great love story - pah.

i don't believe in people sacrificing for love anymore.
the great love story is dead, never existed.

The Lady of Shalott

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

And up and down the people go,

Gazing where the lilies blow

Round an island there below,

The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Thro' the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers,

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle inbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,

Slide the heavy barges trail'd

By slow horses; and unhail'd

The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd

Skimming down to Camelot:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,

The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower'd Camelot:

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers "Tis the fairy

Lady of Shalott."

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

Winding down to Camelot:

There the river eddy whirls,

And there the surly village-churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls,

Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,

Goes by to tower'd Camelot:

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed:

"I am half sick of shadows," said

The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves.

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,

Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars we see

Hung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily

As he rode down to Camelot.

And from his blazon'd baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burn'd like one burning flame together,

As he rode down to Camelot.

And often thro' the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

"Tirra, lirra," by the river

Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his barks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower'd Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance--

With a glassy countenance

Did she look to Camelot.

And at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right--

The leaves upon her falling light--

Thro' the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot:

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.

For ere she reach'd upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they cross'd themselved for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott."

The Lady of Shalott (1842)

Alfred Lord Tennyson

i too, am half-sick of shadows.

high up beautiful

seeing Singapore from high up kinda puts things into perspective. makes me think that Singapore is some kind of beautiful, some kind of special. makes me smile at how beautiful things are from a million miles up in the sky, when you can't see the mundane details that're even ugly. everything is just a mish-mash of colours, all blending into a breathtaking blur of lights and shapes. the boundless landscape stretching over the horizon tugs at my mind's eye, leading me to imagine that maybe i could be boundless too, just as the city before me is. i feel small, yes, but i feel so unfathomably free at the same time.

up, up, up we went, barely noticing the ascent. the only thing that gives away my slow climb upwards is the increasing span of the lit-up city i can see. the ugly, awkward trucks and vans that i initially am faced with gives way to beautiful orange lights crawling across the crisscrossing highways. suddenly from where i am, the details don't matter anymore. everything makes up the big picture that i see, contributing to the snaking trail of lights across the dark landscape, like the gleaming scales of a serpent - each unbearably ugly when you stare closeup, but so beautiful as the patterned skin of the snake. i like tiny pinpricks of light better than when i can see the lamp that spits the light out from its ugly mechanisms. i like it blurred, undetailed, unmessy - just beautiful. things are usually so ugly closeup; the details complicate things, mars the pristine condition of the picture-perfect gloss that almost everything has.

like happy families, they seem like happy families from a distance - loving parents, beautiful, clever children racing on to succeed in life. but when you get too close, get to know each individual member of the loving family too well - you realise that the father is heavily in debt and depressed, the mother is extremely insecure about everything in life and this takes a toll on the family; the older child is too much like her mother and hates herself for that, covering up her insecurities with perceived cleverness and pretty clothes, the younger child wants to do everything but manages to do nothing at all. just a random example, but too many 'perfect' families are like that up close.

things are most usually so much prettier from faraway. details complicate, create a mess. it all make perfect sense, how some writers romanticise life by constantly drawing in the bigger picture of Life After Death, putting on some meaning to life, or writing things in epic scale. then, some writers want to portray the "ugly reality" of life, dragging in sordid details in families, individual angst, day-to-day hardships. to make things beautiful, all you have to do is look at them from faraway, from high up - the details disappear and all you see is a collage of colours. when you get back to ground level, everything becomes indescribably ugly and inane all over again, crowding your mind out.

i like it better from high up. maybe - just maybe - one day, i'll really fly.

say hello to the new term

all of two days in school, and classes both excite and scare me. i don't know how this semester will turn out, and being around people 24/7 IS that huge change in my routine - & i'm uncertain how that will turn out, too. a lot of work to be done, and i'm even looking forward to it, warped as it may sound. i'm running on some spare batteries now i suspect cos clocking an average of 4.5 hours of sleep the last two days has allowed me to keep days chock full to the brim, from early morning at 8 or 9 o'clock, to 11 o'clock at night.

here i am in my own homey room, typing this all in, never wanting to leave again cos it's MY room and i feel so comfortable in it - but knowing i'll have to go back to school tomorrow night and face Thursday morning with a vengance.

