a series of unfortunate events

being various kinds of sick and unwell the last two days have given me a new perspective on things. i haven't been this lonely, sickly, and miserable since i came back from Canada, and perhaps i was beginning to take all i had for granted again. lost in all my illusions of grandeur and superficial dreams, i found myself swept along the tides of illusory splendour, caught up in a pathetic day-to-day existence. there is perhaps much to be said about the person who spends her time wishing she could have more money, wishing she were cleverer, wishing she were someplace else. it paints a very unsettling picture of me, and i don't like it. i am lost in a huge maybe, never exactly embracing who i am, where i am. i whine over opportunities that have flown me by, moan over my inadequacies - and then it strikes me, maybe i'm missing the point of this all, entirely. i should not be weeping over what i lack, that's just not how God made me. i should be looking at what i have, and doing things with these. Fr. Luke's homily over Assumption weekend made me realise that enacting a positive change in my life doesn't require me to suddenly sprout supermodel long gams or be anything other than what God has made me to be. everything i need to be happy is already in my possession. everything else that i lack, is inconsequential. maybe i need to redefine "happiness", maybe i need to get off that Fake Grandeur wave that i've been happily carried upon and start swimming back to shore so i can feel the solid outline of Reality once more under my feet.

i really outdid myself today in terms of misery. totally caught offguard by the insidious onset of a particularly nasty gastric flu bug, i was in unexpected pain (which i thought could be cured by either a) various kinds of medicine, or b) various kinds of food), which led to unexpected misery. after throwing up every and any thing i ate, from harmless digestive biscuits to supposedly digestive-friendly bananas, i was beginning to believe that i was on death's doorstep. all the medication i had taken in the hopes of eradicating my pain was promptly thrown up too (i actually identified them in the toilet bowl). i refused to believe that i had a case of gastric flu, so i refused to sit on the toilet bowl on the off-chance that i found out that i was having diarrhoea. anyway, i was too busy trying not to throw up my entire stomach through my mouth, so i couldn't quite concentrate on anything other than throwing up. turns out that once i'd proven that theory right, the pain miraculously started to ebb a bit. that didn't take away my misery though, and i spent a whole hour frantically trying to call the people who i thought would care if i died in my bed or not. the only person who actually picked up the phone was Trina (Dad doesn't count cos i couldn't bawl to him while he was at work, and i don't think he knows what to do with weeping overaged daughters, anyway), and i proceeded to pour out my misery in great bouts of hiccups and much swallowing of tears. this all just made me realise that perhaps i was taking her for granted a bit, which made me bawl even more cos i felt so bad and so relieved that she still bothered enough about me to not want me to die from misery and pain by my lonesome.

i am a very bad girl, i know. :/

so the long and short of it all is that. i am feeling much better now. and i have rediscovered who and what are important to me. and i am perhaps still not that grown up yet.

i am disappointed with myself. this is, perhaps, affirmation that i am simply not good enough, simply too overreaching. this is probably bordering on the dramatic, but i cannot help but feel that i have somehow let myself down again. i have to believe in that, because the alternative is simply that i am just not good enough, and i cannot believe that. believing that would rob me of every shred of self-belief i possess, and i cannot allow myself to fall apart like that.

the world no longer feels like my oyster.

got my special sem results today. i know it seems like a weird habit, posting about my results every semester. it's like i have some obsessive compulsive disorder. but it's become a habit after so many consecutive semesters of doing the same thing. duh, that's what a habit is. anyway. i am disappointed. a B+ is far from satisfying. :( but i am trying to remind myself that i completely deserve it because 1) i stupidly signed up for FOC - which was two days before my exam. and 2) i was too bloody lazy to participate in any way. and oh 3) i didn't read 4/5 of my readings.

so yes trying hard to be grateful here.

trying, trying.

missing piece

i wonder how long this will all hold out for, this delicate balance that sees me perched precariously on the edge of the precipice. the threads that hold me together are tight with the tension, and i fear that just that wee bit more tension will break everything i've been working so hard to pull together. there is no fat cat in my garden today to distract me, no woodpecker hovering around the tree. it's just me and my thoughts, wishing the tepid breeze would chill itself into something slightly more wintry. shadows still dance on the pink garden wall, though - slipping into each other and changing the fundamental shape of its being. the sun blazes a strange amber today, casting an orange light onto the grass blades. the air is thick with it - can't you just taste it? it's tingling on my tongue, in my nostrils, and i'm awash in it. nothing, nothing you do can take this away from me, my mind is my sanctuary and my haven. even if the world should stop revolving, spinning slowly down to die, i'd spend the end with you, & still choose this over anything else. rainbow-swirled paddlepops and crushed kiwi smoothies make my heart soar, even as i wish that the paddlepop never melts and the smoothie never finishes. but as i said before, the paddlepop must melt, the smoothie must reach the bottom of the cup.

so the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit perfectly together, save that one missing piece at its heart that spoils the undeniably perfect fit.

white horses

like the golden leaves of fall giving way to snow sheets of winter; like the rain that has to fall from the sky when black clouds rendevouz; like the passage of time forcing me to become one year older each year - so, the chick must become a chicken, the sweet apples go rotten, the inevitable come. hummingbirds hover around the hibiscus flower, butterflies flit from bloom to bloom, the iridiscent throat of the kingfisher reflecting the sapphire of the water surface. i am surrounded by beauty, and yet i see the infernal inescapable maggots that eventually reaches everything. somehow, somewhere, death has touched me and its grip has changed me, its effects irreversible. death of a loved one, death of a love. many ways to die.

and while i sit here staring out at my garden, watching the boughs of the bingbing tree sway in the sticky breeze, watching the fat white cat with black patches slide sinuously through the gaps in the fence padding its way softly across the wild grass, i am lost in my thoughts, lost at sea. now the cat meows, and i am shaken out of my reverie of pastel shades and angry gashes. i am caught in an infinite second in my mind, it stretches on forever even as the songs on my itunes in the background keep shuffling along their playlist marking the passing of seconds, minutes.

i contemplate what it means, and am unable to come to any agreeable conclusion. everything my mind reaches at, i reject. how disagreeable. i am restless and yet lethargic, i yearn to do something that would poke holes through the safe cellophane that envelopes me - and yet i am held back by the comfort of amniotic fluid, safe and safer. i do know that even as winter comes, spring will come again, the grass will emerge from the frozen ground again. i do know that the rain will eventually stop, the sun will shine again. but what those wise philosophers never point out is that not every spring is the same. every winter is slightly different. every winter leaves different indelible marks on the land it passes through.

not wanting to sound overt today, i shall leave out the mandatory sad song i like to end my posts with. but i do know that i'm not a princess, this ain't a fairytale, i'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet. i do know i was a dreamer before you come and let me down. and i do know that it's too late for you and your stupid white horse to come around.

because i'm now a princess, this is my fairytale. i'm still a dreamer, after you never let me down. and it's never too late for you and your white horse to come around. i've found somebody who actually treats me well. and i do know that this is a big world, not a small town, not hollywood.

it's not too late, catch me now.

my exam is tomorrow.

and i am interested in doing nothing but completely retarded facebook quizzes.

ANYTHING, but studying.

gotta get some healthy motivation here, girl!

there's a song that's inside of my soul, and it ain't sunshine.

sitting in my room during CSS FOC doesn't sound like it's exactly the most social thing to do. i am, however, trying to study for my exam this saturday and hence have to suppress my kaypoh nature just for this next week. i hardly slept a wink last night, tossing and turning til 5 in the morning. it was dreadfully fitful sleep, as i dozed off, woke up, and dozed off again repeatedly til the sun came up. i am going to try to catch a bit of shut eye before i try to study in the afternoon - i am so optimistic, i am the sunshine of my own life.

there's a song that's inside of my soul

it's the one that i've tried to write over and over again.

i'm awake in the infinite cold

yet you sing to me over and over and over again

so i lay my head back down

and i lift my hands and pray

to be only yours i pray

to be only yours, i know now

you're my only hope.

facebook is a time waster.

