the banality of my existence.

the days are really slipping by me.. just like that. the more i try to stop time from passing so quickly, the faster they seem to fly, it seems. i try to fill my days with meaningful activities, to do stuff that actually matters. anything, to stop my time from spiralling down into utter insignificance. so much time, and yet i end up doing practically nothing at all. as i grow ever older, i become more and more resigned to some sad facts, that some dreams must be let go of. unfulfilled, or not. as much as i am convinced that i am more than just that, i am becoming increasingly aware that i am as much just that as everyone else might be. even more so, perhaps. not some kind of special - more like some kind of ordinary. i see the rest of my life stretched out before me, still wide wastes of unspent years, if nothing untoward happens to me before my old-lady time. but at the same time, that life i see is one that is petered out and almost bland. i know that it's up to me to live the kind of life that i want. but i'm feeling so dull and lacklustre these days, it almost seems fitting for me to live a similar kind of boring, dishwater-dull life that i abhor. it seems almost as if i feel as if it is perfectly my place to mire myself in that kind of banality, being the insanely boring witless person i feel i'm becoming. it's as if i deserve it, when in another time when there had been a lot more fight me, i would vehemently deny it of me. yes, that's right. i feel as if the fight has been sucked out of me. i sound so jaded, suddenly. so tired, so sick of it all. but i'm not - i'm not actually like that, i don't feel this way. i generally don't feel sick of life, and yet maybe a part of me feels as if i've had enough. i generally feel still some kind of special, not all kinds of banal, but an increasingly huge part of me is teteering towards the facelessness of sheeplike crowds. i feel an increasing need to read, indulging in a form of escapism my immense imagination allows as it takes flight and comes to life in a plane of its own. Lord of the Rings has been my latest read - a daunting volume at about a thousand pages that makes my arms ache if i hold it up for too long periods of time as i lie in bed reading. i am fully aware of the need to look in the not-too-distant future of graduation time, when i will have to decide what i want to work as. or more importantly, i will have to secure for myself tenureable employment that is some form of bearable to me. daily journalism is no longer something that i can see myself in. the local press does not appeal to me at all as i read more and more of the trash that is produced. in their defence, i also know that the press has to perform its role in society, journalists have to write to do so. i want to be a writer, but what can i do in this unimaginative society that i live in? what kind of book can i write here that will make writing a viable career? i need to think of something before i graduate, something has to work out in the grander scheme of things.

on a more banal note. cycling yesterday was great - but my legs are exhausted. i'd do it again, but maybe not too soon. heh. next on my list of things to do on a date would be the building of sandcastles on the beach! apparently, you can rent sandcastle building stuff from a shop for a reasonable rate for the whole day. that would finally let me see my castles in tangible sand and not just in the immaterialness of clouds. heh. - okay, so not funny. i am currently watching episodes of antm cycle 10 on youtube now as i throw out clothes from my wardrobe. i have so many pieces of clothing i have no idea what to do with - i don't want to give them away for good by giving them to the Salvation Army, but at the same time, i don't wear them quite as often enough for them to occupy hanging space in my already bursting cupboard. also, i am currently not doing any dinners/lunches with ANYONE because i am SO broke it is not funny. i have no idea where my money all evaporated to - it always turns out this way. sigh. and, i have to start packing for sydney soon. like get all my winter clothes from Trina. i wish i could borrow boots from her, too. but her feet are like 3 sizes smaller than mine. :(

so many things to do, all so insanely banal. woe is me.

the extraordinary of ordinary.

i can't help but think that beyond all this ordinariness, there must be something really extraordinary just waiting to happen, beyond the corner. here i am, mired in the most inane, ordinary life you could think of, restless out of my mind and yet not wanting to move from my comfy inertia. i cannot help but still dare to hope that there is still a lot more of my life just waiting to unfold. unfold, mind you - not for me to stumble upon.

pick a star on the dark horizon, & follow the light -
you'll come back when it's over.

receptionist-for-a-day!

sleep eluded me last night for almost three hours, leaving me extremely exasperated and grouchy. work doesn't become me - at all. i look like an absolute train wreck, and i feel like one. on the plus side, i actually enjoyed my 6km run last night. a rare occurence, i assure you, that the words "run" and "enjoyed" appear in the same sentence, especially with no negatives involved. i think i finally found out what it means to be on a "runner's high", cos i wasn't tired after a certain point in the run - and it was quite exhilirating. i need to start losing weight. the new weighing scale i bought from Ikea yesterday showed that i weigh an appalling 47kg - 3 up from a mere two months ago. which is strange, considering how i probably did zero amount of exercise prior to end-of-exams. maybe (and i'm sincerely hoping) the weight gain can be attributed to the amassing of muscle.

manning the reception is not as boring as i thought it'd be. but i think i'm doing an absolutely horrid job. i keep accidentally losing calls, pressing the wrong buttons on the switchboard when i try to transfer calls. making all sorts of wild guesses when people call and ask me if they can book rooms. signing for deliveries and not knowing what to do with them. i feel quite positively useless, actually. but - it's okay! cos it's a one-day stint only, thank goodness. or i'd create even more trouble.

i am feeling quite restless at the moment. i am hungry and itching to do some of my cross stitch all at once. wikipedia has been feeding my insatiable appetitie for trivia on the most inane things, as usual. i only wish i could plug in my earphones somewhere and watch antm on youtube. i haven't had enough bum-around-time at home to do that.