tutorial participation will be my new goal this sem - and i will do it even if it kills me.

snap - a lot simpler.

my school term is beginning tomorrow, and i'm so listless. i'm not looking forward to anything, i've somehow been stripped of the anticipation of looking forward to anything. there're not many people who i allow close enough to spoil my mood - and the irony of it all is, they all have. on and on, like a broken tape recorder. you know what they do with broken tape recorders? heck, what i do with such junk? - i do precisely what they're called. i junk them. throw them away.

if only it were that simple, really. you can throw away a broken piece of equipment and that'll be the end of it, but you can't quite do that with someone who keeps talking like a broken electronic device. unfortunately.


and all this about relationships and the people i love, sometimes i just wish i didn't love them all - and things would be snap, a lot simpler.

these three words.

so after ranting on about how i want to just simply believe in what i believe in, i'm faced with the most pressing predicament - i don't even know what i believe in anymore. it's silly, really, to not know what i believe in. there were things that i thought were unchanging, but time and age has taught me that i thought wrong. some other things though, they remain exactly the same, and yet not quite the same. it's irritating how everything in life gradually becomes more & more onion-like as i get older, as i start to see layers on layers on layers.


so what do i believe in?

i believe that we choose to stay in love with that one special person. we could always choose to fall in love with two people, three people, four - as many as we want, and it is perfectly possible for us to love many times over the way we thought love was only reserved for that special someone in life. but choosing to just love that one person is a choice, just as choosing to love all those other people is a choice, too.

i believe that as much as i want to stick to my guns all the time and not compromise what i believe in, the world is such that that is quite simply impossible more often than not - so i learn to keep my beliefs to myself and let the beliefs that others are trying to impose on me slide cleanly over my head.

i believe that forgiveness is a choice, just as love is.

i believe that no one was made stupid - but some people are just simply more aware than others of their own mental capabilities. in that same vein of thought, i'm starting to believe in the possibility of my own limitations, that i may not be as clever as i make myself out to be and i may actually just be well, too-normal.

i believe in prayer. even though my prayer life is, at the present moment, in a horrifying state, i still believe in the power of prayer. which then brings me to the next of my beliefs - i believe in God, in an entity beyond this world beyond me and all the other sentient human beings placed on earth.

i believe in a life-purpose, and i believe that mine is somewhere out there, i just can't quite grasp what it is at the moment.

i believe in the potency of absence. when you want to make a statement, you verbalise it and make it known, to get people to listen. i know it, but i also know that you don't always have to create something for it to be significant. sometimes, the absence of something is equally, if not even more, potent - except that far too many people don't realise it but sense the potency of something not being there, and what do they do? they just create more senseless noise to construct the "source" of the effect - but at the end of the day, that is what their creation is - senseless, and just.. noise.

i believe in happy foods. the power of gastronomically pleasing cuisine is very real, and i'm sadly a sucker for such perk-me-ups. there is something very base about eating something that pleases your taste buds, but at the very fundamental level, it works precisely because it's so primal, this pleasure.

i believe in personal space. when i'm alone spending time with me, i get in touch with my inner self, my soul, and i see far beyond my present - ahead to what's before me, and far behind me. i discover what it is that makes me tick and what it is about me that others like or dislike, and decide what to do with all these discoveries. it doesn't make me a more likeable person, at any rate, but it makes me more self-aware and i think it's tremendously important to know yourself for who you are - warts and all, as a friend used to say.

i believe in love, in how it changes people. i believe that being with people who love you in return for who you are makes you feel good about yourself and makes you a much nicer person because you begin to accept yourself for who you are and stop wearing innumerable masks to cover up. it's immensely powerful, and i'm beginning to feel the effects of being loved for who i am change me from the very bowels of me. some part of me still questions and wonders why, but a large part of me just embraces that and... boy, it feels good.

i believe in so many other things, you have absolutely no idea.





these three words are said too much,
they're not enough.