@%^%&^@#^&@^ 

i have just facebooked 15min of my precious life away in a semi-zombie state - i am very very tired but am forcing myself to finish my reading for tutorial tomorrow.

operation presentation is failing miserably by the way. i have too many things on my mind to focus on turning out a good presentation. by monday. 

best idea i ever had, taking this special sem module when my heart isn't really in it. 

my heart's in my warm bed. i always can't wait to go to bed and i hate getting up in the mornings. 

she's in fashion

after a nearly 2 month hiatus, i'm back! i didn't see a point in posting anything when i didn't feel like it. to be perfectly honest, i am still bordering on uninspired. these days have been filled with afternoon classes (2pm-4pm should be declared official nap time) that have seen me struggling to read enough to keep up. the 4th week of special semester is about to be over and i am entirely unprepared for anything - exams are in 2 weeks (!!!!)

my lack of inspiration is carrying over to my presentation, which beckons to be done by monday. every idea that runs through my head seems closer and closer to retarded, and i must admit i'm getting a little worried. perhaps my brains have truly atrophied from lack of usage and my total brain capacity has shrunk. 

that aside, i am extremely tempted to go shopping. i have not shopped since coming back from Guelph (for good reason, my mother might add), but i am starting to feel restless at my unchanging wardrobe. this has got to be the longest period where i have not bought ANYTHING at all. save for one party dress - i have not bought anything since coming home. my roving eye has seen many pretty things but my paltry allowance has stopped me from procuring any of my objects of desire. i want gladiator heels, lots and lots of them. i want new black skinnies, and black shorts too. i want a new hairstyle, but it's taking forever to grow out. arghhhh. i am having one of those dissatisfied days at the mo, i'm sure it'll all pass eventually.

okay i will perservere in my research for the presentation before picking Carol up for supper.

think fashion!

i've been back in singapore for almost a week and a half already but it seems like i've never really left. canada is receding further and further into the back of my mind already, and i'm trying to remember what it was like there for me when i am now surrounded by the all-too-stifling reality that is the heat of singapore. it seems like all i can remember from my 3 months in guelph was the cold. i miss the weather so much. i know, it seems like such a trivial thing to miss about a country, but it's not just weather. being here now has made me realise that the weather has more influence in our lives than i thought it had. i'm constantly sluggish here in singapore because it's just too hot to do anything, my brain shuts down in the tepid heat. 

i am going to sleep now. i am slightly incoherent.

now we're back to the beginning.

having had a really lovely Easter with my uncle and aunt in oakville, tonight i find myself really sad that i'm leaving canada so soon. i feel like i'm the most confusing person ever cos i was complaining so much in the beginning and now, i'm complaining too - about not wanting to go. but i do not want to sleep tonight cos that would mean that monday's coming, and with the arrival of monda - , tuesday, and then i'm gone from here. (CLEMENT CHUA, DON'T TRY TO CONFUSE ME BY ASKING ME PATHETICALLY WHETHER I PREFER STAYING HERE OVER COMING BACK TO SEE YOU - THIS IS NOT ABOUT THAT AT ALL! haha)

i feel so SAD, i find myself unable to articulate exactly what i feel. going back to reality is never as fun as you thought it'd be. i'm really gonna miss all that i had here, i wish i could have it all. but we always have to choose, we can never have everything we want. if we could, the whole subject of economics can just be shut down now because it's utterly redundant - economics is built on the premise of unlimited wants desiring very limited resources, and opportunity cost.

i'm going home to be an adult.

i feel like i'm going back to a beginning of a circle, somehow. 

FOCUS

I AM HAVING A MASSIVE CASE OF WRITER'S BLOCK NOW.

my essay is just not cooperating with me. i am majorly upset.

i have to get at least SOME of it done tonight, so i can start studying for my classical myth exam on sunday. i am so stressed. sigh. and my packing is going horrendously. aaaaaaahh!!

okay focus focus focus!!

i feel like disabling my facebook for the next two days. it's such a time waster.

it's just the beginning

three exams in three days and an essay right in the middle of it all is driving me absolutely crazy. i am a nervous wreck, and my room is an absolute war zone with scribbled notes and printed lecture slides strewn everywhere. my books are all over the place, like my wits. i am a ball of tension at the moment, and my mind is so tired from having to be so active all the time. i have no time to feel anything at all, which is such a waste actually, cos i'm leaving so soon. i guess this is exactly what i deserve for months of utter abandon where my work is concerned.

and i am leaving in less than a week's time. but that is far away in my mind still, because i have an exam at 830am tomorrow morning, another exam on thursday, and i have managed to beg my lecturer for an extension for my essay - which i happily have to finish by sunday. and, my final paper on monday. i've only barely begun, and my mind is so frazzled already. i fear for my essay. i won't have much time to rally myself on thursday and churn out 12 pages by sunday. that, and the fact that i'm supposed to visit my aunt and uncle the same weekend too. joy! i will be exhausted when i reach Singapore.


i am going back to my Elizabethan lit notes. i am not even attempting to sleep yet because i know that my mind will be too active to rest now, so i will try to memorize quotes from my notes for my essays tomorrow.

this is the first time i have been around people who are so utterly self-absorbed, so feckless in their actions, so self-centred and unconcerned for anyone else around them. i am mightily annoyed. my housemate seems to think it's perfectly nice and wonderful to have study parties all throughout the weekend. it would be absolutely fine if they actually studied in relative silence. it is not fine at all if all they do is talk at levels far surpassing 33 decibels. i know, cos i had to stick ear plugs into my ears this morning and i could hear every single annoying syllable through my 33-decibel ear plugs. for some reason, the north american accent carries much farther. it is so annoying. i am so annoyed. i hate rude people who think the world revolves around themselves. if i can hear you through my ear plugs and music, i do think you are being too fricking loud. heck, i shouldn't even have to wear ear plugs in my own home.

pooh. times like this, i can't wait to go home.

i am listening to final fantasy music now as i attempt to study. 

i miss playing.

so we are all entitled to a little bit of privacy, i wonder if it entitles us all to Lying every once in a while for that bit of life to remain entirely our own. but you know, perhaps that's the folly of my thought, in even thinking that there's any part of my life that belongs entirely to Myself. i feel myself being pulled from twenty different directions simultaneously, every exertion meeting an equal resisting force, supposedly. if i could split myself up into two, maybe three, and each Me could work on something on the 10-foot long to-do list i have pinned up in my too-claustrophobic head - it'd be perfect. 

one more week to go, and i wish the week weren't so filled with too important and at the same time, too unimportant final exams and essays. i love spring time so much, it's the time of year when i feel like the world's my oyster. there's a tingling sense of anticipation in my very fingertips, i feel like something's gonna happen all the time. the air i breathe feels like enchanted air, it's both heavy and light with hope. 

so i start a revolution from my bed 
'cause you said the Brains i had went to my head 
step outside, the summertime's in bloom 
stand up beside the fireplace 
take that look from off your face 
you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out. 

poker face.

the last few days have seen me go to all my classes with surprising determination to see this through with dignity. it might have everything to do with my deplorable 0.5/20 for a recent quiz - or it might have everything to do with the realization that this will all be over in exactly two weeks. whatever it is, i am trying hard to grasp on to every single minute i spend awake, trying to make this time count for something. and it's not difficult, considering how much i have to do. just thinking about it all makes me feel like i'm not getting enough air. 

spring is really and truly here, with spring showers and green grass everywhere. i'm sad that i won't get to see my entire front lawn turn green before i go though, cos i think it'll take at least one more month for all the newly awake shoots to poke their way out from the earth after a winter's sleep. i find it highly highly ironic that i'm wishing i could stop time for just a bit more, because i don't want to go home yet. i find it amusing that i would do anything to slow time down now when just two months ago, i was wishing i could fastforward my life to this point in time. 

going home would mean returning to all things beloved. but that would mean the end of this, and the beginning of one more month in Singapore. at this point in time, being twenty-one and wishing i were sixteen again, wishing i could re-do so many years of my life from my vantage point now - i wonder if i've seen myself in twenty years' time and ruefully wishing i had done things differently when i was twenty-one. and i am convinced that that would be me at forty-one, because i know there'll always be something i regret because of one choice or the other i've made. there's the ideal, and there's the real, and i'm starting to think that never the twain shall meet. 

oh and i stubbed my toe on the door last night, causing the corner of my big toe nail to split from the rest of the nail, and a strange flap of skin to separate itself from my toe. it bled, and it hurt, and oh yes, i'm human and i'm still alive. the only thing i am annoyed about is that my nail is ruined, my ability to wear covered-up shoes is ruined because of the patch of bloody skin, and it hurts. 

cos i'm bluffin' with my muffin,

you can't read my poker face.

i am faced with two more weeks of Guelph, 10 weeks' worth of reading, a wedding powerpoint to whip up, and three bags to be packed. 

how i wish i didn't go through my entire sem spaced out and disinterested.

it's always like that, and i'm always aware that it's too late for regrets. so why don't i just not let myself get to this point where i wish i could have done things differently? i suppose if i actually managed to not do that, i wouldn't be me. 

alright whatever. i want to sleep so badly, but i have to read Homi Bhabha by today.

omg omg omg my essay is totally not coming together. i am slightly panicked because i have no concrete battle plan to save this disastrous paper.

and my cramps are haunting me.

i am pmsing severely.

the hormones are wrecking havoc in my body and i know it, because i am in an incredibly foul mood for the stupidest reasons ever, - and guess what, i know that too. but i can't help it, i'm feeling extremely grouchy, and i think i become more needy this time of the month, too. it's almost inexplicable, how i have no control over my emotions as they just ravage me and leave me feeling awashed in too many un-nameble feelings: anger, disappointment, sadness, misery, just to name a few of the cocktail of emotions that's coursing through me.

all this while, i just want to hear your voice so that maybe, maybe it'll all go away and i'll stop bawling my eyes out for no apparent reason. but because you can't, i'll have to weather this myself for once, and all i know is that i'm unbearably sad. for no apparent reason.

must be the PMS. 