Narnia is my newest craze, by the way. i love the cinematography of the two movies that have come out, i love the music scores, I LOVE THE FANTASTICAL NATURE OF IT ALL. i want to be a queen of Narnia! i want to wear those pretty medieval-looking dresses that Susan and Lucy wears in the movies. i want to not be ordinary anymore.

one life.

so many thoughts swirling around in my head - which one to catch hold of first, which one to release on the pretext of now but perhaps maybe for good? i'm no longer fool enough to presume that everything i think of in a moment will stick around with me past that instant - life's too fleeting and transient for everything to not be merely momentary, for anything to be anything less than ephemeral. whatever i manage to pen down here, it's but a snapshot of my mind-scape at any one point in time, nothing more. sad, but true. i wish i could put into words everything i think about in a day, all the feelings that come to me and make me feel so alive and yet so aware of the time slipping through my fingers each day i'm alive. when you think about it: every day i'm alive, i have one less day to live. it goes away for good, i can't do anything to call back the moments that have passed me by.

i have felt anger, rage, so many things in recent times. wells of emotions that i thought have left me, all have sprung up to reveal their ugly faces to my aghast. jealousy, insecurity, cattiness - all these are the familiar unbecoming feelings that have been a part of me for the longest time ever, and i've more or less figured out how to deal with these when they vie for my attention so that they can be given tangible form in this all-too-tangible world. i take a deep breath, convince myself of the sheer lack of comforting logic of the annoying emotion, and turn my back on it before it comes out in frightening form. but the anger that has lashed out at my loved ones lately is something quite alien to me - which isn't to say that such wrath is beyond me, but simply has been placed under control prior to this. then there's such a thing called disgust, outrage, and a strange kind of disbelief at a type of weirdness that is just beyond me.

displacement seems to be the new feeling of the day. displacement in all its forms. and when you think about it, displacement is just the kind of feeling that one never quite gets used to, because it is the very stuff of constant change and discomfort.

my life which seems so fulfilled and filled with meaning on its shiny glossy surface is increasingly seeming to me to be empty, aimless, and sadly lacking in any form of meaning whatsoever. i don't know why i'm doing what i'm doing anymore, increasingly. when my results for the semester came out a couple of days ago, i was initially beset by all these feelings of being upset, disappointed, and then the determination to do better washed over me. to get my second upper, to push myself to do the best i can. then, when all these feelings left me, i was left wondering why i'm working so hard to get a certain set of results, a certain goal i have placed on a pedestal in my own head - a suddenly conflated sense of false importance has washed over everything i once held so dear and high in regard. even the shopping i wanted to do with my newly earned money, i don't see the point in it anymore. i don't see the point in dressing up prettily when i go out, putting on my makeup to look presentable, learning more to make myself a more valuable piece of real estate when the time comes for me to find a job for good - all these have suddenly diminished in their glitzy glamour and have dulled into the reccesses of my mind. i no longer know what i want with my life, i no longer know that i want to have a high-flying career, i no longer know anything save i want to live comfortably for the rest of my days just seeped with love.

perhaps it's from realising how insignificant it all is in the grander scale of things that's making me so disillusioned and disinterested in everything. all my hopes, my dreams, my fears - they're nothing more than a speck in the universe, which makes me nothing more than a full-stop or a comma in the sentences that make up life. when everything's going smoothly and i'm achieving all i want, it all seems to make perfect sense. everything seems to be steeped in grand meaning, seems to bear the promise of dreams to be fulfilled. but then, when something in that little pathetic insignificant ambition fails to click into place, falls slightly out of step with the tune that everything else marches to, nothing makes sense anymore. ambition seems pathetic, almost romanticised. the promise of the future seems to unravel into its sparse threads and evaporate into thin air, leaving nothing behind but a mere whisper of how tiny and transient it all is.

songs seem empty, happy tunes grate on my nerves. the only things i want to surround myself with is fresh air, and melancholy. the books i read are all about the past, about fantastical universes i want to be a part of but know for sure that they are but whimsical figments of someone's imagination. i want it all to mean something, i want my life to mean something. and somehow, it feels as though the harder i try to make it mean something, the closer i feel i'm drawing to the fearful abyss of nothing. seeing it all played out on screen would make me feel so much better, that it is actually some kind of grand, some kind of significant. but i know that i'm just one of the millions in the world, closer to some sort of faceless and voiceless than anything else. perhaps it is that which grates on me so much, knowing how pathetic my sense of self-importance is, carrying on that delusion that i finally mean something to someone - when truth is, i could disappear from the face of the earth in a heartbeat and noone would realise, no clouds will weep for me, no eclipse of the sun will mark that moment in time. nothing. everything that i have toiled for would just cease to exist. the room that i've lived in my whole life would just stay as it is, all my things collecting dust and the wood crumbling - and eventually, all my things would be packed away into boxes. and i'd laugh at the irony at it all, at how my life has been sorted into maybe seven different boxes and kept away, just like that. and all the unimportant things, they'd just be thrown away - just as i'd be thrown away when i'm dead because my body is no longer important in this cruel existence that stops for nothing, no man, no death.

sometimes i feel as if one life isn't enough for me to live. it's too short, i'm too limited and bounded by time and space. there're all these other existences i'd like to live in, and yet i can't because i'm only alive but once. and the moment i stop to breathe, it's over, my journey as a life ceases. i'd like to have lived in a king's court in 16th century Europe - something i read about now and ooh and aah over, but in truth, really existed 500 years ago. i'd like to have lived as a peasant girl, having to worry only about my marriage options and maybe my chickens and whether my cows have been milked. i'd like to live in the modern day West, that which i can only look at through a simulacrum, nothing more - because i'm Asian, and i belong in Asia because of my skin colour, my facial structure, my hair colour, eye colour, height etcetra. so many lives i'd have liked to lived, but i'll only ever know my life on earth as it is now. of course, there're all these questions that follow such a fatalistic outlook of things, but what else can i do but accept it all as it is?

i want grand romance, i want epic adventure, i want mystery. what i have, i don't seem to want very much. but i daresay when i lose all that i have, i will realise that i want these too, but i will only want them when they are no longer mine to call my own.

it started out as a feeling,

which then grew into a hope.

which then turned into a quiet thought,

which then turned into a quiet word.

& then that word grew louder and louder,

'til it was a battle cry.

i'll come back when you call me,

no need to say goodbye.

just because everything's changing,

doesn't mean it's never been this way before.

all you can do is try to know who your friends are,

as you head off to the war.

pick a star on the dark horizon,

& follow the light.

you'll come back when it's over,

no need to say goodbye.

now we're back to the beginning,

it's just a feeling and now one knows yet.

but just because they can't feel it too

- doesn't mean that you have to forget.

let your memories grow stronger and stronger,

'til they're before your eyes.

you'll come back when it's over -

no need to say goodbye.

