Why I dress differently around different people July 10, 2009

I must confess.

I dress differently around different people. Not drastically different, but still different. It’s not that I have different clothes for meeting different people. Rather, I have friends who I feel comfortable wearing anything from my wardrobe around(from nice to shoddy). And there are people who I don’t feel comfortable around and I feel don’t fully accept me, so around them, I usually dress from only the shoddy part of my wardrobe. It’s a weird habit, and I don’t know how I got into it. My logic here is flawed and I know it’s a mass of contradictions, but it works for me.

 

I DO think of dressing as a form of self expression.

And that’s why I dress shoddy around people I don’t feel fully accept me, or who I’m not close enough to. I don’t want them to know how I like to dress to express myself, because I feel like my inner thoughts are being read. I know it’s weird since there’s nothing much to see anyway.

It’s ironic, since when I dress any way I want around close friends and, strangers in the area can still see me so there doesn’t seem to be any point. But I feel vulnerable being around people who KNOW me enough to match my dressing to my personality, yet who I’m not really close to. I feel judged. Around strangers, I could be anyone, ANYONE.

 

I also dress according to mood.

It’s comfort over style. It doesn’t matter who I’m with. If I’m having a really bad day and my self esteem is at an all time low, chances are I’ll go out wearing shorts and a T shirt. And this IS self expression too, isn’t it? It doesn’t express my love for colours or the desire to be different, but it tells others that “I’m feeling lazy today and I don’t want to dress up so you can just shove all the criticisms back up your *ss.”

Because my mood is always largely determined by the weather, and the weather here pretty much sucks all year round, I always don’t feel like putting in the effort to wear anything nice(ok, mostly because the weather doesn’t permit me to wear stuff I’d like to). And then it leads others to think that I don’t care about clothes or the way I dress. BUT OH I DO! Have you any idea how much I LOVE winterwear? Just because I don’t like summer clothes doesn’t mean I don’t care about clothes at all. I just have preferences.

 

AND, people need to know that I’m not a tomboy, but I’m not a girly girl either. I fall in that nice in-between that people often misunderstand.

 

The assumption is that I don’t wear skirts out of school. And this only my aunts have questioned because i always feel others think it’s rude to voice it out so they don’t.

Anyway, that assumption is wrong. I don’t wear them a lot because it’s hard to move around in them, but it doesn’t mean I NEVER wear them. Besides, like I said, there are some people who I don’t feel comfortable wearing certain things around because I feel judged, so if you’ve never seen me in one although you see me a lot, then chances are I don’t feel close enough to you to dress as I want to. Plus I’m not that confident to always wear what I feel like when I want to. There are a whole lot of other factors that will take too long to discuss.

 

And also, I am never going to wear frills, laces or ruffles. I hate them. They itch and I feel that I look like a little girl playing dress up if I ever DO have to wear them. Other 17 year olds might look more elegant and mature with frills or laces, but seriously, it doesn’t work for me. I already look little-girly enough, so why emphasize that?

 

Plus, I was once told that I don’t look like someone who doesn’t like the colour pink. Just because I’m not girly does not mean it’s weird for me to like the colour pink. Pink’s a really pretty colour and it deserves to be loved, not to be known as a bimbotic colour. I’ve got tons of pink shirts because I always wear pink when I don’t know what to wear. I don’t like black or dark blue or gray. The closest dark colours I’ll like are earth tones. PINK SHOULD BE THE NEW BLACK! There should be more products in pink. Yes, this is so Xiaxue, and I don’t agree with everything she says, but THIS IS ONE OF HER CAUSES THAT I WILL STRONGLY SUPPORT.

 

I realise that I’m making myself sound so exclusive and snobby. But it’s just about guarding my privacy. Same reason why I don’t like to play the piano in front of others or write an essay when someone’s looking. I feel like my inner thoughts are being read, and I can’t stand that.

Rant before MYEs ; Sakurajima July 7, 2009

I had no idea, NO IDEA AT ALL, how many Case Studies I was supposed to search for and study until yesterday. So I am now dead because I barely know any indepth ones, and I cannot possibly study 10 more today, in addition to the Lithospheric and Fertility/Mortality/Migration concepts I have not yet learnt. I place more emphasis on learning concepts than examples, although both are probably equally important. Gahh.

 

Anyways, just so I can hit something without being blamed for any damage, I’m typing with as much fervour as I can hoping that it will release some of my pent up anger/frustration/stress/fear. It helps. I don’t know if I’m the only one who types this hard, because my mother always complains about the noise I make on the keyboard. SHe says it’s because I play the piano and I’m used to this amount of strength. But I’m not exactly the loudest piano-player you’ll ever hear. Compared to others, especially guys, I’m quite soft and I don’t bang the keys with as much strength as they do. Although I bang it as loud as I can when its forte.

 

I also have 2 photos of Sakurajima that I found yesterday, during my futile research for a Case Study on it’s volcanic eruptions(causes, effects, strategies and management). Guess what, I found zilch. And I’m usually not a sucker for photos, but well, I really loved these.

 

I love the colours here.

 

And this is so cool. You can can actually see the crater and the sheer SIZE of the volcano. I never knew they were so huge. Yeah, and I call myself a Geography student.

 

-Digress-

Others post photos of themselves having a great time out with friends, or random things that caught their eye, or even photos that depict their current mood. Me? Yeah I post photos of volcanoes. After months of non-photo-posting . Ha.

-Digress-

 

AND!

WARUM MUESSUN WIR PRUEFUNGEN HABEN????

Ich verstehe Mathe nicht.

Ich verstehe GP nicht.

Ich habe noch viel fuer Geographie zu studieren. Und CSE.

 

And don’t mind the German because I’m not even sure if it’s correct. Random german phrases come to my mind sometimes, especially since I’ve been emailing my german exchange buddy.

 And it’s funny how I never type in chinese, hmm? I just can’t be bothered to change the script. And even then I’m not about to let others read my chinese, which is of questionable standard. Although I can asure you, my chinese is definitely better than my german. But I type german here because fewer people who read my blog udnerstand it and they can’t laugh at my inability to string words and phrases together properly.

I love my class July 2, 2009

A glimpse of how frustrated and angry and confused I was two days ago:

 

“Every time I sit down at the table and tell myself that this time, THIS TIME I will conquer the impossible task of understanding what the Geography syllabus requires me to study, I end up more frustrated than ever.

 I just CAN’T seem to do it. It’s so confusing. I have all the information on my hands(more than what I probably need) but I don’t know which fit into the syllabus and which don’t. I don’t know what process or theories are considered ‘key processes’. It’s all so vague.

 

I know I’ve got to be responsible for my own learning and ensuring that I know what I need to do, but fact is, I have no clue what the terms in the syllabus mean. They’re not technical terms, they’re too generic. All the information in this world could fit in the categories stated, especially since I don’t remember learning any of those concepts at all. (Yes I know I’m forgetful, but I FORGET FACTS quickly, I usually remember concepts after I’ve heard them once. And even if I don’t, they should at least sound familiar to me. They don’t.)

 

I’m spending 80% of my revision time figuring out what I need to study for the subject, rather than actually STUDYING for the subject itself. What a waste. And then by then I’ll be so angry and frustrated and disorientated that I can’t concentrate on studying(REAL STUDYING) for my next subject, CSE, which I should say deserves better treatment since it’s taught in a better fashion.”

 

I was really frazzled when I typed that. Not to say it isn’t true.