never break my spirit

fools. narrowminded simpletons. scream scream scream - all you want. would you like to know how it all just flies over my head and nothing you say matters? you can never make me think what you want me to think, never. you can break my body down and reduce me to tears but you will never, never break my spirit. your worldview is so painfully narrow and reductionistic that you have no space for the possibility of anything, but. when things don't fall within that too-simple worldview, you just dismiss the possibility of it even existing. unfortunately, there's me, who has the unfortunate ability of seeing things outside my own goldfish bowl. trapped in your pathetic perspectives, that's what you all are. you lack so much and are so blissfully unaware of it all that it's sad, sometimes, and i pity you. i may cry out of anger and frustration, but that doesn't mean that i've bowed down to what you have said. on the contrary, my resolve to believe in whatever it is is just merely further strengthened. when you push an alleycat to a corner, it inevitably spits, and you ought not be surprised when it does cos you're stupidly, asking for it. i react the way i do because you leave me with no bloody choice. what's the use in it all?

i'm really tired of people who think i should believe in a certain set of beliefs, who think i should act a certain way, do certain things - f*ck it and just bug off. from now on, i do exactly what i want, i will say exactly what i think cos i'm through with trying to be someone i'm not, someone everyone else wants me to be.

love me, love me - say that you love me.

so we all dislike insecurity - i hate it, too. i despise that i'm so insecure about everything, even to the extent of dreaming those irritating, insecure, nonsesical dreams. i wish i could rid myself of it all. what is there to be scared of, really? as you said: irrational. and i know it. i wake up with images of you abandoning me fresh in my mind, and it disturbs me. and yet, why should i even have such dreams? i know i shouldn't, and yet i still have them. which is what frustrates me.

and. i think i've left my mp3 player on the MAS flight back to Singapore from Brisbane. i am veryvery upset about that, and i need to get me a new player soon.


love me, love me, say that you love me.

ARGH

so i think my arguments aren't worth two cents - the bottomline is that you just want to control me. run my life, and have a say in everything i do. it's beginning to become a little ridiculous, this degree of control you want to have in everything i do. i'm starting to wish i were a lot stupider, a lot less ambitious, so that i wouldn't want to do so many things my way. it doesn't make sense how you'd not let me do something if i have a solution to something that's obstructing my way. it's laughable, almost, how stupid it really is. so you wonder why people move out, why people don't stay around: this is precisely why. you're going along the right path, congratulations, you. just keep at it. i'm trying to bear this as gracefully and obediently as i can, but you know, sometimes, i just snap from the sheer unreasonableness. it makes zero sense, and what's more, you can turn around and tell me that i make no sense at all. i don't know whether to laugh or to cry, and what comes out is a cross between the two. you threaten me with all sorts of things, dare me to do things at the expense of something else - what are you trying to teach me? twenty years of life has taught me too much, and one thing i've learnt through it all is to see the logical in the illogical. you, unfortunately, do not have that ability, so i wish i could tell you to zip it and stop telling me i'm the one not making logical sense. if it's not about the money, and not about the time, then what is it about? if you cannot tell me, then all i can conclude is that you just want to micro-manage my life, and that is a very sad conclusion indeed because it's the one that is most ridiculous.

i want to break free.

i <3 home!

so i'm back from Australia, and i'm expected and supposed to blog about my experience. i suppose i will, one day, but i don't quite feel like blogging abt it now. so i'm a bit sick of doing anything at all and i crave some alone time at home, something i haven't had since coming back to Singapore last Monday. i'm not upset about it, i'm just quite tired. it baffles me sometimes how i'm expected to have so much energy to do so much things, being young & uhh nubile. but i just don't! i'm so tired so often. ugh. i've just come home from Hilda's place, & i'm exhausted, frankly. being with people i love makes me happy, but i'm just sapped somehow after it all.

one thing Australia has shown me, though, is that i love home too much. there i was, having all those grandiose dreams of moving abroad and living a glamorous life outside boring Singapore, but now i'm not so sure about that. sure, other countries are exciting. there's summer-autumn-winter-spring - oh yay, so exciting! snow! but being away for those mere two weeks away from my family and the friends dear to me was painful, so difficult, and it almost killed me. especially since i was sick and miserable, which didn't help my homesickness. how am i gonna survive my exchange in Canada, sometimes i wonder. i know for a fact i'd miss home a lot. i know i'd wanna be with the people i love. but i do also know that i'd enjoy myself.

and i know this is totally off-tangent, but you know, whatever. get over it.