The Call

Regina Spektor

from the Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian OST

yay!

so now that i have stopped working, i have been catching up on sleep. alright, boring, i know. but it's only been two days since i stopped working on Monday, so excuse me for catching a rest. my social life has been a bit blah for a long time, everyone's so far away. partly my fault too, cos i mean to catch up with so many people but my need for sleep keeps me away from the computer and the phone, and glues me to my bed. today's the first night i'm actually planning to spend some time on the computer, the first time in like, almost a week. thinking of watching some episodes of house online, then maybe playing some wow or sims.

okay. inane post again. sorry. i am so thoroughly uninspired these days, i dunno why. oh, but i'm reading this book - The Other Boleyn Girl - now, and i don't know why but for some reason, Anne Boleyn really scares me with her sheer ambition. the movie isn't as good as the book, really. most movie adaptations aren't, even when taken solely as movies in their own right and not looked upon as a Movie-Adaptation.

i want to play games on my ps2 again, but i'm too lazy to walk downstairs to play anything. and. the GSS is on now, and everything's on sale. BUT. the crowds just gross me out and piss me off. ugh. dilemma. and even more pressingly: no money. i always never have enough money, always want more things. it's starting to become a little ridiculous.

oh-so-tired.

i am very very tired. it just hit me today how exhausted i am. my batteries are running on low cos of all the working hours i put in. and the hours i keep. and all the stuff i do. i need to sleep more, eat more, rest more, play more. i am giving myself one more week to keep up this pace of living. one more week, no more. cos i cannot survive more than that without doing permanent damage to my brains and my well-being.

not enough sleep for the last week, not gonna have enough sleep in the upcoming week, too. howhowhow. sigh. i need to find reserve energy from somewhere to do everything i need to do.

unwritten.

i am starting work for a week tomorrow. considering i am going to be paid $7.50 an hour for the next week for just sitting down and filing, i ought to be grateful for my money-making opportunity. but the thought of doing such mind-numbing, brainless, inane work at the ungodly hour of 9am every day for the next five days is making me more winded than i'd care for. but i need to earn some money, i need to save some money. ergo, i need to work. unfortunately. now we all know that if the above conditions didn't hold true, i wouldn't even think of working this holidays. i'd spend the entire three months in languid sleeping, playing, spending, eating, living. that's just the kind of person i am, partly. then, there's the other part of me - the go-getter part, that wants a career, wants to do things cos that's what life is about, wants to make full use of every single minute i'm alive. it's too late when i'm dead, anyway. too late to do anything. then, it struck me: who says living the easy life isn't living per se? i don't have to pack my schedule from 7am to 10pm every single day to have a full life, do i? on the contrary, i reckon doing that would be counter-productive to my quest in living each day to its fullest. i can breathe in the essence of what life has to offer simply by doing the things i love to do (ie. lazing around, reading, minimal activity), cos that's what life means to me.

okay so even though i dread having to wake up at 7am tomorrow morning and the next five days, i'm gonna make the best of this and try to go to work slightly smiley. and try not to be grouchy while i'm at it.

and. i miss hearing EIC play. i was just listening to Jason Mraz's I'm Yours - a song EIC plays really often - and i felt a twinge of nostalgia somewhere in my heart for when i was less complicated and could head down to Walawala on a Friday night to chill out to the music.

i am unwritten,

can't read my mind,

i'm undefined.

i'm just beginning,

the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned.

staring at the blank page before you

open up the dirty window,

let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find.

reaching for something in the distance

so close you can almost taste it

release your inhibitions.

feel the rain on your skin,

no one else can feel it for you.

only you can let it in.

no one else can speak the words on your lips,

drench yourself in words unspoken.

live your life with arms wide open

today is where your book begins,

the rest is still unwritten.

i break tradition,

sometimes my tries, are outside the lines

we've been conditioned to not make mistakes,

but i can't live that way.

Unwritten

Natasha Bedingfield

i've missed bumming around and vegetating, i've missed sleeping in and not having to worry about anything. all the above represented by my comfy home. ergo, i miss home. i've spent the last two days doing absolutely nothing other than watch some tv, read my books, throw out junk from my room, and sleep. <3

i need to rearrange my room this break so that i have more space when school begins again in august. more space to accumulate more junk, i forgot to add. the amount of rubbish i manage to collect in a few months.. it's pretty scary.

and. i need a job. my allowance has been severely cut this holidays (self-suggested, believe it or not), and yet i'm having trouble securing that sum of money, still, cos it is believed that giving me money to spend on entertainment during the holidays is an absolute waste of it. hence, i need a job. i might call up the Ralph Lauren contact Chels gave me last night, but i'd better do it soon before the laziness just seeps all the way in and leaves me incapitated and direly rooted to my bed.

i am sleeping 10 hours a day these days, by the way. it's making me feel a lot better, my stressples are clearing up (a stressple is a stress-induced pimple. i made it up, so you'd be forgiven for not knowing), my dark eye circles are disappearing, my puffy eyes are becoming unpuffy again. i'm even beginning to exercise a little to tone up the flab. yay for me.

okay i seem to have no interest in blogging anymore tonight. my bed calls. goodnight.

HOUSE!

i am addicted to House and i have almost watched the entire first season in all of 4 days. i think this could be due to me secretly desperately wanting to see House actually tell Cameron that he has feelings for her after she confesses to him about how she feels for him. not so secret anymore, i suppose, but doesn't change why i'm so addicted to the show. if i went down the psychoanalysis road, i'd say this desire to see House tell Cameron about his feelings has got everything to do with my own past experiences. but of course, i will not go down that slippery path today. i am too eager to finish up the last three episodes of season one. actually, i already kinda know what's gonna happen and who's gonna say what - but i still want to watch it.

i think these exams are getting to me, actually. let's see if i still retain my addiction to House after my last papers on Monday.


and for some strange inexplicable reason or the other, i think Hugh Laurie is hot. must be something wrong with me if i think grouchiness and misery is sexy. maybe it's as simple as this, that every girl just wants to love a damaged, imperfect man.

not interested, go away.

i had a lot of fun today after my exams. Korean bbq, two movies back-to-back, a nap. i enjoyed myself thoroughly, was really happy.


i am now in a tremendously bad mood, though. and i just felt like venting. but upon sitting here in front of my keyboard, i find myself at a loss for words, and i'm stuck with parroting over and over again that i am upset. and miserable. and slightly confused, even though i know very clearly what i intend to do.