 

But I just realised how much I LOVE my class. I have awesome classmates and they always make school better for me. It’s motivating to go to school, not to see people studying(like my class last year), but instead to see then just sitting there stoning, then slowly awaken from their half asleep state and begin making jokes with puns and random issues. And then the whole class starts laughing along, and so on. I wouldn’t say I can click with everyone 100%, but I’m happy that at least I feel accepted in class, and that they don’t leave me out or split into exclusive cliques.

 

I still remember how I couldn’t click with my OG mates, and I was so miserable for that entire week, thinking that I would have no friends for my entire JC life. And yet my class changed EVERYTHING. It wasn’t a gradual process too. It was pretty immediate, when I realised that I could relate and be accepted in my class more easily than in my OG. It only took one activity for me to arrive at my conclusion. It was our first class-bonding activity and it was, like most, amazing race style. Instead of being ultra competitive and making everyone rush to places to get the top class award, everyone didn’t mind walking(or strolling) just so we could relax and enjoy the activity more. And I DID enjoy the activity, because I didn’t feel controlled for the first time I participated in a structured game.

 

I think my class is something I have to be thankful for.

 

We probably don’t get along ALL THE TIME, and I’m not eliminating the possibility of class politics(though I’m usually not aware of it anyway). I don’t even know if we’re that bonded. But what matters to me is that I feel accepted, at the very least, and I’m amongst liberal people, who I can probably get along with better than conservative people, even though I may not be THAT liberal. In my previous class, I always felt that I had to suppress my views, unless I was with Angela or Prisia.

 

Also, there isn’t anyone attempting to exert any form of control, dominance or ‘leadership’ on the class. We do have people volunteering to lead certain discussions, but they’re flexible and receptive and open to new ideas. They aren’t the rigid, must-have-discipline ‘leaders’ I encountered so often.

 

So you know what, I realised that there are nice people everywhere. You just have to look for them.

Mid-Year-Exams study woes June 24, 2009

I told myself I’d work hard these holidays, but as usual, I’ve left it to the very last week to start on my studying. Before, I never even TOUCHED my worksheets.

 

I guess I was in come kind of denial phase, telling myself that I deserved at least a week’s break. Then after that, I told myself that I still had so much more time to study, and even if I did then, I wouldn’t be able to remember anything from 3 weeks ago. So I continued with my lazy, procrastinating habits. In truth, I knew that I just didn’t want to face the reality of exams and that I’d have to start mugging my *ss off again. On Monday, I took out my worksheets to try to understand the main idea of what I was studying and get a brief glimpse of the syllabus. And it was then that, I quote HM, I realised the ‘enormity of the emergency at hand’.

 
The concepts and ideas of Geography were easily understandable. The syllabus and the amount of content I am supposed to study was not. I realised that the lcture topics did not follow the sequence of the syllabus, leaving me puzzling over the organisation of the main topic. Tutorials, which I initially thought was to supplement the content we learnt in lectures and hone our answering skills, were in fact teaching us an area of the syllabus that lectures did not cover. And it was then that I realised I never really copied anything down during tutorials because I thought they were just teaching us how to apply the concepts we learnt in lectures to examples and graphs. And that is why I am doomed. It’s not that I don’t comprehend what was taught in tutorials, but that I didn’t take down much of the content, or rather, I didn’t take down properly, adding bits of information to whatever piece of paper was at hand.

 

Also, because the lectures for Lithospheric Processes were taught so fast and so quickly, we didn’t have enough time to copy down all that the lecturer said. I initially thought this was OK, since they record the lectures and post the videos on the Geography website. I figured that I could just rewatch the lectures to grasp the content and pause the videos to copy information down. But when I went to check the site, the videos for the previous topic(where we didn’t need to copy much since all was pritned for us) were uploaded, but not the ones for Lithospheric Processes. So I guess I’m studying incomplete content, but it can’t be helped. I just hope that all the knowledge I’ve retained from secondary school Geography will be helpful.

 

China Studies is also being a huge pain. We were given so much notes, about half of which was information on pre-1978 China that we just need to know for general knowledge, and not study in detail for the exams. Yet sometimes the information overlaps that time period and I’m not sure what to study and what not to. Plus, it’s so difficult to organise the content, even within sub topics, that I’m at a loss on where to start studying and how. I usually compartmentalise the information so that it’s easy for me to study, but we’re not supposed to do that for CSE, since questions can be cross-themed. I’m seriously wondering if I should have taken Literature instead.

 

Before they announced to us that the exams were pushed back by a week(HUZZAH!!!), I was panicking round the clock, and I think the panic’s still here even though I now know that I have more time. For the past 2 hours while I tried to do up my Geography notes, my hand was constantly trembling as I wrote, and I felt that I was driven to write faster by my state of nervosity. In the end, I came here to blog to release my inner stress lest it consumes me.

 

Studying makes me hungry too. I don’t usually get hungry so quickly while lazing around on FB and MSN, but just 3 hours after breakfast, my stomach is usually already grumbling for food, and I keep dreaming of food all day just to satisfy my gluttonous desires.

 

To make myself look on the positive side of things:

 

1. My aunts are possibly taking me out for High Tea soon, on the day that I have my next dental appointment to take off the top braces(I’ve already taken off the bottom braces yay!)

 

2. My german exchange buddy is arriving And in addition to the excitement of hosting, it also means lots of trips around Singapore to bring her around.

 

3. Angela is coming back to Singapore for a short stay on 7th August. And aside from being able to spend hours talking and meeting her again, it also means that we will be having lots of yummy meals with her, since she insists on good food, and also on paying. That sounds like I’m her friend just for the free food. Hmm… But she told us that that was part of the reason why she’s coming back as well, to treat us to food. And I’m happy to oblige, as long as I can get her a present secretly this time without her objecting to it.

Interpreting my dreams June 20, 2009

Today, I was chatting online with SM, and the conversation jumped from one topic to another,  eventually leading to us discussing my dreams. That is, the dreams I’ve been having so frequently ever since church camp. And I normally don’t dream a lot. I’ll copy and paste the conversation since it’s more interesting than me ranting on and on about them yet not hitting the point.

 

*** Chocolate Pudding = me

*** shen mei = SM, obviously

  

Chocolate Pudding says:

ive been dreaming a lot these days

like almost every night

its weird

shen mei says:

wow

i hardly have dreams

at all

Chocolate Pudding says:

i hardly HAD dreams

just that ive been dreaming a lot these days

i wonder what that means

shen mei says:

means your mind is in a very free state

Chocolate Pudding says:

is it

my dreams are weird though

its like

its always in some funny race

not a marathon race

Chocolate Pudding says:

but like, amazing race kind of race

and its always in some place i duno

and with random people in my life

who are not necessarily related in any way

and then

i never know what im racing for

or where my destination is

i just know i have to keep on moving

and my vision seems to be permanently blurred

like, i can never see things clearly

but i can see enough to know the type of place I’m in

and then i wake up

they’re weird la

but they’re not scary

what does that mean!!!

shen mei says:

it means

you feel that life is like a race

a rat race.

something you are trapped in therefore you keep dreaming about it

you will keep dreaming until the day comes where you win the race ._.

Chocolate Pudding says:

wow

shen mei says:

lol the last part was nonsense paiseh

Chocolate Pudding says:

how do you know stuff like that

shen mei says:

well my theory

._.