ARGH

i am severely PMSed today. i feel like oscar the grouch who lives in a trash can. i'm so grouchy, i don't even want to be cheered up. i suppose i'm wallowing in my grouchiness. my essays are not cooperating with me. the one i've managed to squeeze out extremely painfully is extremely BAD. i would fail myself for it. unfortunately, i foresee my lecturers wanting to fail them too.

and checking out overweight baggage rates are extremely depressing. 

it is almost inevitable, this overweight thing. i wish i could call nwa up and beg them to let me leave with my two bags - whatever weight they are - because i've been here for four months and am never coming back again. my whole life is supposed to fit into 46kg of luggages? i somehow don't think so.

this baggage allowance thing is totally a pain in the ass. so shoot me for having to bring 4 months' worth of things home. 

which reminds me. i have to check shipping rates out tomorrow.

asinine

my favourite word of the week is asinine by the way.

it's so very succinct. and, i love the way it rolls off my tongue.

asinine.

which is what i am, for blogging about something so retarded when i have an essay and a half waiting for me in the background on Microsoft Word.

it's odd how i have so much work to do but i'm bored. it's like i have no desire to churn out my essays anymore, i just want everything to stop right now so i can go home. that, or if i were permanently here. i hate being in limbo, in the state of being still here but no longer really here in a matter of weeks. it's making me feel antsy and lethargic and so many things at once. i want to go home, but i don't want this adventure to end so soon either. cos once i go home, all my responsibilities come flying back at me. i'm existing in a bubble world here, i know. i'm not even a proper student, for crying out loud. i make guest appearances in class. i wake up when i feel like waking up. i sleep in when it's raining. i do what i want. i can hide from the world for days. i can go out downtown and party without worrying about having to make it to class the next morning. i can just pack my bags and go off somewhere for the weekend. i can just.. be.

while i know i spent weeks whining about my being here in this god-forsaken corner of agricultural Canada, i know i'm gonna miss being here when i'm back in the mad rush that is Singapore. i'm gonna miss looking out of my window and just looking at the clouds float by in the sky, the squirrels that dash by me on my way to school.  whilst i know i am a city girl at heart, i do know for sure i'll miss the almost-tranquil pace of life here in moments of severe essay stress come September. well, not that i'm not suffering from essay stress here too. but seeing the cars jammed bumper to bumper on the Singapore roads just kinda increases my heartrate and adds to my stress, it's like how seeing what i feel inside acted out in the world around me.

and my mind keeps playing and replaying every single moment, i wish i could just switch it all off. i wonder at so many things, if only it wasn't all so murky. the strangest things trip my memory. i find myself entangled in wispy shadows that seem all-too-solid. 

i think perhaps it is the moment of betrayal, when i will always continue to relive that betrayal. it never becomes any less painful, it's always as real when it stabs my heart and twists itself. i am betrayed every single day of my life by that one moment - i wish i could leave it all behind.

it scares me, but i think i hate you more with every passing day.

and it saddens me to think that i am the only one suffering with this. purely because i am stupid and i cannot let go.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

i will make it for my 930am class tomorrow.

small girl, big dreams

on a Friday night in Guelph, i find myself planning for my immediate future back home in Singapore. which will be my present in four weeks' time. so many things i want to do when i get back home, so many things i have to do in preparation for going back home, too. i have big plans for such a small girl, i'm scared, sometimes. i wonder if it's better to not have lofty dreams, if only so that there's none of that failed ambition bit that i'm sure haunts many the driven woman at Age 45 come mid-life.

sometimes i wonder at my utter lack of apparent gifts and talents, and then i chide myself for being so self-effacing to the point of myopia. there are days when i feel like a blob of cells breathing and taking up oxygen in the world, there're other days when i feel purpose coursing through my very veins.

today has seen me feel a bit of both.

SHREWWWW.

i am actually doing work today. but seeing how this assignment's due on friday but i have not yet read Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew - which, i discovered to my horror requires my reading of it to do my paper - i am slightly distressed.

YES EVEN THOUGH I AM ON EXCHANGE AND CAN S/U EVERYTHING. 

argh.

overslept, shit.

i need to sleep earlier, clearly. i slept right through my alarm this morning and only got up at 11am, missing two of my morning classes even though i had every intention of not skipping any more school unless absolutely necessary.

ughhh. :(

so since my next class is at 130pm, i find myself here frantically typing my response paper for tomorrow's class, which i want to get printed by today so i won't have to worry about it tomorrow morning. i hate not having a printer. i hate 10cents a page photocopying. it's absolutely retarded.

grocery shopping day today though. i hope it doesn't rain. cos i have a ton of things to get.

i don't feel like blogging anymore.

there has been so little desire to blog lately that i am contemplating just stopping this blog for the time being. my days seem to fly by without any notice, and i'm left grappling for more time day after day. even though i seem to do absolutely nothing with my time, looking at the amount of reading i have in wait for me.

that could perhaps be attributed to my travelling. and speaking of travelling, i just came back from Chicago on Sunday night. all these little getaways are what's keeping me sane. a part of me absolutely cannot wait to get back home to Singapore, but another part of me just wants to keep travelling and travelling. and travelling. 

schoolwork seems so unimportant to me right now. which is not good. i have really a tonne of work to do, and if i were in the same academic situation back home in Singapore, i would be tearing my hair out at this point and wailing about how i am stressed and distressed, etcetcetc. being very fortunately not in NUS at this point in time, having a response paper due on Thursday, a take-home test due on Friday, an essay draft due the following Tuesday, another essay due the Wednesday of that week, and a presentation on Thursday to round up my exciting next two weeks of school - i am still unperturbed by the thought of all these. welll, not totally, but the impetus to do any sort of work comes very very rarely here.

i do have to say though, that i am thoroughly sick of trying to keep myself alive on my cooking. i hate cooking, i hate thinking about what to eat, i never realised how utterly useless i'd be in situations where food is not readily buyable ie: here. i've been eating bread, biscuits, and whatever else i managed to scavenge from my snack store since coming back from NYC. well, and instant noodles too. i don't think macaroni and cheese really counts as a proper meal too. sigh. i am thoroughly sick of ANY kind of pasta and i refuse to eat any of it until January 2010. okay, i ought to qualify: i refuse to eat any kind of pasta that i cook. i am a bad cook. so bad that i make myself sick of my cooking. :(

and, the shopping bug has bitten me and hasn't stopped biting me since i got here. 

i need to clear out half my wardrobe when i get back home to accommodate the new stuff i bought here. and, i need to sell my wardrobe. ughhhh i am so swamped with all these mundane things that schoolwork seems to unimportant in relation. weirdly.

OKAY. back to reading the essay i'm supposed to do a response paper on. Spiller's Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe. it's NOT an easy read, i'd much rather be reading Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace or Jean Genet's The Maids right now - but both of these are just things i have to read by my final exam. and these are just two out of something like 7 books that i have read half-way and have to finish in 4 weeks. i am thoroughly screwed, and yet, the prospect doesn't make me feel like i ought to be bludgeoned by something for my laziness. 

being on exchange is truly wonderful, in that aspect. teehee.

you took my heart away.

so after all's been said and done, all i really want is for you to be here with me.

all the travelling, all the shopping, all the living i'm doing, - it's nothing without you.

i miss you so.

staring at the moon so blue

turning all my thoughts to you.

after having come back from Quebec City, Montreal and New York during reading week, i find myself about to take off from Guelph again - this time to Chicago.