i am just not interested. completely unintersted in anything that has got to do with this.
i want to have nothing to do with ---, i know nothing about --- and i'm perfectly happy this way. i apologise for making life difficult, but i don't apologise for feeling this way. sounds familiar? i bet it does. maybe it's cos i think she's everything i'm not, maybe it's cos of so many other things. who cares? bottom line is: not interested.

while it may seem like it's cos she's got everything i have to live without, i think it's not that - at all. i'm glad i'm not living with it now, cos i'm living with something much better now. you're beautiful and i know i'm lucky. i don't regret my choice. not second choice - my choice. i think it's more cos i cannot see what i lack, i cannot understand what's wrong with me, i cannot see why i'm completely unloveable. surely i cannot be that flawed? i wish i didn't feel this way about myself now, cos you're right, it seems like i'm belittling what we have. i'm trying to change the way i see myself, but it increasingly seems that i'm so broken that it's taking a long time to put back the pieces i'm trying to fit back into one whole. at the same time, i'm trying not to put myself at the centre of the universe, trying not to allow myself to get swallowed up by my self-pity and other useless, wasteful emotions.

and i'm getting very frustrated cos i'm cycling through my itunes and it seems like there isn't a song to put what i feel into words. i need catharsis so badly, i need to get it all out, but i'm having so much trouble expressing myself. just look at the badly written paragraph above, i'm writing disjointedly and it's just not flowing. and when i try to explain it to you, it comes out as pure emotion - as just tears - and nothing i say can explain what i feel. which makes me seem and feel totally irrational. which i hate.



whatever it is, i just do not want to have anything to do with this. it may seem irrational, i don't care. but leave me out of all of this, it is irrelevant to my emotional universe now, and i am disinterested in any of this. for good reason - i'm feeling so distraught now, it makes sense to just stick to my emotional range of a teaspoon and not be bothered by irrelevant, senseless things. i have too many things to do, i have too much to live for. so please, stay far far FAR away. i don't want to say hello, i am not interested in making small talk, i just want you to keep away from me. yes, many "you"s in this post, please don't get confused.

goodbye.

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.

wtf.

frankly, i am appalled at how inefficient the sep office can be and am just praying their inefficiency and ineptitude has not cost me a place - again. having opened my nus email this morning doing my routine clearing of junk mail, i received something from the sep office telling me to submit a letter stating whether or not i intend to pursure honours and blah. i was like, oh okay good, finally - some news from them. then i scrolled down and saw the date the letter is due: 15 March. that was 15 days ago, hello. and i get mailed today? it's almost ludicrous how this is all panning out.

argh!

okay i should sound less stressed in my posts aye. lest i am thought of as perpetually worried over something or the other. i guess this is the result of me only blogging when i'm frustrated over work - the rest of the time when i'm happy, i don't feel the urge to blog and i'm too busy enjoying myself. heh.

i must confess though that i am mildly stressed out now as i type this in. i have so many essays to do and projects to edit that i'm not even scared anymore. it's just kinda overwhelming, the kind of overwhelming that leaves me speechless and just fills me with pure emotion and adrenaline. allow me to indulge myself with just this one paragraph of work-related rambling, and i promise i'll stop before the end of this paragraph. after staying up till 4am this morning to complete my podcast assignment so that i could hand it in today since i had the car, i am about to embark on another project-editing session that could last anywhere between 1 and 4 hours. on top of that, my film essay is constantly lurking at the back of my mind and i'm unable to do anything without thinking about essay plans or project flows. this is taking into consideration the fact that my school-obsessed brain is preoccupied 50% of the time with how badly i've fared in the psycho lit midterm test and the other 50% of the time with how stupid i've been for missing those tutorials here and there out of laziness brought about by a little bout of illness, and hence worrying about my attendance grade. and i have not forgotten the film presentation on tuesday of next week, the same day as the deadline for my film essay, - the former of which ranks very poorly on my importance list but nonetheless remains on it by sheer virtue of its existence. and my ridge articles. are. well. i am swamped. i shall not even mention sep here cos it seems i am unable to stop moaning about my hate-hate relationship with the sep office. so i have finished this work-related rant, and as i've promised, even before the paragraph has ended.

so what did i do today. i battled the weekend jam on the expressway on my way to school. er, school on a sunday? don't get me started. but i did borrow a couple of books i need and handed in a piece of work.

i also had tuition, where i came back from not long ago.

and i think it's gonna be the time of the month cos i can feel my stupid cramps acting up and i'm dreading this month's onslaught cos i have so much to do and i can't afford to be knocked out for a day.

i love 50 cent books from the co-op, they make my day. which is actually quite sad if you think about it, cos if buying books from school are the highlight of my day, it just brings us all to the very sad implication that i have no life other than school.

oh my gosh you have no idea how badly i need the upcoming break. 7 more weeks to that happy day, 7 weeks that seem to drag so painfully by. as the school term draws to a close, my feet seem heavier and heavier and ever more difficult to drag to school. on one hand, i feel that my cutting classes is absolutely justified by my shitload of work to clear, but on the other, i am terrified of penalising myself on the attendance grade. yes, such a coward i know.

in spite of all these, i find myself increasingly drawn to my games as if they were the most enthralling things on earth - and i know it's only so appealing cos i am not supposed to be finding relief from all the stress in my games. entertaining oneself seems almost to be a sin in my world, where time is so precious and productivity is a must for every single bloody minute of my waking day. i find myself sacrificing more and more hours of sleep each day to get more and more work done. and oh shite i promised not to talk about how stressed i am but my fingers and brain seem to have a life of their own and well, this is what i find my fingers churning out off the top of my head.

i've also decided that i don't like kids, especially bratty noisy ones. whoever said Singapore is facing a population problem should see what i saw today everywhere i went. i swear, it seems that we have more than enough kids to fill up an entire shopping centre. if i ever have kids, which seems to be an increasingly remote possibility now that i have decidedly established that i don't like kids, and they turn out to be of the irritating noisy bratty variety, i will not tolerate their nonsense and i foresee i will be an irritable mother. that kids don't like.

argh my back hurts.

stressed

i refuse to read Henry James' The Turn of the Screw now when noone's home. apparently it's a ghost story and after reading the synopsis on wikipedia, i think it's too scary for me to read when noone's at home to keep me company. i have manymany things to do, all suddenly due soon within the next 3 to 4 weeks. so dejavu-ish, eh. i remember this time last sem i was similarly stressed and well, stressed.