Chocolate Pudding says:

ohh

shen mei says:

HAHA

Chocolate Pudding says:

 HAHA

 

 (I included the HAHA because I thought it looked cool XD)

That was about the more general idea about my dreams. And I’ve come to realise that it’s quite true. The places may be different, the people may have changed, but the main idea is that I’m always in a hurry, rushing for something, trying to find something, although I don’t know what it is. Does that mean I’m too caught up in my own busy life that I don’t have time for myself? Or does it just mean that I’m confused about the future and I don’t even know what I want? Because both of those assumptions are certainly true.

 

Another dream we discussed. A lighter topic.

 

Chocolate Pudding says:

i dreamt that i was playing the flute once and i couldnt get it right.

like, not blow right, but i didnt have a score

and i had to guess the notes we were playing

shen mei says:

hahahaha!

Chocolate Pudding says:

and the conductor was yelling at me

how do you explain the flute dream?

shen mei says:

very simple.

shen mei says:

you’ve had duet with me and talked to me often

you are fascinated by the flute!

Chocolate Pudding says:

I AM!

shen mei says:

you wish to learn a new instrument also

Chocolate Pudding says:

well thats true

yes it is

shen mei says:

that’s why you dream of yourself playing another instrument

and not the piano

Chocolate Pudding says:

but how do you explain the lack of a music score?

and the conductor yelling at me?

and me having to guess my notes?

shen mei says:

because you haven’t seen a proper flute score

when i went to your house

it was all in my notebook

in ABC

shen mei says:

and

you have inferiority complex

from your piano duet

you keep feeling that you’re not good enough

that’s why it manifests as scoldings from your conductor in your dreams

 

And if you’re wondering, the conversation didn’t progress as smoothly as THAT. It was hindered by SM’s occasional DCs and us having to copy and paste stuff we typed that the other person didn’t receive. I also corrected typos, but I didn’t change the language, or any of the content. I just made it less confusing to read, since my MSN conversations can be quite complicated due to my sudden introductions of random phrases that are not related to what we’re talking about.

 

And it’s true that I want to learn a new instrument, and also that I find the sound of the flute so so beautiful.

My newfound love for the Iceberg Lettuce June 14, 2009

I have a new favourite food.

(Story of my life)

 

It’s called the Iceberg Lettuce. And it’s the only kind of lettuce that I like in my salad. Well, it’s the only lettuce present in my salad because it’s the only lettuce I like. Add a few cherry tomatoes and some dollops of thousand island sauce, and that’s enough for my dinner.

 

And yes I do know that salad sauce is unhealthy, I don’t spoon it in thick glops and smear it over every single leaf. I don’t believe that I use it excessively. I HOPE I don’t. Besides, if you ate wanton mee, there’d be sauce too and I’m not having anything else for dinner but salad. The salad isn’t my appetizer, it’s my main course. Well, it’s my one and ONLY course.

 

So THIS is Iceberg Lettuce

which I made my mum buy for me today at the supermarket. And which I also had for dinner.

 

And THIS is the more expensive Romaine Lettuce

which I hate but my family loves.

 

Why do I hate it? Because I HATE vegetable stalks. I love the leaves, but I’ve always left my stalks untouched. The Iceberg lettuce’s stalk that is barely noticeable(I didn’t even realise that I was eating a stalk) and look at the one of the Romaine’s. Its HUGE, thick, and stretches all the way up. Not to mention that the Romaine lettuce leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth that I don’t like. And it’s also a bit too leafy for my liking. My mum used to have to force me to finish just one leaf.

 

And this is where I can’t understand myself. See, I like the Iceberg lettuce for its crispiness, because that’s what it’s known for. Yet I can’t stand the stalk of the Romaine lettuce even though it’s the most crispy part of the leaf. I think my main problem with stalks is not because they’re crispy, but because they’re so THICK to bite into. Sometimes I have trouble biting bits of the stalk off because it’s tough, and unwilling to separate from it’s stalk-y counterparts. Plus, they taste odd.

Go ahead and argue, I know I can’t appreciate vegetables.

 

Please also note that I don’t eat lettuce for it’s flavour. If I did, I wouldn’t be eating any kind of lettuce at all. I don’t like the taste of lettuce in general and that’s also one of the reasons why I love the Iceberg Lettuce so much. Because it doesn’t have much flavour. It’s plain and fresh and simple. That’s how I like my lettuce. And that’s why I’m going to eat salad more often. It’s easy to prepare and healthy(well, not completely since there’s the inclusion of salad sauce, but I try to use as little as possible) and it’s a great alternative to say, porridge with canned food.

 

Also, eating vegetables is more environmentally friendly than eating meat and so I’m trying to cut down on my intake of meat(even though I don’t think I actually eat a lot of meat in the first place).

 

PS. This sudden love for the Iceberg lettuce started in church camp when I was looking for something light to eat for lunch. There was salad and I thought I’d give it a try. Even though I’m not a salad person.

Heat or noise? June 5, 2009

I’m supposed to be practising my pieces for my piano lesson later, but I’m in no mood to even sit at the piano.

 

It’s hot and humid out, with hardly any wind. Whenever I just sit there, I can already feel the beads of sweat forming on my back, squeezing out of my pores. And that’s BEFORE I start to practise. Practising takes effort though, so I’ll probably sweat bucketfuls just after half an hour.

 

That wouldn’t be so bad if it was quiet and serene, but the construction site next door is just driving me crazy. They’ve been drilling for DAYS. Past work hours(because there was this period of time when they did nothing for months, so I suppose they have to make up for it now). It is so noisy and the drill-drill-drilling is getting on my nerves. Its so loud that I can hardly hear the notes I’m playing properly, and I can’t practise without silence. Noise is just too distracting for me.

 

The only solution would be to shut the door and close all windows. But that would mean that I’d have to put up with even MORE heat, and the sound of drilling would still be present then, just softer. Both heat and noise are really pissing me off.

 

And know what’s worse? I’m just recovering from the flu. My nose is still dripping like a broken faucet, the dripping further sped up by me tilting my head down whenever I play the piano to check my notes and my throat is constantly irritated by the presence of whatever small amount of phlegm is left.

 

I wish the piano was more portable, like the flute or violin or guitar. Then I could move it into the bedroom where it is so much cooler to practise.

 

Please don’t tell me that the twinge I just felt is the beginning of a headache.

Reasons to hate the GC May 25, 2009

I HATE the GC.

I don’t even know how to use it properly, much less plot a proper graph. Yeah sure, instructions are so helpful. If you suck at getting used to new electronic equipment, completely FAIL at understanding the relevance of graphs in mathematics and hate the GC like I do, then join the club.

 

This is the one I’m using, except mine’s the light blue version.

 

Why I hate the GC and think that its so unnecesary:

 

1. It’s so expensive.

 

2. It’s so heavy. SO much heavier than the good ‘ol scientific calculator(I miss those times).

 

3. It’s completely not user friendly at all. But then again I fail in this area so you may want to take this with a pinch of salt.

 

4. What exam are we taking? THE A LEVELS. My cousin took the A Levels 7 years ago with a SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR and did PERFECTLY FINE.

 

5. We paid so much for it and all the functions we need aren’t even inside. We still have to install our own applications into the computer and transfer it inside.

 

6. You can play games on it.

Games in a GC = distracting = students playing with it during lectures = not paying attention

 

7. THe instructions aren’t clear. I would have no idea what they meant if I read it myself.

 

8. The instructions don’t always correspond to what you see in the GC. I tried to plot a graph and it always ended up higher/lower then the screen I’m supposed to get, if not its magnified/diminished.