AUSTRALIA!!!

Sydney is cold at this time of the night. i was pretty miserable in the freezing cold up until now when i'm feeling a lot better for some reason. i fell sick on the way to Sydney from Melbourne, still am sick one day before i'm supposed to be camping out in the field for the Pope's Mass on Sunday, and i think i will still be sick when i get back to Singapore.

i miss the heat in Singapore, i miss my bed, i miss home.
HOMESICK.

but. i cannot wait to see the Pope, even though it's fricking cold and i'm slowly disappearing into nothingness.


GREETINGS FROM DOWN UNDER PEOPLE!
xoxo.

i am needy.

so i am needy and i need a lot. i am emotional and a weak, silly female. which might make me selfish, self-centred, & uncaring. i am depressed over a lot of things, though i'm not quite sure if i should be, at all. an avalanche of emotions has just washed over me and i have no idea how to chuck it all aside as i usually do. i feel uncared for by the people who mean the most to me, i feel upset over my irrationality and weakness, i am extremely frustrated over the situation that i foresee will unfold in the next 12 days. i need you with me - but that is sadly not possible. this needing is making me feel extremely irritated with myself, which just compounds the bubble of frustration building up inside. i fear i will burst with rage at the smallest irritation tomorrow, since i am in such a horrendous stupendous fury at the present. things that shouldn't matter, unfortunately, irk me like hell - whil things that do really matter seem insignificant and unimportant at the moment, such as my second exchange referral which i have yet to procure. am i just silly, inept, or completely and unfortunately inapropriate?

i don't have enough, i need so much more, and i feel like such an ass for even thinking these thoughts. and because i am already lacking, this self-bashing does nothing to improve my mood; quite the opposite happens, actually, and i feel woefully like screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs - at myself, and a handful of other people whom i unfortunately love too much. which explains this severe outburst of emotion.

what i hate, what i oughtn't.

there are so many things threatening to rob me of whatever last threads of sanity i'm hanging on to right now. too many things that are far too trivial to expend the far too much energy i've wasted on all this thus far. it is ridiculous, i do not want to participate in conversations such as these anymore as they are a complete waste of my too-precious time.

i hate time-wasters, i hate emotional blackmail - there are too many things i hate that i oughtn't. just go on, say whatever you want, but you will realise that this is all a big mistake; and by then, it might well be just too late.

a whole new world

i can show you the world

shining, shimmering, splendid

tell me princess,

now when did you last let your heart decide?

i can open your eyes

take you wonder by wonder

over, sideways, & under

- on a magic carpet ride.

a whole new world;

a new fantastic point of view.

no one to tell us "no" -

or where to go,

or say we're only dreaming.

a whole new world;

a dazzling place i never knew.

but now i'm way up here,

it's crystal clear,

that now i'm in a whole new world with you.

unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings.

soaring, tumbling, free-wheeling,

through an endless diamond sky.

a whole new world;

a hundred thousand things to see.

i'm like a shooting star,

i've come so far, -

i can't go back to where i used to be.

a whole new world;

with new horizons to pursue.

i'll chase them anywhere,

there's time to spare,

let me share this whole new world with you.

what a lovely holiday, there's nothing funny left to say.

i am quite tired. really busy times ahead of me, and i need to be in high spirits to get through it all. i haven't quite shaken off the lethargy, though. helppppp. when i get back on the 21st, i have to settle the remaining exchange stuff, pack for and move into PGP, finish painting the rest of my room - which entails the emptying of my too-full shelves. going up to KL for the Passion conference on the 3rd of August as well, and perhaps perhaps i'm going up with the family to Genting on the 8th of August. my slow, snoozy life has suddenly picked up, and i'm not quite sure what to do about it all! it's during times like these when i wonder whether i'm truly a driven person, or whether i've gotten to where i am simply by chance. just as a leaf is picked up from the floor by the wind and blown thousands of miles from where it fell - it's not that it propelled itself by any extraordinary willpower to thousands of miles away from its starting point - it just happened, and i feel a bit like that now. like some huge wind beyond my control is just blowing me along and all i can do is allow myself to be carried, and see where i end up. it's stupid when you think about it, not grabbing your life with both hands and letting something seemingly bigger than oneself decide for you by some sort of random anarchistic rules.