i'm penning down all my deadlines and whatnots now into my organizer and i can feel my blood pressure rising. sigh. and to top it off, i think i did pretty badly for my psycho lit midterm assignment. i need to ace my final paper which is gonna make up 45% of my grade. i think i need to talk to my prof about my not-very-fantastic midterm and find out where i went wrong.

all the projects are killing me. i'm completely clueless about my stats project but i'm desperately trying to keep my group tight - thankfully i have someone else in my group who's quite good at that too. media writing is nuts, i have had 3 assignments throughout the term already, and then there's this wretched project due on week 13, too. i just hope i managed a B+ for my film midterm then i won't be so pressurised to score an A+ or something for my final assignment, whose deadline happens to fall on the same day as my film presentation.

and i've given up hope on my sep application for this round already. still no news, and it's been almost 3 weeks. they seem to hate me over there at the sep office. i wonder what i need to do to get my place. maybe my cap is just too shitty but at the same time i'm inclined to think otherwise cos i know a gazillion people who're going with similar or lower caps.

heh maybe i should take their advice then and try to brush up my cap before trying again.

my stomach has been feeling weird the last two days or so and i think it's partially due to my incessant eating and suppering. i should stop all this excessive eating cos i'm not exercising at all and therefore am at high risk of piling on the fat permanently.

and my hair. it's driving me crazy. i just cut it last week but already it seems too long. since WHEN did my hair grow at the rate of wild grass? it's always been slow, so i don't know when my hair began to shake off its sluggish growth.

all these have contributed to my antsy and touchy self lately - and i apologise if i've stepped on your toes while in this kind of batty mood. i've been downright unpleasant and unreasonable at times too, and i think these reasons, though perfectly valid, don't validate my actions at all. i'm turning into a cow. i can't believe i still have another 2 and a half to 3 years left in school. more sems like that and i'll die prematurely.

like a rose, trampled on the ground.

Easter Vigil mass today was fabulous. i felt so happy during the mass even though it was supremely long with 10 readings. i felt like there was much to be happy and grateful for, even though i mayn't be happy all the time.

i came back, came online, checked my email, and my mood just detriorated. my article got sent back with some frustrating comments that i dunno what to make of, and i am going to rewrite that article. though i suspect by the time i actually get something out that satisfies everyone it'll be useless. and i'll be doubly frustrated. but we'll see. i'm going to try to sleep on it tonight and see what hatches in my brain and write tomorrow.

maybe i'm not cut out for news writing with all its censorship and properness. i've been struggling more than i'm comfortable with.

no news of my sep application, and it seems that i've been rejected - again. i can't fathom why, and i'm frustrated cos if i really do get rejected, that'll be twice already.

i've been frustrated with so many things lately. but i guess this newly-past Lent has reminded me that my frustrations and grievances are crosses to carry, albeit a million trillion times less heavy than Jesus's cross. it puts things into perspective when i think about my petty upsets in this light - although this enlightened state doesn't occur to me quite as often as i'd like it to.

crucified,

laid behind a stone.

You lived to die,

rejected and alone.

like a rose, trampled on the ground.

You took the fall.

and thought of me

above all.

nothing to do with you.

i've decided that i want to have absolutely nothing to do with her.
not because i'm mean and crabby and a downright horrible person, but because i want to stay sane, as i have for the last 8 months.

the final goodbye

the future that always seemed so bright and promising doesn't seem so cheery anymore. it bodes heartache, and i don't know how to thwart it. with the whole world out there, my oyster to explore, i should feel heady with anticipation thinking about all there is to do and see. but when paths diverge so clearly and take me away from you who wants to stay here, how am i supposed to feel joy at picking at what the world has to offer? i want to compromise my dreams for you, only because you mean so much to me and i don't know if i would want to fulfull those faraway dreams if it meant living without you - but at the same time i don't want to compromise those same dratted dreams cos i know i'd regret not even trying to pursue them in life and giving them up, just like that. how do you stop an oncoming train that's going to hit you and break you up to bits? i can run and run, away from that train, but eventually it's gonna catch up with me, like the relentless passage time is. i can't escape from the passing of time. being in this world with its weird laws, i'm subject to it and can't escape. it makes me feel somewhat like a marionette stuck on my strings, able to move and take a life of my own, but still always bound up with that string that keeps me in place. seeing an oncoming train and knowing it's gonna hit you sooner rather than later doesn't make the knowledge of the pain any easier to swallow. why did i have to fall in love with you? -you, with all these aspirations that keep you rooted here so inextricably. i know, i shouldn't fear the future, but 3 years doesn't seem like that short a time anymore from where i am, and the future is starting to take on a reality that i cannot pretend away anymore. fact of the matter is: i don't want to stay here. i want to see the wide world, as cliched as that sounds. perhaps like heros in those old classics, i'll realise that home is still the best place only when i'm far away from home - but i want to live that for myself. what i write about is most true when i feel it, so i must feel if i want to write. and i know that if i want to have lived as i should, i have to write. it's the only tangible talent God has given me, and you tend to treasure what little you have. i'm not like those multihyphenates, with oodles and oodles of talent at singing, playing the guitar, acting, dancing etc. all i perceive i have is just that - and i don't know if it's out of vanity or pride that drives me to want to make full use of it. so maybe i'm full of hot air, maybe i'll never do all the things i want to do, maybe i'm giving myself grief for nothing.

knowing that the goodbye is so final breaks my heart and i cannot help but cry, because i don't know what to do to make it any different. i don't want that to come, that final goodbye. and yet i wonder if it's a matter of time before it catches up on me and ravages me, us, both.

i am student, hear me roar!

i am finally a happy bunny because my en3214 presentation is OVER! i can finally put Lacan aside (who's worse than Freud by the way.) and start on my backlog of readings. whoopdeedoo! but it's something to look forward to i guess. heh. yay yay yay. i am student hear me roar.