 

9. The buttons for the NUMBERS are so puny. They’re NUMBERS for goodness sake! They should be the most important part of the calculator yet its almost the same size as all the other buttons. You need to make them bigger because SOME PEOPLE have deft fingers.

 

10. We have to get used to the new functions and new way of computing our numbers into the calculator, yet we don’t have any time to have a good idea of its basic functions. We jump straight into the nitty gritty where we use complicated applications to plot graphs pressing numerous buttons just to reach a certain window. I was left so confused that I paid more attention to learning how to use the GC than learning the concepts of the chapter. Do you think my mind can handle it? NO IT CAN’T.

 

 

But I guess you can argue that I am just incompetent and technically challenged(is that the term?), but I’m not changing my stand. I want the scientific calculator back.

 

 

Last but not least…

11. The battery life is pathetic. I don’t even do much math homeworkthis year(way less than secondary school) yet my GC battery only lasted me at most 3 and a half months and died on me last night. The battery life of the scientific calculator I used so regularly for secondary school lasted 3 years!

What I know, and what I’m still searching for. May 22, 2009

It’s a hot, hot day. Not exactly good weather for us tropical-island types here.

Why am I here?

It seems that nowadays, I’m blogging out of boredom rather than for fun, though I need to type something to kick start my inspiration.

 

The past few days have been odd. Waves of mild anxiety, then calm, then bouts of worrying for nothing, or things that I don’t know why I’m even caring about.

 

Worry is a funny thing. It’s like a bit like a drug, minus the side effects and temorary euphoria. It’s toxic, but it’s also addictive. The more I worry the more you depend on it, even though I don’t want to have it. Yet once I try being without it after I’ve had it for a long time, I feel so insecure that my mind is free of anxiety that I push it back in so I can have something there. I feel so empty, so void of emotions when I’m not constantly thinking about something, about how that something would turn out, or how I would react or behave in a certain situation. Those thoughts slowly become a part of me, and once I stop, it feels like I’m removing part of myself too.

 

The worry isn’t bad, really. It’s not even anxiety, it’s not REAL worry, where it takes over your life and you lose 10 pounds because you’re so caught up in it. It’s just something at the back of your mind, something you’ve thought about so much that it becomes so deeply entrenched, like a habit. It’s annoying, but it also provides some base for that sense of security that I largely lack.

 

I wonder why I said that earlier. Said that I felt that worry was part of my identity. There must have been some truth in it, or I wouldn’t have thought of it in the first place. And it’s funny really, because I never used to worry. I just feel that I don’t belong to myself anymore. I’ve got so many commitments and I feel pulled in all directions, but its not like I was never willing to allow it to happen, because I was. I just miss the times when I was able to have an entire afternoon all to myself, without having to try to remember what I need to do, where I need to go for whatever activity or class. I miss the freedom I had over my life, when ironically, I’m actually having more freedom on campus than I used to.

 

Yet it might be because I don’t feel like I’m myself that I may be forcing myself to worry. I realise that all this is coming from my past experiences, things I used to worry about that don’t seem worth worrying over now. Yet it just feels odd when I don’t feel worried about something that I may have been dreadfully worried about a year ago. But because this not worrying over something I used to worry over is so foreign to me, I may just be trying to convince myself that I’m still worried over these things, I’m still me. It’s quite scary when something I was afraid of the years before suddenly seems insignificant, and I’m not sure if this is because the memory of past years are fading, or because I’m really changing. It makes me feel insecure somehow.

 

I’m still as confused. And I feel very trapped, because there’s no way I can get out of this rut except to wait and hope that time will mould me into someone I can be confident being, someone I’m sure I am.

 

I think its pretty obvious from the top few paragraphs that as much as I try to understand myself, and how I’m behaving, or feeling, I’m still pretty confused. The only thing I can be sure of, more than anything, is that I still need freedom to stay sane. It’s not that I want to do anything crazy(though sometimes I do) or taboo. I just need to know that I can keep my options open in case I want to change my mind. I’m indecisive. I need choices. 

 

It’s like at a camp bent on enforcing discipline through regimentation, where they confiscate all your personal belongings. Wallets, handphones, mp3s… I cried because when I was homesick and wanted to call home, I had no way of doing so sicne my phone was confiscated. But at another camp where I was allowed freedom to use my phone as and when I liked, I realised that I didn’t need to call home at all(since I wasn’t homesick) because I had the option and choice of using it if I wanted to. So its not about what I NEED to do or have, but rather, whether I’m ALLOWED the choice of doing or having it, even if I don’t need to do or have it.

 

Ann Brashares wrote about this in one of her ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ books, though I can’t remember the exact sentence since I recall concepts more easily than the words themselves.

As long as I have resources, my needs are small.

I fell down again May 10, 2009

|Music| ‘Teenager’ – Camera Obscura

 

I never pegged myself as the accident prone type, but it seems that I am. And if you do not know already, which you probably don’t, then I shall tell you now.

 

I FELL DOWN AGAIN.

 

And guess what? This time it wasn’t on a road. This time I wasn’t alone. This time I really have nothing to blame for my fall except for my clumsiness and carelessness.

The only similarity is the part of my body that hit the floor the hardest.

And yes, I am trying to say that I fell down on that same knee, at the very same SPOT of my large scabby wound.

 

Let me start from the beginning.

 

I had a PW Project Meeting at the Starbucks in Marina Square. I couldn’t find the place, so I called my group leader and she guided me there. When I was about 10 metres away fromt he Starbucks, my other group member waved at me to grab my attention because I was trying to find out which table they were sitting at. I saw her, and so I headed to their table in what seemed like the shortest possible route. And just as I was approaching their table, I tripped on the smooth, even, carpeted floor and fell flat on the ground. And as luck would have had it, most of the impact went to my left knee, which was already injured.

 

And yes, it was embarassing. I fell with a mighty THUMP, nobody could have not heard it. I could feel all the eyes boring into me as I limped my way to the table, but it hurt so much that I really didn’t care. I thought I didn’t do any damage to my wound, but I was wrong Wrong WRONG. When I lifted up my pants, I found out that the entire scab(3-4cm in diameter) had completely slid off and was dangling on a thin flap of dead skin. What remained was raw, bloody flesh that formed an ugly, gaping hole on my knee. And again I went through the process of dabbing at my wound with tissue till my mother(whom I called) bought a plaster big enough for the wound for me.

 

And I thought it didn’t hurt that much, but it hurts a lot. When I tried to wash my wound just now, it hurt even more than antiseptic, so now I don’t dare to apply antiseptic onto the wound even though I should. I think I’ll leave it to tomorrow and see how the pain is. I have a very low pain tolerance and even though I did state that I like grazes, I only like the mild soreness of it as it heals, not the stinging pain of antiseptic on my wound. I’m not masochistic, it’s the same reason why people like massages, just that they don’t realise that there’s a tiny bit of relaxing “pain” in wound as well.

 

All I can say is, I hope I don’t fall down again. It’s getting tiresome and I’m sick of hobbling around although I’ll miss the feeling of being injured. I don’t get injuries often so I try to truly appreciate the experience of having one when I do.