aaaaaaaah packing is driving me crazy. :(


save me from drowning in the sea
beat me up on the beach
what a lovely holiday,
there's nothing funny left to say.

a public affair

since the last time i've posted, i feel as if a ton of things have happened. suddenly, i find myself in the midst of preparing documents to submit to go for exchange in January next year, fighting administration and their errors, finding out that January 2009 is way too soon for my liking. if everything goes well, the new year will see me in freezing Ontario in the University of Guelph. cold place, not my first choice, but i'll take overseas opportunities with both hands, suddenly. am i that desperate? - sometimes i think to myself. but i've so many reasons to have zero faith in myself anymore that sometimes i think i totally overrate myself.

4th of August will see me moving into PGP with Carol, we're both planning to share a room. i wonder how it'll work out, and yet i think i won't have any choice BUT to make it work cos it looks like i'm gonna have three 10am classes next sem. it could be fun, and yet, it could also be some sort of disastrous. i wonder what it'll be like. some part of me is so reluctant to get ready to move out of my comfy home 5 days a week, though, and live on campus. i remember how reluctant i was to go back to hall the first year every sunday night, how i'd rather stay at home and sleep, and wake up the next day and trudge to school. in principle, that'd be what i prefer. but i know that when i actually have to wake up, i'll grumble and bitch about it as if i was arm-twisted into doing it. which is quite nonsensical, when you think abt it. so i will just cut the crap, and try to stay in PGP. for the sake of my studies, i will try.

even closer to the present - 8th July will see me flying off to Melbourne-Sydney for 12 days for world youth day. i am both looking forward to that, and dreading it, in all honesty. 12 days alone, so far from home and all its comforts - i wonder what those days have in store for me, really. it could be all sorts of wonderful, and yet, it could also be all sorts of dreadful. perhaps really, it's what i make out of it. perhaps. the packing is driving me crazy though. winter, but not enough space to pack enough clothes cos everything's supposed to be able to fit into a bag-pack.

sigh. so much to do! i should be happy, and some part of me is happy at all these things happening! but there's still so much inertia in me that's making me soooooooooo lazy and lethargic, i feel as if i don't have any energy left-over to socialize and keep up with my social circles. ha yes, i know, it sounds so superficial, but i couldn't think of a better way to put that. msn wears me out by the sheer amount of people i have on my list. it's great, keeping in touch with people like that, but every time i venture online and talk to various people, i end the night swearing to myself that i'll never appear online again. it's quite exhausting, and i don't know how people do it on a regular basis! in all honesty, they have my utmost admiration.



all the girls stepping out for a public affair.

merit, worth, and love.

you know, i think i've never grown out of the constant hungry need for the approval of others. especially that of my loved ones, even though i may not seem to outwardly hold their opinion in especial esteem. i thought it was a phase that one could grow out of, a bad habit i'd kick with the passing of time and the passage into adulthood. fool that i am, i think that growing up automatically makes me wiser and less insecure. i have found out today that that is absolutely not true, and i've been happily deluded all this while. i'm sorely insecure about too many things, therefore i need the approval and affirmation of the people close to me. i cling to their approval as if it were a life raft, and i'm beginning to think that the positive opinions of others are more important to me than i previously thought. sometimes, it's all i cling on to to stop myself from freefalling down into an abyss of nothingness, of utter worthlessness. now, perhaps there is something wrong in all of this, this extreme form of self-deprecation that i put myself through. and i know it. i can see how it is so wrong, and yet i just indulge in bouts of insecurity, needing the approval and praise of others - just for that temporary high. that'd make me a junkie in a sense, just chasing that high. living from high to high. then when the high of the approval fades, i start to crashland down to reality and push myself to do well again so that the high of the praise seeps in again. the approval of my parents, the affirmation that my friends give me, the acknowledgement of my own achievements as precisely that - i'm addicted to it. i need it to be okay.