WOOHOO. :D

this is the reason why i am here for exchange, and i am starting to love every minute of it.

i need to see places, satiate my appetite to be everywhere, feel my soul expand.

the one thing i am sad over though, is the loss of Clem's ipod. :( 

alrighty i shall post pictures of my Montreal, Quebec City, New York trip soon. 

i hate this so much, you have no idea. 

cos every raindrop is like summertime

so i fell in love and then, i fell in love. 

i always wonder if you will remember me, if you do remember me. i never want to see you walk away from me again. cos when the stars shine and the moon beams peak through my curtain, i see in my mind's eye every second that replays in my head, things that i hold on to precariously. it's as though i know if i let them go, i'll fall over into the abyss, freewheeling, always falling. 

sometimes i wonder, if this is right. can something be so right that it feels wrong? or, can something be so wrong that it feels so right?

there are all those times when i dream, and i fly. dream of all the things to come, things that could have been, things that will never ever be. the things that have yet to come are the happiest scenes, the things that are are met with mixed emotions, the things that could have been are those that i hate the most. mostly because i wish i never wished for them before.

because every raindrop is like summertime, and every snowflake is one step closer to spring.

cheater illness.

i feel like i've just awoken from a long, foggy sleep. my fever is very fortunately, gone. however, i must confess i feel somewhat cheated because my illness has not kept me bed-ridden for long enough for me to do any substantial amount of reading.

so because i no longer feel like i'm dying, i am able to sit up and.. do absolutely time-wasting things on my laptop, like watch Winter Sonata and Gossip Girl. and facebook. and hit the refresh button on my gmail hoping that i'd get some interesting mail.

and, i'm hungry.

i am sick dammit.

i have no words to describe my misery now, because my body is just not cooperating with me. just when i decide to pull up my socks and show some Interest in my lessons, i fall the sickest i've been in a long time. wth right.

how ironic it is that i took a flu jab right before coming, and here i am, sick with possibly the very thing i paid to prevent. that however, would be a good thing. i'm crossing my fingers that i haven't been struck by a bout of stomach flu, mostly because my stomach feels so fricking queasy and my head won't stop spinning. and i keep wanting to puke.

Sleep Day

so because i've fallen ill and because my throat, head and body all aches simultaneously, i am going to declare today Sleep Day and i shall not touch any of my readings until i am well again.

... how very convenient this seems to sound.

this sunday afternoon

time has really flown by - i'm already on the brink of the 6th week of school and the winter break. i'm amazed at how time has really gone by so quickly, the days seem to blend into each other into a haze of activity and inevitably, physical tiredness. (and so do the purchases, it seems!) 

i spent the afternoon downtown today with Aisyah and Rita after Mass at 11am, and i thought i'd get back early to take a nap or whatever before catching Twilight at 8pm with Aisyah - but that plan failed so miserably. we ended up going halfway around town to Walmart and spent far too long there just running along the aisles and being amused at too many things for very poor reasons. heh. i am going to swear off shopping for the next month, because i am FAR too broke. and i have come to the extremely painful realization that i am, indeed, a shopaholic. i just need to buy things or i'd feel unsettled and unsatisfied with the day. it's ridiculous. so, all this spending has to stop. for the next month or so. by which time, it'd be about time to come home anyway. 

on the upside though, i'm rather happy with my buys this weekend. especially the shoes. :) three pairs for less than 20 bucks! beat that, Mondo-of-the-painful-ballet-flats. teehee. i am happy. but, i have spent far too much on nail polish. which i have decided to cart back with me to Singapore by hook or by crook now.

speaking of home. it would appear that i'm coming home early. i'm in two minds about it, but my feelings towards an early flight home are mostly of the positive nature rather than negative. the only thing i can complain about is the missing out on my friends' month-long roadtrip to Vancouver, Seattle, California, Boston, Chicago and i can't remember where else. i figure i would come back to these places one day anyway, whereas Special Sem beckons tantalizingly, dangling the carrot of a slightly early departure from University before me. so because i am a good daughter who wishes to help her parents save some money, AND because i doubt i'll have any money left over to travel happily in May anyway, i am going home in mid April, pushing my later exams even earlier so i can get back on time for Angel and Matthew's wedding.

i feel like taking a nap. but it's already 7pm so that doesn't seem like such a good idea cos 930am class tomorrow morning beckons. sigh. i am such a bad student here that it's not funny. i have to get more interested in my work soon. where has all the passion gone?

because i like to reveal facets of me.

10 things you should know about me:

1. i like to think of my life in terms of songs. as in, i constantly try to see my life unfold with a soundtrack.

2. i am a romantic at heart.

3. i am an insanely jealous person, so beware of my claws.

4. i bear grudges. forever.

5. i am extremely lazy when the mood strikes me. i can laze around in bed for days on end doing absolutely nothing except watching shows on my laptop and reading in bed.

6. i love reading. i want to read all the books in the world before i die.

7. i love looking pretty. hence my incredulous amount of clothes/shoes/bags/make-up products.

8. i want to write and publish a novel at least once in my life.

9. i suspect i like to make myself feel sad every once in a while.

10. i love hard. always.

i hate old english with every fibre of my body.

i'm in an absolutely rotten mood now, because i have two tests tomorrow and i am prepared for none of them. i don't understand my lacklustreness, and utter lack of interest in anything other than sleeping. perhaps i'm trying to find my footing in this not-so-new-environment, and i'm constantly slipping and hitting brick walls, and all this is causing me to lose interest in what i used to love. Old English is absolutely killing my love for anything English, and i am starting to think it is in my best interests to drop the stupid class and stop worrying over it. what is stopping me, however, is my pride - because i don't want to feel like i'm dropping it cos i can't do it. i hate feeling inadequate in anything, but this retarded class which requires me to memorize stupid nouns in their stupid genders is really killing me because my brain hasn't been forced to memorize anything in such detail since A-levels, which was 3 fricking years ago. i keep telling myself that i don't have to prove anything to anybody, so just drop the stupid class if it's killing me. but something's stopping me from doing it, and i wish i just had the guts to say enough's enough. i am thoroughly unprepared for the test tomorrow though, so i think if i fail that one spectacularly, i might be forced to drop it anyway, because it's not worth the effort.

omg i've wasted an hour whining abt all this, and i haven't even touched my nouns to memorize. shootmenow, please. ugh. :(

Old English is bad.

omg i'm so failing Old English. i dunno how on earth i'm going to pull through this one. i'm doing so bloody badly! it's ridiculous. my brain hasn't memorized things since i left JC. and in this class, i'm memorizing tables of nouns, pronouns and whatnots, in Old English, it's absolutely ridiculous. i don't know how i'm gonna pass this class, i'm gonna need a huge miracle. 

and, i'm so unmotivated to go for classes. they just don't really interest me that much anymore. i dunno whether it's the classes, or whether it's me. but whatever it is, i think i need to get my act together pronto, because unfortunately, i'm just not the smartass kinda person who pulls rabbits out of the hat at the end of every sem.

i am a sad goldfish. :(

it just hit me, 

that i might possibly miss you even more today than i did yesterday.

nominative, accusative, genitive and dative.

i am so tired. i have a quiz tomorrow (the second one of this class for this semester already, believe it or not), which requires me to remember Old English personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and nouns. which are all subdivided into nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases, of which there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd persons, and also masculine, neuter and feminine genders.

WTF RIGHT.

i have only managed to memorize the personal pronouns, and my head is currently swimming with weird alphabet. i have two more tables to memorize by tomorrow, and i have no idea how the crap i'm gonna do that, considering the fact that i am intending to check out the house party at no. 48 tonight. i don't know what's gotten into me, going for all these parties and stuff. it's not like i like to drink that much. i think i'm just trying to make sure i don't come here and fall into studying like i do back home.

i'm tired though. cos last night was a packed night, what with the Canadian Cultural Night thing at 7pm, then Brass Taps with some of the exchange students after that til 11pm, then coming home to find a monopoly drinking party in full swing. i finally came up to my room at 1230 and had to force myself to shower and attempt to do some readings. which, admittedly, was a failure. and to top it off, i got up this morning with a mighty headache, since the alcohol kept me from sleeping well last night.

i do know that i can cut myself some slack, but at the same time, i'm not sure how much slack is too much.

remember, every new beginning is some beginning's end.

only heaven knows

is it ever right to fight to keep the one you love? cos if true love sets free, trying to keep someone you love by your side mayn't be the best thing for him/her.

so maybe, when you truly love someone, you just gotta let him go. or her, whichever is applicable.

only heaven knows.