The knee graze – When, why and how. May 7, 2009

This is the long/short(I don’t know, I’ll see where this takes me when I get there) story of how I fell down and grazed my knee. Like it? Lump it? You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

 

It happened on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon to be precise. My teacher had just cancelled our CSE tutorial so I left school for home an hour earlier than usual. It was blazing hot, with no wind and the humidity that makes the air feel like syrup(I got this ’syrup’ description from Anthony Horowitz). To top it off, the sun was shining high in the sky, having no intention of setting, because it was only about 3pm, and I could barely see 5 feet in front of me since it was so glaring. All I wanted to do was to get home as soon as I could and have a nice cold shower.

 

So while I was walking as fast as I could with my head ducked down, I suddenly tripped, tried to balance myself, failed and came crashing down onto the dirty gravel road on my left knee. Why so? Because:

 

1. I was day dreaming as usual, paying no attention to what I was doing(walking). I have this tendency when I’m in a cirumstance I don’t like or don’t wish to be in, like a sort of escape.

2. I was walking on the path, which is meant for PEOPLE to WALK on. The width of the path isn’t that wide, and there was also a dustbin on it, belonging to the house the path is in front of. I didn’t have any space to walk on, so I guess I tripped on the curb/edge of the path. My mother always tells me to walk on the road instead since there are hardly any cars around(and I can see if they’er coming my way anyway), but knowing my own day dreaming tendencies, I feel kind of insecure walking on it because I just KNOW that its just a matter of time before I get knocked down.

3. While I tripped, I actually DID try to hold onto the railings at the side of the path for support. But guess what? THE DUSTBIN blocked me from doing so! So I had no support.

 

End result: A very dirty, bloody, swoolen graze on the bottom of my left knee.

Oh, and a lot of pain.

 

I hobbled home on my bloodied knee(thank goodness home was only 2 minutes away) and showered, also taking time to bathe my wound with cold water(I always like to use cold water). Alas, some the dirt and grit from the gravel road still remained and because I couldn’t bear seeing my own raw flesh tainted with bits of grey and black who-knows-what, I took a tweezer and tried to pick them out, or the larger ones anyway. I did that for about 20 minutes before I gave up and started dabbing the graze with tissue paper, partly to absorb the blood, partly because some of the tiny bits of dirt also came off with on the tissue.

 

Then I was at a loss. I didn’t know which ointment to use. Do I use Dettol Antiseptic? Or the Chinese ointment? Or Zambuk? All are for wounds. I called my mother and she told me to use the antiseptic, so use it I did, with some gauze. But since I didn’t know that you couldn’t put gauze on these sort of wounds because when you take them off later, it’ll stick to the graze, I had to suffer with that pain too, and blood still seeped out onto the top layer of the gauze anyway(but not in the exaggerated manner some people might think).

 

The next day, my mother dressed my wound for me, since its difficult to do it myself. I thought that the dressing could survive the entire day(and I had a long day too, till 8.30pm), I didn’t think much of it till pus started to drip out of it(YES, OUT OF THE PLASTIC DRESSING) during German class. I looked down and it was positively bulging with the yellow sticky substance. And because I was afraid that it would continue to drip out while I was walking home later, I took a piece of tissue paper and tried to push as much pus out of the dressing as I could, absorbing it with the tissue(which, might I add, had turned very gross). It was the most disgusting thing ever and I never anticipated it, because I don’t remember dealing with pus for all my previous wounds(last one was 5 years ago). Ugh.

 

When I eventually took the plastic+gauze(the type that won’t stick) dressing off at home, my knee started to hurt even more terribly than the day before and I was stuck in a position where my knee only felt fine when my leg was in a 90 degree angle, so I couldn’t stretch my leg nor bend it too much. It was agony. I was still moaning when I went to bed.

 

Today has been better, but now that the bandaid is off again, it’s starting to hurt and feel stiff like it was yesterday. I peered at it more closely earlier, and realised, random as this sounds, that it looks like the cross section of a CHinese sausage, or alternatively, salami. It’s odd to think of my flesh as meat, but that’s what it is, isn’t it?

 

Also, I have my 2.4km run tomorrow and I don’t know if I should do it or not.

Help me.

 

***Oh no, I realised that the wound has hardened again now its exposed to air without dressing, and it hardened while my leg was stretched. Now when I try to bend my leg, it really hurts, like I’m tearing my skin apart. And it’s true. I’ve even got white “stretch marks” on my WOUND to prove it. And all along I thought it was stray cotton wool from yesterday and I kept trying to remove it. No wonder it hurt, its SKIN.

After 2 weeks May 1, 2009

I haven’t blogged in about 2 weeks. And strange thing was, I never noticed the absence of typing out my frustrations. I must really be changing.

 

It’s not that nothing happened, or nothing significant happened. On the contrary, there was quite a huge piece of good news(just that I’d rather not put it up here because like I said, I don’t like to have others’ expectations weighing down on me) but I just didn’t want to plague my blog entry with mundane rants about school life again and thought that if the only thing I could type about was that, I’d rather not type anything. I haven’t abandoned my blog though. I’ve been constantly checking for comments, and there have been quite a few Russian comments that I had to put in an online translator, even though I don’t know where they all came from.

 

Well, I think I’ve been confused more than anything these past few weeks. I don’t quite know where I’m headed in life, what I really want to be, even what I’m feeling. I don’t feel like I’m in the mood for anything I had the motivation to do last year. My interests haven’t changed, but my attitude sure has. I’m no sure if its more “’slack-ish”, or just that familiar phase of calm before the storm I always got in secondary school, but sometimes I think so much about it and can’t seem to reach a conclusion so I give up evaluating my own life altogether and do something else. And then I try to do it again hoping that I can get whatever answers I want from myself, it never works. I just wish I had the answers to all my questions, but I don’t think anyone ever really does. I just have to take what life gives me and cope with it the best I can.

 

I’ve also been listening to music a bit more these days. I can’t really pipoint the reason why, but I reckon it’s because it has the ability to make me feel like my old self and bring me back to moments in the past that I miss. Yet while I’ve been listening to music on YouTube more and more, I’ve been listening to songs on my mp3 less and less. I think half of my playlist is on YouTube now because I can’t seem to find the albums that I like in any CD stores since some are quite obscure, and I wouldn’t dare to download them. None of my friends have the songs I like, not that I’d expect them to because everyone has different tastes, and it makes me feel insecure somehow, to not have all the songs I like all in my mp3, ready for listening when I feel like it. Here are songs from all the bands partly so I can keep track of them and also if you have their albums you can lend them to me:

 

-Wir sind Helden

-Kaizers Orchestra

-Streetlight Manifesto

-Camera Obscura

-Daft Punk

 

Also I really think I need to start keeping a deutsche Tagebuch, because my vocabulary is so limited and I might begin by learning all the words that begin with ver-, ent-, er-, be-, and ge-. I get easily confused with these words since they all have the same beginnings and most times they have no resemblence to words with the same meaning in English. I feel that I should start treating this more seriously now since it’s not an extra subject but my core subject and I cannot flunk any more tests because money is at stake here.

 

I’ll end off with a song I really like.

‘Labyrinth’ – Wir sind Helden

Don’t ask me to organise because I can’t April 18, 2009

They gave out EXCO forms the other day, and I didn’t take any.

I think it looked quite odd to everyone, since most of them had an intention to run for a leadership position. It did cross my mind once, to run for EXCO, but after meeting the people, I didn’t feel that I could communicate with them well enough to lead them. It’s not that they hate me or that I hate them. It’s just a personality gap that I feel around people who I cannot click with becuse I don’t believe that effort is needed to maintain a true friendship or collective spirit. It’s not that I don’t put in any effort to get along with others, because I do. But that’s where it ends as far as I’m concerned. It’s harder to go any deeper than that because there isnt any real mutual understanding, only mutual respect.

