'm writing a word a minute, and it's excrutiating.

late, but not tired.

as the title above suggests and overtly proclaims - it is late but i'm not tired. second night in a row this is happening to me. both nights, i stayed up to type out my section for the new media project due on the 13th. at least tonight i can go to bed without worrying about what to write in the unfinished half of my section, unlike last night.

but i haven't even begun on my 2500 words All About Lily Chou-Chou essay for japanese film. it's due on Wednesday! and i haven't even re-watched the film. i think i shall do that tomorrow when i get up, then begin writing the rest of tomorrow and through Monday. Tuesday, i still have to go to school cos it's the last interactive media tutorial (i think), and i wanna go for it. Wednesday, i have to be in school by 12pm for make-up lit tutorial so i can't sleep too late on Tuesday night. which means i have to more-or-less finish my essay by Monday night and just leave editing to do on Tuesday night after i come back from school at night.

THEN, after the Wednesday deadline, i need to start work on the final draft of the new media theories project i've been doing the last 2 nights. i volunteered to do the final edit cos well, i'm a perfectionist and i want to make sure i have a final say this time round. the last mid-term paper, we only got a B, and i was pretty darn upset abt it. i want to secure an A this time round, so i will put in the effort and do an edit before we hand it up.

i think this post is resembling the rambling of a workaholic insomniac. i can't believe i'm detailing my essaying plans in such detail here. it's not called hell month for nothing. people have their hell-weeks, i have my hell month.

not quite as bad nor intense as a hell-week, but still trying nonetheless. it's more like a marathon than a sprint, which hell-weeks are.


sigh. and i can't start studying till the 13th of november. it leaves me with less than 15 days to study for my exams by then. hopefully i'll manage to get some studying done during the editing period. it'll be quite sad if i ace my essays but screw up all my final exams cos i didn't budget enough time to study for them.

and this is really odd, but my left hand is getting numb from all the typing. it's like, i suddenly lost all the feeling in my left fingers. heh. this is one sure sign that i've been spending too much time typing. my fingers hover over the keyboard in a fixed position for such a long time that blood circulation is affected. okay, so i'm a bona fide nerd now.

coffee, cookies & cheese :)

had tea at the tcc at ps with Clem today! was my first time at tcc, can you believe it. heh. i usually go to starbucks or coffee bean. BUT! i am a converted tcc-fan. the menu there is tonnes better than starbucks or coffee bean! more selection! a trifle pricey, though. but ooh good food! i wanna go back there to try everything on the menu again. had an iced honey latte (have you ever heard of that mixture!) and snapped some photos. :)

i'm going back there after the exams. to eat and drink everything on the menu haha.

origami trampled into the ground.

nothing to cry over, really.

okay so i shouldn't be such a baby over this, but i am sad. my dad's not free for my birthday dinner on the 7th anymore cos he has to work at night. after weeks of planning where to eat and all.. sigh. i was trying not to show my disappointment cos i mean, work is work, and it's not as if my dad has a choice abt it. so.. yeah. but i can't help feeling upset, nonetheless, even though my brain tells me it's absolutely illogical to.

i just came back from a run. 5km, and i'm damn slow. whatever lah, though. i'm not training for a marathon anyway. i was perfectly happy when i came back - until my dad told me abt the 7th and then got me to shut up cos commercial was ending and Ghost Whisperer was starting again on tv. and Carol isn't free over the weekend either, proclaiming "no, no cannot, i have exams to study for, remember??"

so i guess that means i'll find something to occupy myself with on the 7th then. i'm already meeting Clem on the 8th cos my parents wanted to have dinner on the birthday day itself. so it's kinda last minute to change my plans. and it's not very nice to expect him to be free anymore anyway.

i have an essay due then, anyway, so it isn't as if there was very much to look forward to in the first place anyway.

as you can see, i'm trying hard not to sound too disappointed or upset abt it. it's just a lousy birthday dinner, anyway. and it's not as if it's my 21st or some impt landmark. but i thought that maybe i could have a super good birthday dinner this year cos i won't be around to celebrate my 21st next year, since i'll be in Australia or something.

nothing to cry over. you're a big girl now, and it's just a birthday dinner. i shouldn't blame my dad for having to work on that day, and my sister for having exams either. yes. i shall shower and start on my essays. lots to do.