:)

there's that rush of happiness everytime i see your name pop up on my screen. 

love me, love me not.

i am slothy.

i woke up at 10am, read Wacousta for a bit to do my Canadian lit assignment due Wednesday, called Clem, spoke to him til 12pm, then went straight back to bed. i'm so tired, i don't even feel like getting lunch for myself. i think this is the effects of sleep debt. and i thought i'd escaped the sleep debt thing since leaving Singapore for here. who knew that night owl habits would be so hard to break?

so what do i see myself as? 

a whirlpool of ripples, breaking up any whole image you might try to see. 

a flash of pink on the horizon when i feel good; a smudge of brown in the green grass when i'm sad.

fluffy baby pink socks that feel so good when you slip them on in bed at night. 

the scent of jasmine body butter that permeates the room when i unscrew the tub.

gloomy thunderclouds and the splattering rain.

you love me, - you love me not.

but, so you know; i do love you.

winter sonata.

so left with too much time on my hands, my sleeping thoughts are stirred once more, and i find myself thinking too much about the most inane things more than ever. waste-time thoughts. my mind is an archive of my life - dig deep enough and you'll find memories that record every event that's worth remembering. and some that perhaps aren't, too. but they're just there. everything just tumbles down over my head and overwhelms me sometimes. and with all the images in your mind crystallizing before you, you begin to see paths leading out of all of them into dark unknowns. all the alternatives to the choices that have made me who i am today. as tough as it sounds, the choices i've made in my life are unretractable. life isn't linear, it doesn't just have a simple cause-effect relationship. life's an immense tangle of points that are all intertwined somehow, like a web.

if i had to take just one lesson home from reality and life as i know it with me when i die, it'll have to be that everybody lies. it's a sad fact of well, life. i've lied a gazillion times in the 21 years i've lived on this earth, i've been lied to probably twice as many times as that. it hurts at first to think that everyone lies to some degree, to have someone lie to your face without blinking an eyelid. but when you realise that you do it too, it seems less heinous. 

musing aside, things have been improving dramatically for me. perhaps it's the proper sleep i'm actually getting every night now - i'm not so homesick and mopey anymore, not to the extent that i was last week, anyway. it's been snowing practically everyday here though, and my boots have been getting all icky and stuff, with the salt stains from the slush splashing up as i walk. it's gross. but i'd rather that than to have the bottoms of my jeans get dirty, anytime. 

i've bought tonne of clothes here, most of which can't be worn here. this is what i call foresight on my part. :D and Old Navy has the cutest slippers ever. i feel like going back to get one in every colour! i just might do that. heh. i've been deprived of summer-type clothes for too long already. give me back my slippers, shorts, tank tops and dresses!

so i was also thinking as i watched Winter Sonata, that there's more than one way to die. there's death, and then, - there's death.

words fail me.

it's been almost two weeks since term began here at Guelph for me, and i still don't know where to begin. while in some ways it's been by far the most exhilirating two weeks of my life thus far, the effects of being so far away from all i love is beginning to take its toll on me and oftentime, i wake up in the morning just a gigantic ball of tangled up emotions. here, i have all the time in the world to do things, and yet, i just don't have the desire or ability to do anything else other than contact my loved ones back home daily and while my hours away with them - either online, or on the phone. i do realise that this attachment to home could be hampering my exchange experience - after all, if being so homesick is such a big thing, why come all the way here to mope and moan? i am bereft of words, and even if i had them, i'd be unable to wield them to form some sort of coherent explanation for my bizarre behaviour here. perhaps i miss both the figurative and literal warmth of Singapore and my home too much. here, it's figuratively AND literally freezing all day, with temperatures dipping to negative double-digits daily now and people being together sometimes i suspect merely out of necessity. i yearn for warmth of any kind, i really want to make something out of this and not be a pathetic victim of circumstance. i should have more desire to do stuff, and at the same time, i should have less desire to do stuff too. i expect, and am disappointed. i cling on to every shred of news about things going on at home as if it were a life raft, all the while knowing that with every passing day, the memory of me in my friends' minds back home fades a little more. i wonder if people miss me as much as i miss them, knowing that perhaps it's just not a fair question to ask because i'm here, all alone, whereas the reverse isn't true. i question myself on a daily, even hourly basis here, wondering if i'm doing things wrong or right. and i try to create warmth in my room by curling up into a ball at night in my bed - but to no avail. it just seems like everything i try to do just doesn't work, and i'm frustrated out of my mind. perhaps all the stories you hear about exchange is really just a myth, because i am NOT having the time of my life here at all. the realization of that just makes me wonder at whether i'm just a freak, or whether everyone else was just embellishing. 

so then, life makes me wonder. half way round the world, when you are in bed and the sun is shining in my face. this is what i was afraid of when i formed attachments to people, and this is what i'll be afraid of forevermore. i love, and it hurts to be away. it hurts so badly sometimes to feel, and i half wish i didn't, because then starting anew wouldn't be so hard. it's when you know you've left something better behind - that's when you're stuck in a stalemate because everything forward just doesn't cut it. and so, i'm stuck here, unable to go back home and unable to move forward as i should. and it hurts. especially knowing that i've spent a substantial amount of my parents' money to come here and mope and be sad and be pathetic. i tell myself everyday to not be sad, to not be homesick - but at night when i'm talking to all back home, my resolve crumbles and it's all i can do to not bawl my eyes out from sheer misery and loneliness.

sigh. what a pathetic picture of me i've painted. i wish i could spin some other story up, something more befitting of an exciting exchange experience. but that, would be a lie. but then again, aren't all stories somewhat untruthful to some extent already? words fail me.

hello guelph!

alright so yesterday's post was positively depressing i'll admit. it's not quite as bad as it seems, really. it's just the lack of proper sleep that has been getting to me. i'm so stressed out, in such an unfamiliar environment, missing everyone at home, and i think it's wrecking havoc on my physical body. but i will do this. this is what i've wanted to do, so i will enjoy every minute of it. 

starting... now. :)

first three days in guelph

so. i am here in Guelph, finally. i don't even know where to begin! so many things i've been feeling, so many things to say. maybe what would sum it all up is that being here is so very different from being back home. while i'm trying to make it all work out the way i intended it to, by the usual tenets of staying positive, be open - blahblahblah, i do think that being away from everyone is taking its toll on me. especially since i'm here all alone, and the friends i do make are well, not very close ones. just hi, bye, see you next week kinda thing. monday and tuesday were actually not too bad, today was just terrible. i spent most of my morning in class, from 930am right up to 220pm, with a one hour break at abt 1220 - and didn't sleep right last night. in fact, i haven't been sleeping well at nights here. my room is right next to the heater and it's on some sort of timer, so it kicks on and off every half hour or so. and when it comes on, it makes this really annoying knocking sound. so everytime it starts up, i suspect i wake up or something. whatever it is, i look like hell right now, with eye bags and all. and i feel like hell too, my body really aches. i feel so alien here so often, almost like an outsider looking in at things through my body. almost like an out-of-body experience, those that people experience at night when they dream and they can feel their soul taking flight and leaving their bodies. i never fully appreciated so many things back home in Singapore, things i've taken for granted, almost. the Asians here are few and far between, and then, they're usually PRCs or those born here. i feel so different, i never thought i could feel so different. i mean, back home, it's like, i thought races were unimportant, that race just didn't matter. i guess that was the idealistic me thinking, cos out here, i realise that the racial card is played so very often, albeit very very subtly. perhaps it's all in my own mind, - i differentiate myself from other people because i think i am different. but i keep telling myself yet, and yet it doesn't make any difference to my interactions. people give me really weird looks when i walk into class, mainly cos i'm a lit major and i suppose there's this preconceived notion of Asians being unable to speak proper English, much less enjoy reading or writing it. it annoys me, i must admit, to be looked at as different - i hate it. i don't like people staring at me cos of the way i look, cos i have black hair, yellow skin, and eyes with epithelial folds. i don't like it how professors look at me and wonder if i'm in the right class or not. i don't like it how i'm expected to struggle to speak the language i grew up speaking, i don't even like it when people tell me how surprised they are at my "perfect English". and some people even ask me what language people speak in Singapore - do you guys speak English, or Cantonese? i find it insulting, almost, how i'm expected to be unable to understand and speak English. and it's frustrating how everyone speaks with this American accent and expect me to speak the same way - and when i don't, i'm treated so differently. i don't like so many things about being here, and yet i do like many things too. i like the independence, i like meeting new people, i like attending my classes even, cos they're so different from those back in NUS, i like having so much time to myself, i like just being here and having the chance to live my life outside my tiny island for a change.

but it doesn't change the fact that i'm starting to feel really homesick, and looking at all the things from home in my room just doesn't help. in fact, it makes me feel worse. i dunno how people do it, those people who do their university overseas. it's mind boggling. i've only been here for all of three days but it feels like i've been here forever and it feels like i've been away from home for such a long time already. i spent a good two hours lying in bed just now just crying my heart out cos i miss home so much, and then tried to think positive but well, sometimes, it's not just in the mind. i need proper rest, and then perhaps i'll be able to take in all this more positively. 