 

When I told my classmate that, she asked me why I didn’t even bother trying to run for it. I told her I had no rapport whatsoever with the people and even though I got along with them I don’t fit in, which is true. She asked me how I knew even before I started. And I told her again, its based on instinct, a gut feeling, and I trust my instincts a lot, because whenever I didn’t and tried to follow the crowd, I usually ended up unhappy.

 

Now, I’m not trying to portray her as demanding and insensitive. She just doesn’t seem to be the intuitive kind, that I know, because her organiser is so freaking neat and intricately decorated with stickers and coloured notings. I can’t imagine myself living like that, probably like how she can’t imagine herself living like me without anything to organise.  She once told me that to do something she needs to write it down or she can’t do it.

Me? I don’t even OWN an organiser.

 

Speaking of organisation, I’m proud to say that I flunked my very first GP essay, as expected. 24/50. Not a very GOOD flunk, but a flunk all the same. I’m not really disappointed because firstly as I’ve mentioned millions of times before, I’m expecting it. And secondly, I don’t like GP, so I didn’t put a lot of effort into it in the first place. Also, I also did tell my teacher that too mcuh structure disrupts my train of thought(which is true) but he said I’d just have to get used to it, so I hope that justifies my stand that I suck at GP. OK, and I also did pick the hardest topic to write on, which wasn’t my fault, because I’m so new to argumentative essays that I can’t tell which questions are tricky and whcih aren’t. I usually go with essays that I have a good feeling about, but now that they’re all argumentative and non-reflective, I don’t have a good feeling about ALL of them, so I just randomly pick one.

 

According to my tutor, my organisation and planning sucks(He didn’t say that per se, but it pretty much had that meaning) even though I honestly DID try my best to structure it. Plus, he could tell that I came up with the points as I went along because I don’t think of the things before I DO them. I think of them as I go along and slowly build on them. I guess that was obvious, because he said that my points were screwed up and all over the place, showing that I came up with points as I wrote instead of thinking of them beforehand.

 

I’m going to start treating GP as a humanities subject now, instead of thinking of it as a higher level of English. That way, I won’t keep thinking about how my English has to sound good and powerful and can just focus on my points. Weird thing is, once I ignore my tone in writing and concentrate on elaborating on the points, the tone comes out more convincing that if I had tried to write it while thinking about it concurrently.

Birthday List 2009 April 9, 2009

|Music| ‘Lunar Sea’ – Camera Obscura

 

I’m 17! Gosh, that sounds so old. I never thought I’d hit my twenties when I was younger, but now that I’m 17… I realised that I’m close to 20 than I am to 10. *groans* No! Childhood! Please come back! In any case, I don’t feel any older, though I feel different this year, being in a new environment for school.

My birthday, like ALL my other birthdays, was pretty low key. It’s not that no one knew about it, but I don’t like large, wild parties, so I’ve never had one, a huge one anyway. 7th of April so happened to fall on a Tuesday in year 2009, the day when lessons end latest, so that was quite a bummer. I also had to stay back for some CCA thing that I won’t mention and it probably stretched way into the night, but because I’m a firm believer in not letting school rule my life, I went home at 6. Dinner cheered me up quite a bit though, because my mother bought 2 of my favourite foods AND a small cake.

 

I also feel very very blessed because I received tons of Happy Birthday SMSes, plus Happy Birthday wishes on Facebook. I never thought anyone really remembered, partly because I’m not good at remembering others’ birthdays myself!

 Also, I didn’t have a birthday list last year and I feel like having one this year, so here goes.

 

1. Book vouchers

 

2. River Island vouchers

 

3. A meal at an authentic Northern Indian restaurant

 

4. A guitar(Acoustic? I like the sound of it)

 

5. ‘Wir sind Helden’ CDs

 

6. A backpack(beige in colour, preferably! Something simple but unique)

 

7. A brown rustic messenger bag

 

8. A brown/white/beige trenchcoat, NON PUFFY (I know I won’t use it in Singapore, but I LOVE winter wear)

 

9. Ear muffs(cute ones) with a wooly snow cap(with the puff ball at the end) to match

 

10. Calf length snow boots with a thick sole and 2 furry balls danging off each boot (It’s not practical, but they’re so cool. I would wear them if I COULD)

 

11. The weather to permit me to wear all these and layer clothes. Who said that summery weather allowed you to wear anything you wanted? That’s crap!

 

12. A hairdryer with a ‘cold wind’ option and the flat, long mouth.

 

13. A comb! A good one too.

 

14. A free day with no commitments

 

15. An hour long hair wash or head massage. It feels SO GOOD when someone is rubbing your head for you. It’s a little painful at times, but the pain is kind of liberating. That’s why I always get my hair washed when I cut my hair at the hairdresser’s.

 

I know I probably won’t get anything up there. That’s why I always buy presents for myself. In some ways its quite fulfilling and it’s great since you get what you want. But there’s no element of surprise. All I can say is, I seem to be getting lesser presents as I grow older.

 

I’m also listening to Camera Obscura right now because I don’t know where to discover new bands/artists so I’m listening to a band with a relatively unique style amongst all the other ‘indie’ bands(though this is quite a broad genre). It’s hard to describe their style. They give off an oldish feel that I can always sense in their songs, but somehow I still can’t quite imagine it in the ‘old’ times. Some of their songs match that feeling I get when I’m in a really dreamy mood and don’t feel like myself. When I feel like escaping into a timeless dimension of an alternate universe where things are the same but look different and the nostalgia is overwhelming. They’er the kind of songs I’d like to have whenI’m all quiet in a room with nothing to do because when I’m listening to it while doing something else, I can’t really appreciate it in its true form since it’s intensity is diluted by whatever I’m doing. But when I’m listening to it and ONLY it, I realise that even if its a really quiet song with only vocals and light strumming, its still silently moving.

 

As Owen Armstrong from ‘Just Listen’ said, “Silence is so freaking loud”.

I couldn’t agree more.

I’m sick and I need a piece of paper to prove it April 1, 2009

Is it going to be like that for the rest of the year? For us to have peak periods and weeks of pure nothingness, times when we get 4 essays at one go then no homework for another week or two. The JC workload is strange, I never expected anythign like it.

 

I never really got homework for humanities subjects in secondary school so I never really expected any now. But I guess I shouldn’t have been so sure. Geography is manageable, CSE is getting busier and I’m missing tons of work for German(its all over the place), mathematics is just @*&#%@*$^#(I go into lectures and come out even more confused so I stopped paying attention).

 

It’s not so much of a HEAVY workload. I would say its about the same as secondary school. The only difference is that school ends so much later now, and when I get home I’m too exhausted to even take out the question paper. I guess there’s time in school in between lessons for work, but I can never concentrate in school. Never. There’re just too many people around and strange as it might be, I kind of distract myself from my work every few minutes, even in the library. I don’t like pure silence, neither do I like screams of students. Nowhere in any school is conducive for me. Home is best.

 

I’m quite pissed today because I kept sniffing and snivelling due to my brother’s unwillingness to cover his mouth when he sneezes(seriously), thus spreading the germs to me. It was SO HARD to concentrate when my nose irritated me every few seconds. Plus, I kept yawning, making my eyes tear up, which was annoying as well. The weather was as hot and humid as ever, I had a tiny fish bone stuck in my throat from yesterday’s lunch(and it shouldnt have had BONES) that I already gave up trying to swallow and NO ONE is replying my SMSes whcih is really pissing me off.