Big Girls Don't Cry

it isn't like me to busy myself just to occupy my time. i don't believe in making myself do lots of things to forget and to not think - although it's so tempting sometimes to do exactly that. just scurry around and do everything i can possibly do in 24 hours so that by the time my head hits the pillow, i'll be too tired to think about anything.

the transpiration of certain events have left a more unpleasant taste in my mouth than i'd imagined. you know, you think that things that exist outside your reality shouldn't have any power over you anymore. because well, they're no longer real. you think that the transpiration of certain events shouldn't affect you the way they do. but they do, anyway, whatever you think. whatever i think.

i've caught myself staring into space thinking about nothing in particular, and yet everything at the same time, lately. i've caught myself teteering on the precipice of misery and jealousy, only managing to catch myself on time before i let those gnawing thoughts swallow me whole.

i wish things were simpler, cliched as that may sound. okay, so things seem simple. but not to me, they aren't. it shouldn't matter, it shouldn't bug me, and yet it does, and because it does, it bugs me even more. and yet, i'm fine, really, but at the same time, i'm not. a trifle confusing, perhaps.

maybe i'm selfish. because i can't, therefore. i can be happy, but. maybe i just have to let go. i tell myself i've let go, a large part of my heart has let go, so maybe it's time my heart completely severed itself for good, and just let everything fall into the abyss, broken and shattered. for that to happen, i'd have to take drastic measures. and i think i'm beginning to feel brave enough to take the first steps towards that, painful as it may be. i'm a big girl now, & i feel somewhat ready to move, & live.

the smell of your skin lingers on me, now.

you're probably on your flight back to your home town.

i need some shelter for my own protection,

to be with myself, & centre -

clarity, peace, serenity.

i hope you know, i hope you know

that this has nothing to do with you.

it's personal, myself & i -

we got some straightening out to do.

& i'm gonna miss you, like a child that misses her blanket,

but i've got to get a move on with my life.

it's time to be a big girl now,

& big girls don't cry.

the path i'm walking,

i must go alone.

i must take the baby steps until i'm full grown.

fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?

& i foresee the dark ahead if i stay.

like the little schoolmates in the schoolyard,

we'll play jacks & Uno cards.

i'll be your best friend,

& you'll be my valentine.

yes, you can hold my hand if you want to

cos i want to hold yours, too.

we'll be playmates & lovers,

& share our secret worlds.

but it's time for me to go home.

it's getting late, dark outside.

i need to be with myself, & centre -

clarity, peace, serenity.

i hope you know, i hope you know
that this has nothing to do with you.
it's personal, myself & i -
we got some straightening out to do.
& i'm gonna miss you, like a child that misses her blanket,
but i've got to get a move on with my life.
it's time to be a big girl now,
& big girls don't cry.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Fergie

i was looking through my saved messages in my phone just now when i came across this old folder i've brought everywhere with me - through phone changes and all. i'd forgotten all abt that folder and the messages in it, but the moment i saw it, i knew exactly what was in there. i knew what messages i'd saved, whose messages i'd saved, why i'd saved them.

i tried to delete the folder. my thumb hovered over the delete option and i felt i was frozen in time as the words of the messages ran through my head and i could see them so clearly even though it's been so long. i wanted to just delete it, erase the remnants of physical evidence from then. but i couldn't. as much as i want to reformat my own head, erase the words exchanged and block out the sound of your voice, i can't bring myself to forget so completely. as it is, i've banished all of you to non-existence in my own reality. but there's still some ghost of you that i can't exorcise, that i seem to not want to exorcise.

it's too painful sometimes to realise that you're the only one who can bear witness to the reality of something. once you forget, the something becomes unreal. loses its reality. and becomes... nothing. even though i hate all that happened, i don't want it all to become nothing, to cease to have existed in the spectrum of time as i know it.

maybe i'm selfish. i want my reality now to stay reality, and i want my reality then to remain a reality then, even as i want to banish you to non-existence - sometimes out of sheer spite, sometimes to prove to myself that i'm really over it, sometimes just to cope and not lose it in my own universe of past, present & future.

so hit the delete button. erase the folder. erase the messages that don't mean anything anymore. empty words. erase the emails i still type to no one for hours on end, directing them to you but not meaning in the least to tell anything to you.

i dreamt of you again one afternoon. you made me cry. & i thought i had no more tears for you. in my waking hours, i know i don't. i know what i feel and what you don't mean to me. but in the fuzzy twilight thereshold that ushers me from my waking awareness to the consciousness of my sleep, everything goes haywire again and all the tears and memories you don't hold the key to in my waking life anymore, they're yours once more.

I HATE BEING FEMALE AND HAVING OVARIES.

haunting.

there's something about this kitten's eyes that suggest a soul older than the kitten really is, lurking somewhere inside her. there's something unspeakably sad about this image, & somehow, it speaks to me, reaches out to me. & on a day like today, an image like this just makes me ache for the homeless, the lonely, the hurting. on days like these, i feel bad for not giving a scrap of food to the strays that sidle up to me, i feel bad when the parents chase them out of my garden with the broom, i feel bad for not giving them a home. it's times like these that i feel like such a rotten specimen of a human being.


times like these, i wonder what more i can do & am aghast at what little i've done.

late-nighter.

another lateeeee night. trying to skim through Lacan's seminar on the purloined letter now so i can contribute in tomorrow's meeting. studied with Tri again today, after coming back from a day in town doing my hair & going to the supreme court.

school work has been a complete bitch lately, & i dunno how i'm gonna do everything i need to do before this week is up. one thing at a time. the essays, then the catching up.

i've been so pmsy lately, & i'm glad you haven't lost your patience with me yet. the smallest thing sets me off, & it must be difficult to be with me when i'm in moods like these. you said as long as you know - & i do.

i feel as though i'm in a bubble world, where it's just that few people who matter & that few things that i occupy myself with. & yet, i don't have the energy to do anything else.

things at home haven't been all that quiet & peaceful. well, sometimes, there's the peace. but then, sometimes, there's the screaming & shouting & disagreeing. i do admit that the thought of leaving home has crossed my mind more than once in the midst of all the exchange of heated words. i think about where i could go, when i could go - then stop cos mad as i am, i never quite find it within me to just up & go. perhaps it's out of fear that my actions would hurt my parents, perhaps it's out of the fear that i wouldn't survive myself & would have to eventually come back with my tail snug between my legs. call me a coward, yeah, but i can't and won't just end my misery by leaving home. even at the age of 21.


i miss you. more than you know.

a rant

come, let me tell you why i am in such an effing bad mood right now.

people all worry too much abt what other people think abt them. i can't do this cos "other people will get pissed". i can't take my time cos "other people will get annoyed". i can't buy my own clothes with my own money cos "people will have a bad impression of us".