so, lately, i've been feeling like the stupid kid in the house again. i'm not sore, i'm not jealous - far from it. but somehow i can't help feeling like my parents overlook me as a moderately intelligent person, and see me as some sort of unclever and ordinary. too dull compared to my too brilliant sister. and i wouldn't mind it so much, except that i wish it didn't get to me as it does. i thought i'd outgrown comparing, outgrown trying to prove that i'm some sort of brainy, perhaps. and it saddens me that hey, maybe it'll never leave me. it gets to me how stupid i feel when i think about myself in that sense, as if somehow i haven't achieved anything worth mentioning in my academic life in the past 21 years. so maybe the news that i got the double major for literature and communications & new media got lost in the whole whirlwind of whether sister should go to SMU law or not. i mean comparatively, i've achieved nothing, it would seem. it's just a double major, not a double degree. even though i'm carrying the equivalent workload of a double degree student. so maybe law or medicine or life science, even, is easier to remember than "literature and communications". i'd like to think it were so, instead of allowing the thought that maybe they just can't be bothered to pay attention, to remember, to seep into my head. i'm a big girl now, i don't need my parents approval of my school life to make me feel as if i'm actually something. i'm worth something even if it appears otherwise. so maybe i'm not the brainy one in the family, i can deal with that. i am just telling myself incessantly that being smarter does not merit more love. although logically speaking, being smarter would mean that one is worth more in terms of lifetime achievements - and that would hence naturally attract more attention, love, and concern. but nevermind, i will try to keep the silliness at bay. i am upset and have been upset for some time, finding tears trickling down my eyes at inconvenient times of the day whenever i think about all this. but there has to be a better way to deal with this, other than just feeling sorry for myself, and crying utterly useless tears for seemingly no reason.

PRISON BREAK

so, while i watch 10 episodes of Prison Break back-to-back, i've been working on my chicken cross stitch. which, for some reason, makes me happy when i stare at it and trace the patterns that the colours make on the cloth.

my Prison Break marathoning has made my boyfriend a tad mad at me though, and i'm not quite sure what to make of it at the moment. especially since i'm at the time of the month when i wish i were anything but female, being beset by nauseating belly cramps. i am a bit distraught, but find myself unable to do anything else except continue watching my dvds cos there seems to be nothing to say about everything. - i do want to watch, but i do know that i should be more understanding and compromising about everything. and less selfish.

why Prison Break is so interesting to me, i must admit that the Wentworth guy is pretty darn fine. but let's pretend i never said it. omg he just kissed her?!! GASP i am like in. okay. well. what was i saying. i forget. i am watching Prison Break now.

schizophrenia

you know, it just hit me. maybe i'm Lonely.

and Insecure too, to boot.

but then, these don't make sense to my brain at the moment because i should have absolutely no reason in the world to feel alone. insecure - well, yes, maybe lately, especially since i feel like i'm becoming uninspired and drab. but lonely? with a perfect boyfriend, family, and friends? sounds a bit rich, you might think.

slowly but surely, though, some semblence of dark loneliness is creeping into a corner of my increasingly shrinking heart and consciousness. and i don't know why it's so, or how to reverse this alarming happening. as i see myself retreating further inwards, i don't want to do anything to stop it. it feels almost like a spectacle, sort of. where i'm just sitting by the sidelines and watching a sad freakshow. sheer abjection. i see myself being permeated by dark, gloomy thoughts - and all i can do is watch as i become ever more dejected at apparently nothing, for seemingly no reason. perhaps it's some form of quarter-life crisis, if you're the kind who likes to trivialize things. whatever is happening to me, i can only watch it unfold with some sort of detached horror, while secretly, meanly enjoying what's happening to such a picture-perfect sort of life. it's almost as if there're two people in me: one helplessly watching as a pitch-black tidal wave of misery washes over her life and sweeps her away; the other somewhat sneering at the fate of plastic Barbie and her too-perfect world.

and after recklessly typing this avalanche of dark thoughts out into words, all i can do is sit here and scratch my upper lip, as i am increasingly aware of a rather stupid prevailng sense of nonchalance for the inevitable.

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.