 

Now, I can’t even take flu medication because it makes me sleepy and I need to rush a CSE essay. Health over anything else? Thats bullshit. Try telling your PE teacher that you’re not feeling well without a medical certificate. Even if you’re dying they won’t believe you unless you’ve got proof printed in black and white. What do I need the damn proof for anyway? Why must we have freaking proofs for everything? What’s wrong with accepting that girls get cramps every month for reasons that everyone knows but don’t like to mention? Will it kill you to let them skip one period of PE? Oh, it can’t be that bad? I’d like you see you in their shoes, you sporty people have no right to comment on our fitness, none at all. It’s like telling a rich spoilt brat to empathize with a beggar. They simply cannot do it. Can’t you just TELL from my snivelling and my pocket full of sodden tissues that I really DO have a runny nose? Oh, I have to go for PE because I don’t have an MC? Well I tried that before and I went home with a raging fever. Take your bloody pick.

 

And what am I doing here when I have an urgent essay to rush? I need to destress, I need to get everything out of my mind before I can start ona clean slate again. If I don’t, I’m just going to vent my frustrations on everyone and I feel bad when I do that because I don’t really mean it.

 

Bottomline? I’m pissed that when I have the time I don’t have the environment for me to do work well and when I have the environment I don’t have the energy to.

You win some, you lose some. March 20, 2009

I’ve been so busy lately, I don’t even have time for myself. I used to be able to spend hours just gazing into blank space day dreaming about endless future possibilities or just introspecting to clear my mind. Now, I’d be lucky just to have time to do tutorials(not that I get a lot, thank goodness for Arts). Most of my blog posts come from those used-to-be frequent reflections and I think its obvious that I’m not blogging as much as I used to, so this is the reason.

 

I guess I have a lot of time on my way to school, in between classes and on my way home, but my eyes are barely open at 6.30am in the morning, and its not like I’m in the mood for day dreaming when I’m constantly being shoved by others and made to ”move in!” by the stream of commuters coming in and going out. And while I have loads of free time in between certain classes, my mind is occupied by school, what I’m going to have for lunch and what I need to do for the next tutorials. Plus, its too noisy and I don’t exactly get to be alone. When Im coming home from school, I’m too tired to even think about anything, to even look at anything. Bus rides home from school are the only times I can get a seat on the upper deck of Bus 31, where I can sleep sleep sleep till I reach home. Strangely enough, I have never missed a stop, I always wake up a few stops before I reach home. I guess its my subconcious.

 

I’ve also realized that there seem to be a never ending amoung of commitments I have, from project meetings to interviews to random events. Things seem to especially busy these two weeks. I’ve had to change time slots with people, re arrange meetings and all while constantly reminding myself of all the thing I have to attend. It’s especially hard since I don’t have an organizer(of any sort), not that I’d make good use of one if I had one anyway. I can’t seem to devote bits of my time each day to dutifully fill in the to-do lists and homework lists and usually it only lasts me a term. After that, I don’t use it. Plus, I don’t like relying on something else. I like to have everything with me in my mind, not having to refer to SOMETHING whenever I want to double check on details. It’s so troublesome.

 

Just in this coming week alone, I have a project meeting in school, a re-scheduled piano lesson, 2 interviews(LES and Giessen Exchange), 1 extra preparation lesson for LES interview, CGSS Speech Day and I still need to re schedule yet ANOTHER piano lesson. This is all in addition to my normal schedule and school which is already draining enough. I have never been this busy before. My normal school days already end relatively later than all the other students’ from other JCs(or so I surveyed). I just hope I don’t fall sick or anything.

 

I guess in a way this is good because its making me more independent. I spend so much of my time away from home that I don’t depend so much on it anymore. I don’t even depend on my classmates or friends because my subject combination in school is rather weird and no one really takes the same subjects as me. All my best friends aren’t from the same school as I am, one is on the other side of the world. I think I probably, slowly, fell into the habit of trying to depend solely on myself though I don’t think I’ve really succeeded yet.

 

I’m not so sure if its a problem with adapting to JC because I don’t seem to have as much of a problem with school as some of my other friends. I think its more of a personal matter. I guess I can still live the way I did and still do OK in school, but I’d feel somewhat lacking in substance if I didn’t try to be more independent. And I’ve found that to be more independent, I need to let go of certain aspects of the old ‘me’ and get used to a newer mindset and attitude. But once I tried, I realised that much as I want to lessen the dependence I have on other things, I’m still kind of trying my best to hold on to as many aspects of my past as I can. Maybe somehow I’m afraid that if I change too much I’ll forget who I am, who I was before, or perhaps I’m searching for a replacement to that familiarity that I had when I spent so much time at home in the past yet now is lost.

 

I’m quite happy with the way my life is now, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that sometimes when I remember how things were like the past, it makes me a little reluctant to move on and admit that those times are over. It’s quite true how people say “You win some, you lose some.” Yes, I did get a lot more freedom, I have better opportunities, I’m a little more independent, if you will. But for that, I’ve lost so much ‘me’ time, time spent at home, time to do my own stuff, even lost a little enthusiasm at life because most of the time now, I’m too tired to even care. All I want to do now is to make the best of it.

 

AND PLEASE THIS IS NOT FREAKING EMO. I’m just sick of all the random things that keep popping up at me and expecting me to entertain them like I wanted them in the first place. I don’t want to have to check like a dozen websites to find out what I need to attend, where I need to go, what I need to KNOW. I’ve got enough on my mind, I don’t need other things coming in and screwing up the state I’m in. Gone are the good old days of manual instructions.

 

On a lighter note, I went to Tioman Island for the past 4 days and despite the searing heat, sandy paths and salty seawater, I actually found it rather rejuvenating. Imagine, I was free from all commitments for 4 whole days! I didn’t need to keep double checking my mind to remind myself to go for whatever event/meeting/course. That itself is a luxury.

***I shall post about it in a later post.

Subject rant March 5, 2009

Now that lessons have started proper, school seems to be nothing new to look forward to anymore. It’s not something I dread(apart from PE), but just a few weeks ago when a new school was something novel and unknown, it was quite exciting finding my bearings in a different environment.

 

All my other friends who are in Science(in other schools) are complaining about the workload and never-ending tutorials and not having enough time and that makes me feel guilty because I have not much homework to do. I guess that’s the way Arts is, it’s not about practice, but about understanding and thinking. I don’t have NO homework, exactly, but the only subject that keeps giving us a constant pile of work is Math. CSE homework are only readings where we analyse and discuss(about Chinese culture and society at the moment), Geography homework is minimal, one data-response worksheet of 3 questions(that is also optional, but I’m going to do it) and the workload from German is quite relaxed too(one short PPT and essay so far, OK 2 essays but its not that bad).

 

And since this is my ranting ground. I really want to rant about GP. I have no confidence of doing well in it at all. Argumentative essays have always been my weakness because I tend to sensationalize things and exaggerate events(when witing situational and you can make up your own story). I cannot argue logically because for starters, I can’t even stick to the topic properly. I tend to drift away from the main issue and write about something related but something that doesn’t quite answer the question. I always write about how I feel towards a certain issue instead of how it should be. It’s different.