will a little bit of explanation hurt at all? open your damn mouths and explain, and if the other people who are so great that you bend to their whims and preferences are really that great, they will possess enough brains to understand. if not, they're not worth tailoring your behaviour to, in the first place.

eff la i hate it when people tell me i can't say, think abt my move when i play mahjong cos people don't like it. if they don't like it, then they aren't really my friends to begin with and so i won't play with them anymore so who cares if they like it anyway, right? it's a bad habit to think abt your next move when you play. is it your money that you're gonna lose? so you can think fast, so you can conceive of your moves and plays damn quickly. yippy for you. but don't tell me that i'm practising a bad habit just cos i'm a bit slower. don't discriminate, it's not very becoming.

i hate it when people tell me which mass i have to attend. it's ME that's attending the mass, so why should you get so worked up? i hate it when i'm answerable to people for what i buy still - at the age of 21. i'm earning my keep, i'm not spending your money. so please, get off my back.

i hate leaders who act like they're too busy to help out with "unimportant" things like setting up a place for something. hello, what happened to leading by example?? if you ask for volunteers for something that you deem as saikang, you jolly well volunteer once in a while too so that it's not sheer authoritarianism at work. after all, you're not too fantastic to do what the rest of us do right.

& i have many other biting things to say about abovementioned, but i'm holding my tongue cos it's particularly acerbic today. i hate high-&-mighty pricks, i hate people who subjugate themselves to certain norms and force me to comply with these same norms too - i have absolutely no issue if you want to live your life by other people's rules, but don't tell me i should live life in such-and-such a way too, just cos you chose to live yours that way.

Teardrops On My Guitar

Drew looks at me,

i fake a smile so he won't see

that i want, & i'm needing everything that we should be.

i'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about,

& she's got everything that i have to live without.

Drew talks to me,

i laugh cause it's so damn funny,

that i can't even see anyone when he's with me.

he says he's so in love, he's finally got it right.

i wonder if he knows he's all i think about at night.

he's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,

the only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.

he's the song in the car i keep singing,

don't know why I do.

Drew walks by me, can he tell that i can't breathe?

& there he goes, so perfectly,

the kind of flawless i wish i could be.

she'd better hold him tight, give him all her love.

look in those beautiful eyes and know she's lucky, cos.

he's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,

the only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.

he's the song in the car i keep singing,

don't know why i do.

so i drive home alone, as i turn out the light,

i'll put his picture down,

& maybe get some sleep tonight.

cos he's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,

the only one who's got enough of me to break my heart.

he's the song in the car i keep singing,

don't know why i do.

he's the time taken up, but there's never enough,

& he's all that i need to fall into..

Drew looks at me,

i fake a smile so he won't see.

Teardrops On My Guitar

Taylor Swift

this song really struck a chord with me, the first time i'd heard it. perhaps it brought back all-too-raw memories of not-too-long-ago, perhaps it was seeing what i felt out in words for the whole world to hear. there's something about seeing something so intimate put into words and a tune that a few million people listen to, perhaps even identify with. it puts things into perspective, doesn't it. that my experience of pain & hurt isn't so unique, isn't so solely mine - by virtue of its being felt by so many people, people i don't know of. & yet, no one experience is ever the same; some nuance here and there exists to differentiate my experience from Sally's or Jane's.

unrequited love hurts. it hurts like crap. i wouldn't know if it's the same as that of a break-up, i've never been through one. but i can tell you that it just eats right into you and makes you feel lousy about yourself. well, i felt lousy about myself. i look back at the me of exactly one year ago and wish i could reach out a hand and touchl that me. i'd tell me that everything was gonna be all right - & the me of last year wouldn't believe a single word. i'd tell me that she was gonna be happy in a year's time, that all the nonsense would be left behind.

i still have those days when i imagine things and get terrorized by the very same pictures from my fancy. it makes me sick to my stomach and i wonder at what's wrong with me. then i bury myself in my pillows and blanket and burrow into my bed, shutting thoughts out with sleep. but dreams, they scare me sometimes too, and i wake up unrested and wanting to burst into furious tears of frustration.

perhaps you can understand then, why i would rather not do anything. why i would rather spend lazy Saturday afternoons at home in the refuge of my own room instead of having to take in a deep breath and face my demons in the world outside.

the song in the car i keep singing.

i need sleep!

i have just finished reading Lady Audley's Secret for en3241 and it is a strange strange book. it had a chilling effect on me, somehow. even though it has a happy ending and all. i think it was the incongruency between Lady Audley's physical appearance and her actions. which is supposed to render her a very deep and complex character. but i was just freaked out.

lit reading aside, i've been busying myself with other readings and sleep. sleep. oh, where do i begin! i've been trying to make do with far too few hours of sleep lately but it's making me extremely lethargic and irritable and unable to think properly. even as i sit here typing this, i'm fully aware of the necessity to stop asap and finish up my advertising reading for the night so i can sleep asap and wake up by 930am tomorrow morning. bah.

second round of SEP application mysteriously hasn't opened yet. i'm getting impatient and slightly alarmed at the lack of any word about when round 2 is gonna begin.

and strange, unsettling dreams have come to haunt me once more and pervade my flights of fancy when i least expect an intrusion of the rudest kind. pray, do take leave and do not keep jostling in my brain for my attention. i do not want to pay heed to this, and i will not.

SLEEP.

bad luck and i hate school

do i believe in bad luck? as a Catholic, i'm not supposed to. cos there're no such things as coincidences, luck, etcetc. but as several incidences in the mrt the last few days have demonstrated, i'm leaning more towards the "hmm i may just be unlucky" side now. for three days in a row, no one gets up from the seats in the carriage i'm in. which leaves me standing the entire journey from yio chu kang to dhoby ghaut. i look up and down my carriage, and i see rows of people evacuating from their seats every stop. but mine? nooo. no one seems to be going anywhere except anywhere after dhoby. i've changed carriages day after day to see if it just-so-happens that that particular carriage is always occupied by such people. but no. it's the same story in every single carriage i enter. even coming home from school just now. i stood the entire journey.

the first week back in school since the cny break hasn't been good so far. i've fallen down the steps of a number 10 bus on tuesday, and woken up one-and-a-half-hours late today. all of two days only and it's been shite. i hate school. AND, i just found out that for some shitty reason, i have to go to school for tutorial during e-learning week. what the hell. it's e-learning week for crying out loud. but no, i have to be in the IT lab to do my tutorial. what the frick for, i'd like to know.

as you can tell, i am not in a particularly lovely mood at the moment. i have two shitloads of things to read and imbibe into my brain, and things are just piling up cos i only have 24 hours a day and not enough time to do it all without going crazy. as it is, i don't even get to sleep my 8 hours a day anymore. i'm lucky if i get 7 hours of shut-eye.