YOOHOO

as Fiona said: the end is near!

and then i shall begin my social life again. and attempt to pack my life into two suitcases to take with me to the other end of the world. it's so bloody soon, i can't decide what i'm feeling anymore. things are just happening way too quickly for me and i just feel completely engulfed in tides of i dunno what. 

all poetic and lyrical form have abandoned me. does this then make me a truly postmodern writer?

well, attaching swanky labels to my inability to string together decent sentences just doesn't seem that right.

:)

i am feeling rather good today in spite of the - on hindsight - horrendous Asian American lit paper i just had to usher in the beginning of my exams. i think this positivity has everything to do with my recently collected essays and the discovery that i actually did pretty decently for two modules i had given up for dead for various reasons, which included me not finishing reading most of the novels of the module, and losing books and notes the night before the exam.

i just do think that these two modules which have suddenly increased in my estimation will have to make up for my potentially dismal 20th century lit paper. according to the lecturer, people did quite well for the test in general, in which i had obtained the extremely disgusting, poor grade of B-. so if everyone did well and i did mightily shittily, where does that leave me except in a dire situation. then the essay - i don't have a good feeling about it at all, it being the last essay i turned in this sem, the result of it being the last is the extreme lack of motivation with which i wrote it. as i have discovered, there seems to be some sort of positive relationship between motivation and performance, ie: with greater motivation comes greater performance, so the inverse would also then be more or less true.

but okay i shall stop whining because i have an nm paper tomorrow - and that A is completely mine to lose. so work hard i shall, instead of playing around with and troubleshooting my webcam which was probably the highlight of my night last night.

i'd rather take the blow, at least then i would know;

but baby don't you break my heart slow.

evaporate into sweetened milk

the hot, humid sticky December rains, & i will evaporate into sweetened milk. 

nothing pains me more than illogicity and irrationality, and if i could slay that scaly fire-breathing dragon, i would. 'cept that i'm a maiden with a coronet in my hair, so theoretically i'd need a Sir Lancelot to come charging through the golden eaves, his coal-black hair glinting in the sunlight and his burnished shield raised. unfortunately, i live in Singapore, so all i'd have is perhaps a Mr. (insert-typical-Chinese-surname-here) to whisk me off in Comfort cab if i'm lucky, drag me on the mrt if i'm not.

i'm craving for mango with dripping condensed milk, for swamplands and crocodiles, for deep fried oily crispy things that would shorten my life by 10years. i see the white crane spreading its wings ready to take flight, the striped tail of the fat tabby nonchalantly falling off the concrete step in its nap, the leopard and its spots yawning in the afternoon sun.

i see deep blue crystal waters that glisten azure and turquoise, purple swatches of the twilight sky smeared with strokes of deep crimson, gashes fierce and soft. i see the velvet midnight sky cloudy and thick with humidity, hear my breaths, see the shaft of light from the open door, Yellow Light.

betrayal among lilies.

it's funny how i see it, i feel it, and i hate it - and then i don't see it, don't feel it, but still hate it anyway.

i've been betrayed by logic, by the absence of logic, and the very presence of presence. 

spirals of smoke swirl up from the chimney, but no fire burns in the fireplace below. all there is are the glowing embers from the night before that refuse my stamping to transform into cinders. die, i say, die. and yet, green shoots sprout out from the hard winter ground, between the non-existent cracks and up into the polluted air - dying the moment they came alive. thorns are enmeshed with the roses until all that you see is brambleweed and poison ivy that stings and sweetens with calamine lotion. i taste the sour odour of garbage in the air at the back of my throat and gag, bottle caps falling from the sky. tin cans are crushed every day, buttons pop, threads snap - and i am glued together like pieces of a broken china teapot that has been flung from the top of the empire state building. soft linen, silky and fresh, cover the table with the bowl of steaming chicken soup, labours of love. 

rifles at point-blank range go off, i blow out your brains, you kick me in the shin, i embrace you and stab you from the back - again, and again. and pull out the knife in my own back. then, white light, red light, green light, golden. poppies in a field. i've been betrayed, and i've never been more alive or dead at the same time.

the siberian express.

with all my essays slain and all that's left for me to do on that note is to pick up the carcasses when they start falling back to earth in the form of Bs and Cs, i have nothing more to look forward to except endless mugging for the next one week of exams. one week, and it'll all be over. then it's hellooooooo Canada and if everything doesn't go well, hello to four months of freezing loneliness. of course, we don't go into things anticipating the worst, so here's to four months of good cheery fun, the only kind of fun you'll have in school as an exchange student - with no care for my CAP for the first time in my uni life since i flounced my first sem in NUS. 

there're so many things i want to do now as i sit with Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior before me - i want to look at clothes online, level up my character on wow cos i'm trying desperately to catch up with Trina so we can start doing things together, plan my itinerary for NYC, read some poetry at my own leisure instead of rushing through them like the Siberian Express enroute to Russia.

so i was thinking today, that if i could relive my life again any way i wanted, i'd still have chosen to end up here with you today.

okay as i am typing this, i am all-too-aware of the extremely precarious state i am in at the moment. my 20th century essay is due tomorrow at 5pm, but i am not even half-way done, and the half that i have done is very very bad.

i am really in a state of panic now.

i am having a terrible case of writer's block. it's like, i have no idea what to say at all.

that being said, the luckiest thing ever just happened to me. i received a rather decent A- on a paper that was missing one whole page. i can only say that God loves me very much because he probably knew that another B (or C, for that matter) would kill me beyond any hope of redemption for the rest of my uni career.

6 things in search of a point.

several things happened today that are worth mentioning. some perhaps more than others, but still worthy of mention nonetheless in my rather boring life.

so. here are six statements in search of a point. any point.

1) i am REALLY going to Canada! the Uni of Guelph has finallyfinallyFINALLY confirmed my place there. finally, after all the months of hypothetical planning, i can actually look forward to something concrete. that being said, i kinda can't wait to get the heck out of Singapore, but at the same time, i'm reluctant to leave all that i love behind, if only for a few months.

2) i fell down today upon missing a step on my way from FASS to the biz canteen. it was raining, the ground was slippery, i fell. two boys walked right by me as though i was a snail crawling on the ground, even though i yelped fricking loudly cos i twisted my ankle while falling and landed on my knees. and the book in my hand flew out to land at least a meter away from me. i have nothing nice to say about men in general after today, but i will say that the only thing keeping me from wishing that all men would turn into frogspawn at their sheer uselessness and ineptitude is that i know a couple of really good men. boyfriend included.

3) i am done with my stupid Asian American lit essay, which i produced very very painfully. all i'm hoping for is a B+ for it. i can't believe how low i've stopped. i might as well be hoping to "just pass" on my exam and just graduate next year.

4) i am not looking forward to starting on the 20th century essay due on Monday. i am thoroughly thoroughly sick of writing when i don't feel like writing. the only consolation is that nothing can be worse than what i've already done so far.

5) my Hopkins essay is ready for collection tomorrow. at the mere thought of it, my heartbeat shoots into overdrive and i feel like i'm going to faint. as you can perhaps tell from my reaction, i do not expect joyous news regarding that particular piece of work.

6) as a result of the previous three points of the above, my CAP this sem is going to be extremely bad, is going to crash before my eyes, and there goes any hopes of attaining any semblence of a 4.0 second upper anymore. damn it.

& i never believed that the multitude of dreams and many words were in vain.

my birthday last weekend was a total blast. i feel a need to reiterate that point over and over again because it seems somehow to make up for the shitty weekend i'm having, what with the two final exams i had on Monday and Tuesday - the Tuesday one being absolutely ridiculous with me losing Middlemarch the like very day of the exam, and misplacing half my lecture notes the night before - and the two papers i still have left to do which i have absolutely no desire to begin on.

i really need to get out of the house and supper, shop, whatever. i can't wait for Monday to come cos that's when my last paper - the 20th century one - is due. i can't wait for Monday to come cos it's reading week, which would mean i get to breath a little, if only a little, cos i have no more school and can concentrate on studying once i've gotten myself perked up again.

on one hand i'm glad you tell me untruths to protect me cos you know the truth would hurt, on the other i think it's perfectly useless for you to not tell me the truth when i - being somewhat intuitive about things like that - am able to sort of grasp at what really happened. it borders on paranoia and i don't like it, but fact is: you can't change it, i can't change it, and we have to live with the consequences of things that happened unseen in the past, now many years later. i think i'd rather know things rather then to guess at what may have happened, cos the imagination is cruel and it supplies more vicious, hurtful thoughts than reality may actually hold. 

...I re-enter

the city in which I love you.

