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.