 

I’ve looked at the standard of writing they expect and I feel like a complete noob. I cannot write like that, I really can’t. My arguments always sound weak and somewhat flawed, like I don’t mean what I’m trying to say(which is often the case, since I didn’t care for the issue in the first place). Why must it be GP or KI? Why can’t they have Creative Writing? I think it’d be a great contrast for GP, rather than KI, which is just a much higher level of GP. Blehh.

 

I can already sense the impending doom…

The woes of technology and e learning February 28, 2009

I think its no secret that I REALLY dislike e-learning, or online learning, whatever you wish to call it. Everything seems so messy with the multiple attachments that teachers keep sending me through email and I can never concentrate while READING a lecture, nor can I do so listening to a monotonic voice recorded into a video for my math e-lecture. I keep getting distracted by facebook and MSN and all the other hobnobs you can get on the internet.

 

And get this, we have PE e elearning, which was quite pointless if you ask me. They made us do a quiz on the olympics and write a commentary(max 300 words) on a sports issue, for example, young children participating in high level competitive sports. To be honest, I just crapped all the way and turned it from a sports related written commentary to one for personal reflections on why we shouldn’t be quick to generalize the term ‘high level’ because its subjective. Anyway its comments, no? Comments have no right or wrong.

 

Plus, because almost my entire class takes Literature and Economics except me, the Literature and Economics teachers keep sending the whole class emails for e learning, most of which include apologies on technical difficulties and changes in plans which jsut about bombarded my inbox. I hate it when my inbox is flooded because I don’t kow which mail to open first. I like to have an empty inbox, even though my school email account has ample space for me to not delete emails for years. Loads of information on things I don’t need and none for things I need to know. Oh, the irony of life.

 

And speaking of inboxes, I didn’t check my email inbox for 2 days because I reached home really late and was exhausted and when I did just now, I had 39 new mail. 39 NEW MAIL IN JUST 2 DAYS. And 33 were from Facebook. Not that I don’t like Facebook, it can be pretty fun most of the time, but the commenting here and there on photos that I’m tagged in, dicsussing things not related to me is beginning to irritate me everytime Facebook sends me an email because “so-and-so commented on a photo of you”. But that’s Facebook I guess.

 

***In relation to the previous post, well, the problem ended up being the solution and I have nothing else to say about it, just that I really hope I can get in. It seems like such an amazing experience, the very last of such experiences, I can safely say.

“Cake cake cake cake cake….. You can’t have cake.” February 24, 2009

I didn’t see this coming. I really didn’t. I really thought it’d work out for once in my life. It’s the last chance I’ll ever get, EVER EVER get, and because of some silly logistical problems due to my familys lack of possession of a car(or lack of ability to provide transport), I can’t apply for it.

 

Please don’t try to give me advice like, “Oh, you’ll have plenty more chances in University.” I won’t, and I know it. It isn’t just missing the chance to go to a PLACE, its the whole experience of staying withi a host family and soaking in their culture and lifestyle for 2 weeks. You have exchange programmes in University yes, but you stay in hostels. And it isn’t that I don’t like hostels, its not the problem of lousy lodging at all. It’s that there’s a huge difference between being hosted by a buddy in a real local family and living in a hostel on attachment. The latter isn’t personal at all.

 

I hope you understand how much this means to me.

 

I only just got enough courage to sign up for overseas trips this year when I started spending more time away from home and in school and learning to deal with stuff alone and independently. And now when I am confident enough to sign up for such programmes, I realise that circumstances ban me from doing so.

I’m tired of trying to find solutions to problems that I never created in the first place.

 

Now, I’m stuck in this position that I always am in whenever I have a problem. My problem are never simple. They’re never all black, or all white. It’s always like I can go with either option, but I need more information to do so, so that I will know what to anticipate or whether I should do something or another. But the information is usually never fully disclosed because its never confirmed, or if it is, its guarded closely till they ‘feel’ we should know.

 

I’m going to ask my German teacher for more details tomorrow, and some of my other classmates who went on the programme befoer as well. I hope to be able to work something out with the transport issues, because its just not fair that someone who doesn’t own a car isn’t allowed to go on an exchange programme just because he/she doesn’t have enough family members or vehicles to provide transport.

 

At this point, I’m hanging on to every strand of hope that I have, and I guess I’m appearing like a spoilt child. But the thing is, I was being ENCOURAGED to go on such trips and programmes, given all approval, so I thought that as long as I was willing to go(and if it is within spending limits) I could go. I didn’t harbour such high hopes for nothing, I had reasons for it, and now its jsut snatched away from me, from something that I totally did not see as a potential problem, something that most other people don’t see as a problem at all.

 

I can  quote crayonpainting on my emotions now. It’s in one of her videos, its like “Cake cake cake cake cake………. You can’t have cake.”

Just don’t ask about my subject combination February 21, 2009

|Music| ‘Von hier an Blind’ - Wir sind Helden

 

This is quite sad. All I’ve been able to post about online is about JC, JC and MORE JC. I wish I could stop, but even though I hate to admit it, I probably spend more time at JC than I do at home, not that I can help it. It’s not that I hate JC, but I just miss the times when I had the house all to myself in the late afternoons just lazing about day dreaming. I guess I can be thankful that even though my life is quite hectic and busy and school ends really late, I don’t get much homework, or much homework that I hate to do(or can’t even UNDERSTAND, which is worse) because like I said, I’m done with Sciences.

 

The subject that I need to put in more effort for is German, because I kind of missed out on an entire year of German education when I got a really crappy teacher in Sec 3 that didn’t even teach properly and just talked to himself for most of the lessons. Now, I realise that everyone else in class seems to have less of a problem with vocabulary than I do, but like my classmate said to me, it’s amazing that I even made it to J1 H2 with that teacher in Sec 3 so I’m staying because I like German and anyway, I qualify for it.

 

I’m raelly happy with my German teacher this year because she kind of makes us speak German to her and she always speaks German to us(unlike past teachers who just took the easy way out by speaking English) so I can already feel myself improving even though its only the second week!

 

Another thing that annoys be about taknig German for H2 is that I can no longer keep it a secret when others ask about my subject combination. When I took it as an extra subject for O Levels, I just needed to tell them that I took double sciences with 2 other humanities and they left it at that because that’s the normal combination. But now, its no longer an extra subject so I can’t exclude it when I tell others my subject combination of 4 H2s(German included, obviously).

And like I mentioned I don’t like to tell others that I take H2 German, why?

 

Because firstly, lots of people have this misconception that the standard of H2 German is as high as the standard of say, H2 GP. In reality the standard of the language of H2 German is only about slightly higher than PSLE English(though the quality of the CONTENT involved is about GP standard) because A Level German is set as a FOREIGN language, hence the lower standard. So most people will think that you can speak German like a native just because you studied it for 4 years, and I don’t like having such high standards pinned on me by others.

 

Secondly, some will also ask me to “say something in German”, which even though I don’t mind, I’d rather not do. When I’m asked to do that I always don’t know what to say and anyway the people who ask that of me just want to know what German sounds like, and since I don’t have a German accent, actual German probably sounds far from what I could, at my very best, attempt to achieve in pronunciation.

 

And lastly, others also think that “It must be tough” taking German because its a completely foreign languge and subject, not to mention that I only have 4 hours of German exposure a week. Obviously, its difficult, I mean, learning a new language always is. But I don’t want others to have the impression that I detest the effort that I need to put in for it(like how we study so hard for all other Arts subjects) because I like German. Yes its tough, but definitely not as tough as than Chemistry was for me(even though Chemistry is in plain, simple English).

 

I just wish I could study it in secret without anyone knowing.