And I never believed that the multitude 

of dreams and many words were in vain.

i am screwed big time. there is a bloody big Romanticism test tomorrow morning at 9am, and i have only covered about half the material in the course. either i am dead, or i am dead. i dunno what to say anymore. i am beyond upset and i am pissed off at how this is turning out. 

and i have a horrific ulcer on my tongue, which i gave myself a day before my birthday, that's keeping me from eating properly, talking properly, sleeping properly, and swallowing properly. in short, it is ruining my life.

my life seems to be in shreds at the moment. but i am contemplating just going to sleep and praying my heart out because there seems to be no point in trying to cram anything more into my already frazzled, panicked mind - which seems to be able to only concentrate on panicking and panicking and panicking.

so much for the lovely birthday party i had over the weekend. this is what it has come to.

sick.

i am falling sick, and two days before my birthday, too.

what can i say besides this sucks?

enough.

everything seems to be slipping away from me now, everything's going so horribly. it isn't supposed to be like this, i'm not supposed to be struggling so badly, i'm not supposed to be so crushed. i've come to a point where i'm beginning to think this all just isn't worth it, where i'm ready to raise my puny white flag in surrender just so that all this will just stop. maybe it's time to stop trying, time to stop fighting. maybe i'm overreaching, and as we discussed in lit tutorial today, overreachers seem destined for failure, by virtue of the very word "over" in "overreach" - implying that i am reaching beyond my limitations. i don't understand why it's all suddenly become so hard, and the possibility that i have come to this sad situation because of my own actions pains me more than you can imagine. it is one thing to be a victim of fate, to be a marionette of some puppeteer greater than yourself who controls your actions and determines your eventual outcome. i would really have no agency in such a case, no responsibility for my actions; just swept up in the tide of time that ebbs and flows in mundane and epic scales alike. however, realising that i was probably the very cause of my fix, realising that the consequences of all my past actions have finally come back to haunt me when i thought i'd gone off scot-free, it makes me indignant, disappointed, and just really angry with myself for letting me down. if you know how hard i push myself, you would understand the depth of my disappointment and exhaustion now, when it seems as if nothing i do from here will make anything better, besides making me feel like some sort of tragic Romantic heroine who trys and fails but who inspires admiration anyway for fighting for lost causes.

well but who am i kidding: i am no Romantic heroine, no fighter of lost causes - i am merely a girl who's been let down by her own devices and while staring at the dark abyss of sheer mediocrity, is contemplating the role that she has played in this pathetic tragicomedy that her life has become.

i am suddenly at a loss for word even though ironically, i have been producing massive amounts of words for my essays lately. my emotions have been going out of whack, so much so that i'm at a point where i'm choosing to freeze anything else other than the motivation that drives me to continue working.

all the feelings in the world, i cannot even begin to write about them. how finite language is indeed, that it cannot capture the infinite, can only provide a blurry snapshot.

i like to chew on my rulers.

i don't like to write my essays.

i hate school

i am annoyed. i have one last poem to cover for my Hopkins essay but have stupidly left the book i wanted to base the analysis on in Clem's room. which leaves me with no choice but to do it tomorrow morning. oh hang on, isn't it Tuesday morning already. i hate school, i really hate it with every fibre of my being right now. i am this close to hecking everything and just thumping something out on my computer right now before i sleep. how on earth am i to get up at 7am to get the book from Clem to continue with the rest of my essay, which, surprise-surprise! - is due tomorrow.

i need a hero.

:(

it is now 4.10am and i am not in bed yet. this is the latest i've stayed up this entire sem. 

the problem isn't really with not having enough to write - i just have too much to say and not enough words to say them all in.

i love writing, but i've got to admit that i hate essaying.

i'd spend the end with you.

my 3000 word 19th century essay is due on tues and i am not even halfway done. it's gonna be a long three weeks if i keep up this kind of listlessness. i am too sleepy but i cannot allow myself to go to bed yet because i am determined to finish up at least one of the poems that is required of me by tonight. and i will worry about the other three tomorrow.

things that shouldn't disappoint always end up disappointing more than they should.

if the world should stop revolving, spinning slowly down to die,

i'd spend the end with you.

& when the world was through,

then one by one the stars would all go out,

then you & i would simply fly away.

i'm sorry.

i am sorry for being such a selfish prick of a human being. others-centred i am most certainly not, but i try my hardest not to be so self-centred as i am predisposed to be. 

i am sorry i want so much of you although you are already giving me so much, i'm sorry i want, period.

feel it.

i accidentally blogged in my old blog again this afternoon, which led me to browse through my life of two years ago. while on some level, i am thoroughly appalled at the depth of my emotions, a part of me still wishes i could write like i did then, when i was feeling all those things as they came along. a part of me admires the me then, how i was so reckless and so unfettered, throwing all caution to the wind and just living & loving, no matter what the cost. perhaps that experience has made me into who i am today; slightly cautious, still prone to fits of uncontrollable, strange emotions that i try to relegate to the back of my mind because they are deemed unimportant and silly. 

take a read here: http://rippledsilk.blogspot.com - if you wish to be able to intimate at what i'm talking about.

like this afternoon. i called the boyfriend up on the verge of tears, wanting to tell him that i was upset and scared and terrified and everything all at once - but i couldn't do it, because i wouldn't have been able to explain why i was feeling so. so, i quashed the tremor in my voice, willed the tears to stay put in my eyes, and half-whispered that i didn't feel like starting on my work, half-whispered good-bye. i put down the phone and started crying uncontrollably, just because. not because i was stressed, not because i was whatever, but also because i was stressed, also because i was scared - i cried just because. how do you explain to someone who's so rational all the time why you feel like crying when you can't even explain it to yourself? when you don't even see the neccessity of explaining it to yourself. 

then, i understand why the boyfriend won't be able to be with me through this exasperating period, i understand perfectly. but at the same time, i'm upset at the prospect of having to trudge through the days mired in my own upsetness. as i said in a previous blog, i feel like i'm shuffling through the cards of insanity in my mind. time with family, own work, own space - i understand them all. and yet, i am selfish and i need need need, want want want. so i cannot give a voice to these, i cannot allow these to take on a life of their own by giving them form.

sometimes, i feel as if i've lost the license to live recklessly. everything must be logical, everything must be purpose-filled. i cannot feel the world's derth of emotions exploding in my heart without reason, i cannot want to fall asleep under the sun in a lovely meadow with no care for what tomorrow brings. it seems that i've been forced somewhere along the way to become an adult, to grow up, be responsible. premature, or not, i don't know, but i've lost the desire to be all i can be, because what i want to be is not in line with what i should be. as i grow older and spend more of my life on earth, i become more earthly and less an individual; i become just like everyone else, and less like me.

i say i am still wild, unfettered and free inside, i claim i'm living the life i want to lead - but perhaps what i've really done is i've sold out, and this is the only life left i dare to lead. illogicity and irrationality used to be the order of the day, i felt freely - truly, madly, deeply - i fell in love extremely recklessly, almost carelessly, and i was just a mess of emotions and feelings. my life now has no space for these things, chaos is unwanted, certitude is prized. i do wish i could revert back to that passion that seems almost too vivid, and yet i choose to remain where i am because this is the safer choice, this is the safer path. colours are softened, sounds are muted, smells are filtered out. i am too socialized, and too safe, too cowardly to feel without reason anymore.

& yet, you do know that i've always loved you. always have, always will.

a wave of panic is washing over me, threatening to engulf me and sweep me away in its gushing wake. i am having trouble breathing, my chest is constricting - and this is a too-real sign that i am, at the end of the day in spite of all my bravado: petrified. 

i am too ill-equipped and unprepared, stupid and dull. oh, how the mighty have fallen - those who think the world of themselves ultimately find themselves at rock bottom, splat on the floor, shapeless.

the power of the word.

so if i said here, that everything i've said in the past two years on this blog is a lie, would you believe me? if everything i said had happened had, in fact, not happened, would you believe me with this one negating post? or would you be inclined to trust my earlier posts when i narrate in a realistic, linear fashion?

just thinking about the power of words.

i wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

i have been given a kick in the ass with a B-/C+ essay, and i want to badly for it to not be real. unfortunately for me, it is too real and i am stuck with it, and the only thing i can do is look forward, cheesy as it sounds. my anger and indignance has somewhat fizzled out and all i can do is sigh as i look at my paper and sigh again and again and the uphill battle ahead of me.

so the other night i had another bad dream. you have absolutely no idea how i wish i could control the stuff of my dreams, cos all these icky dreams leave me unnerved when i get up in the morning. if only the feel of your hand in mine could take the place of spectral insubstantial fears. i can't help but feel a tad haunted by all this; i am stalked in my sleep and the horrible part of it all is that it is the only time when i cannot control anything. 