Freud is proving to be the bane of all things good and nice and kind that make up my existence. he talks too damn much, has an opinion about just about everything, and uses words that belong in a locked up volume made up of archaic, ancient, musty, stuffy vocab. he says things that can be said in 10 words in 50 words, leaving me to decipher what on earth he's trying to drive at - minus all the fancy jargon. after my psychoanalysis classes, i always feel so completely brain dead. listening to Dr Roy and the presenters boggles my mind and i need to process at top speed for the three hours i'm sitting in that room. i don't even have the capacity to ask any questions cos i'm usually still processing whatever's been said and understanding it. which makes me feel stupid cos it feels like i don't have an opinion about anything.

and the film mod i'm taking is proving to be a huge disappointment. i signed up for a lit class, not a media or soci class. so far, all we've been talking about in tutorials are censorship issues, cable programming, and broadcast systems. hello, whatever happened to "reading film and cultural texts"??? i've only been watching films and reading readings, but other than that it's been all media-like and totally nothing to do with lit. i feel so cheated la. i feel like withdrawing. from more than one module. sigh. this sem seems so blah, suddenly. i will so definitely not come even close to repeating my 4.4 from last sem. i shall aim for B+s this sem. i feel so.. argh.

- kelly's day in point form.

- i am sick. again. ran a fever over the weekend, thought i was well yesterday, am running a sore-throat now, think i am not well yet.
- watched an episode of South Park (Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride) & an episode of Sex & the City (A Girl's Right to Shoes) for film today. i am a fan of Sex & the City now.
- was in a supremely bad mood the entire day. i don't usually believe in waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but i'm beginning to think i did this morning. was just on time for the bus and was all ready to hop on when i realised i left my phone on my table. was deciding whether or not to dash up to get it, & finally decided to, but well, missed the bus. boohoo. then. as i was walking out to catch 70 to Serangoon, i discovered that i was missing my gigantic black wallet. was about to turn around to get it when i remembered that i'd left it in dad's car cos i took the car on Saturday but forgot to take my wallet out. cussed & swore then remembered it's supposed to be Ash "Wednesday" & am supposed to be abstaining, then cussed & swore some more before feeling bad about cussing & swearing. & did a little mini cuss at that realization before i clamped my mouth & stopped myself.
- discovered an extremely stubborn blackhead on my nose. am going to try to squeeze it out after chinese new year - i wouldn't want to look like i got bopped in the nose during visiting & have concerned aunties ask me if i am an abuse-victim.
- discovered that i have a permanent resident spider in my toilet. it's been there for 4 bleeping days, & it still hasn't gotten bored of my sink, toilet rolls, & toilet bowl. if i were garfield, i'd have smacked it flat with newspaper long ago.
- i am very certain that i hate Freud, especially my most recent set of readings on transference, & repeating & remembering. it's all a bunch of psychoanalytic theory & what patients will do when you do blah. i understand zip.
- i am not looking forward to chinese new year visiting. at all.
- i am looking forward to week 6 cos it's new media e-learning week. hooray for school-less thursday & possibly friday!
- i am looking forward to weeks 9 & 10 cos my film lecturer won't be in town. no tutorials either, since with no lecture, there's nothing to talk about. hooray for school-less tuesdays! sort of la, i am still considering hecking media writing lectures on those weeks.
- i should be beginning on my film assignment soon. it is due on week 7. i need an A.
- my old wow server is back! say hello to my level 30 human character and level 23 night elf character after 290384903 months. okay, i exaggerate. but i'm rather lost now, i must admit, as i have been playing my level 17 blood elf on a new server all this while, & i'm not used to such high levels of equipment & blah after so long.
- i am very thirsty even though i've drunk goodness knows how many cups of water already. i am going to lose my voice by cny & no one will want to give me my red packets cos i can't greet them.
- i have been peeing a lot. okay. maybe that was too much info.
- i should be reading my last set of readings for tomorrow's psych lit seminar - some of Poe's stories. which should be a lot more digestable than Freud, at any rate.
- i will wake up by 8am tomorrow morning so that i will not miss the stupid 10am bus again.
- i will stop babbling. now.

tired.

i am supposed to be going to Walas again tonight, but i suddenly don't feel like it. i'm so exhausted, i'm just ready to fall flat on my back and sleep away all my exhaustion. at the same time, i recognise that i'm tired from somewhere deep inside me, not just physically tired, and i know that no amount of sleep that i can put in will put that right.

perhaps it's all the drama of my exchange disappointments, perhaps it's looking at my workload this sem and being scared out of my wits cos i'm already struggling - & it's only week 3. perhaps it's from the effort of having to drag myself promptly out of bed at 10 every morning to make it to school at the humane time of 12pm. perhaps it's from all the feeling and thinking of the last few weeks, worrying over the most inane things and crying over the most rhetorical perhapses. perhaps it's the feeling of being cut off from the whole world, the feeling that no one would give a damn if i died tonight and cease to exist in their lives tomorrow morning - except the boyfriend. it's a lonely way to live, and i don't know how i got to this state. perhaps that's what's making me so thoroughly wiped out.

i don't feel like leaving the house today for anything. not for tutorial i have at 6, not for the lecture i have at 7, not for Walas where i'm supposed to go after class. it's tiring having to mingle and be happy with people who aren't even that interested in talking to you in the first place, i think. i smile, i laugh, i drink, but in the end, it doesn't wipe away the feelings of loneliness and exhaustion. it's like by doing all these, i'm treating the symptoms, not the root.

okay so i dunno what's gotten into me again, being so depressed and all. i'll be okay, though. periods like that in my life come & go, i've come to accept that. i'll eventually get out of this miserable self-pitying period where doom & gloom are on the menu for the day, and contentment is out of stock.