i wish i could exorcise those phantom fears, the ghost of paranoia - all that inexorably incessantly upset me as i behold them in my waking life.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw, ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

from Carrion Comfort

Gerard Manley Hopkins

for eternity

i was thinking about it just now, about how i love words. words allow me to express myself, define myself, even - words allow me to weave magic, letters to beautiful sentences to stories. i play with words all the time, make them do what i want. but at the same time, i despise how they rollick around, escaping my attempts to pin down an exact meaning - because meaning can change so easily with a rearrangement of letters. rollicking around, eluding capture, just playful playing play. ploy? 

you tell me something and i know you mean it. but too much lit has made me realise how insubstantial things you say really are. after all, i can easily take everything and reassemble them, reconstruct my truths, scramble them up and build them from scratch, claw, paw, poke - until it's unrecognisable and something totally new. i hold certain things as non-negotiables in my life, certain truths that i hold as my Truths, certain things i flatly refuse to allow the contamination of subjectivity to fall upon. so do i believe that there are no truths in the world? well, no, not absolutely; for there are some things like Jesus Christ dying for my soul that remains unchangeable because i do not allow truths like that to be tampered with. i choose to accept things like that as wholly true because things like that make up the foundation of my being. if i don't believe that Jesus died for me because He loved me, then how do i even negotiate the concept of love, why do i even want to love if what i can do is pursue self-gratification? 

so when you say "i love you", i believe you mean it now. but i also believe that when you said "i love you" to a totally different person in a totally different time, you meant it too. i want to believe that you did, because then i can believe that you mean it now. but a part of me hates that you loved before, a part of me wants to be the first and the last, a part of me wants a little bit of eternity. 

i can't promise i can heal you

but if you want to, i can try.

to sing this summer serenade

the past is done, we've been betrayed

it's true.

someone says the truth was lie

i believe without a doubt in you.

you were there for summer dreaming

and you gave me what i need

and i hope you find your freedom

for eternity.

yesterday when you were walking

talked about your mom and dad

what they did that made you happy

what they did that made you sad.

we sat and watched the sun go down

picked a star before we lost the moon

youth is wasted on the young

before you know, it's come and gone

too soon.

& i hope you find your freedom, eventually

for eternity.

unfettered, wild and free

sometimes, i think some people stay in some relationships because they're too comfortable in them. it's a bit like your security blanket, you've had it for too long, ergo, you dare not throw it away. i don't mean relationships can be broken just like that, like say, when you're bored of it. rather, i'm talking about those relationships where it clearly cannot work anymore, where boy and girl no longer love each other just because but have to find reasons to keep 'loving', where there's too much pain and hurt involved. if my relationship ever becomes like that, i would be the first one to recognise how unsustainable it is, but at the same time, would also be the first one to cling on tightly to it precisely because it's dying, and i don't know what it would be like otherwise. we all like familiarity, we all want comfort, and while change is the only constant in the world, we all hate change. perhaps i still have notions of "true love" and love should be this and this and this. perhaps i still am a bit idealistic, a tad romantic. perhaps life hasn't treated me harshly enough to show me how love is practical, utilitarian, and ultimately, seemingly self-serving. all i know is that i still have my Christian notions of what love should be and shouldn't be, and even though all the above might stare right at me, mirrored around me a thousand times over, i don't want to believe in any of that.

i am, after all, still, a free spirit - and i still yearn to be unfettered, wild, and free.

ants

okay looks like i've caught the Inane Blogging bug. looks like this will be the case for the next five weeks or so because i see no other way to vent and spout nonsense to just release some of that pressure.

there is so much i want to do in life, so much. and yet, i am just me, i have so little opportunity, so little strength. and yet on and on i go, like some little ant trying to save its queen who has, unfortunately, eaten ant poision.

ughhhh.

i am feeling yucky, very unwell, and i just basically want to be able to lie in bed and not do anything. very unfortunately for me, i have a test to study for tomorrow, and have 1200+ pages of Middlemarch and Vilette combined left for me to read. i felt so terrible this morning that i couldn't get up without puking, so i had to not turn up for my project meeting. 

my stomach is kinda empty too - the last meal i had was last night at 7plus. let's see if i will just die in my room from the pain or starvation, i wonder which comes first.

anger management.

my ability to let rip at precious things when i'm pissy is quite astounding. my behaviour appalls me, disgusts me, makes me wish i were a nicer person all over again. i want to be nice, i want to love those whom i love, and yet, when i'm grouchy, all my notions of rationality just fly out of the window and leave me with this strange, seething hollow shell of a person, full of anger just needing to be let out and eventually appeased. physical discomfort is no reason to ill-treat those who are precious to me, and i will have to rein myself in. bite my tongue, watch my words, and take deep breaths.

on a totally different note that is perhaps somewhat tangential to the above, it is that time of the month when i'm feeling all sorts of blah and would like nothing else but to snuggle into bed and sleep the entire day away. i'm so unenergetic and lethargic, and that's just the beginning of it all.

work work work

doing some math today, it hit me how fine a line i'm treading, and how uncertain the final outcome really is. according to the CAP calculator NUS has so kindly provided, i have to score an average of A- for my modules this sem to get a semester CAP of 4.46, in order to reach 3.90 by this sem. following which, i go on exchange and my CAP is frozen. and when i come back in my fourth year, i have to score another average of A- for my modules to get a semester CAP of 4.25 to reach 3.95. then, in the second sem of my fourth year, i have to get 4.35 in order to FINALLY reach 4.00. 3 consecutive semesters of hard hard work. failing which, i remain stuck in my second lower honours mediocrity. 

i am very stressed just thinking about it.

and just so you know how stressed i am at the moment, i have paced myself at AT LEAST a hundred pages of Middlemarch a night, and a hundred pages of Vilette a night too, to be read concurrently. both have to be read by the beginning of next week, and i am, well, trying my hardest to speed-read and not lose anything out of it. i know my classmates say sparknotes is good, but i'm a coward and i daren't rely on sparknotes for my A.

pressure has been building up steadily in me and i'm taking it out particularly badly on the boyfriend. which makes me an irrational woman in all senses of that word, also mostly because i can see how retardedly i am behaving, but i can't help myself. every single day, all i seem to want to do is to scream my lungs out because i wake up not rested, with too much on my mind and hands, and not enough tenacity and will-power to do it all. partly also because i'm starting to feel dowdy and dull - i haven't shopped in months. there's nothing to look forward to each morning when i put on my clothes. my face is like a pimple minefield, which i suspect is caused by my insufficient sleep and my severe self-accrued stress. essays, books, and tests are stalking my mind incessantly.

i am so in need of reading week.

don't give up.

i do admit, that i'm a little scared, a little daunted, a little overwhelmed just thinking about it all. 

i am a trifle terrified, even. i pray for strength, for perserverence, i pray that God will not give up on me, that i will not give up on myself. 

live each day like it's my last.

it is raining marvelously, i am deliciously sleepy, and i don't feel like doing any work anymore. i was planning my schedule for the next 5 weeks and am looking forward to non-stop action til reading week comes. hiphiphurray. 

Vicki Christina Barcelona. watched it yesterday, puzzled over it for a bit, fell in love with Barcelona, but it is just a bit too anarchistic for my liking. Vicki and Christina are two extremes, and i'd like to think that i fall somewhere in-between. 

i still do want to feel exhiliratingly free, feel as though everything's happening for some greater, deeper purpose - but at the moment, i've got to be content with winning the small battles each day brings. essaying, studying, sliding, reading. 

live each day like it's my last.

good days :)

so today is one of those days when i feel good about myself. these days are coming less and less though, and it's beginning to be a rare (but good) day when i feel confident. i suppose my actual abilities are somewhat linked to my confidence level of the day - when i feel confident and good about myself, i almost instantaneously become seemingly smarter, and vice versa.

so today, i am going to treat myself to a nice relaxing night and curl up in bed with Great Expectations (really fantastic bedtime reading, i know), and only work on my 19th century lit essay plans tomorrow when i am more rested. 

i need to live one day at a time, and perhaps things will come more naturally to me.

bad dreams are made of these

i had a too-real bad dream last night, which has caused me to sleep poorly. hence my lethargy of body and mind in this dreary Sunday mid-day, trying too-hard to finish up a lecture of Romanticism before i leave the house, convinced that one night will not be enough to finish up three long lectures of Romanticism notes. 

bad dreams leave me feeling unsettled when i get up, leave me with a gross bitter aftertaste in my mouth that doesn't quite go away throughout the day, leaves me wondering.