YWheel
So the MOE attachment fell through. Not that I'm devastated--I'm disappointed purely for pragmatic and selfish reasons, because there goes another little sentence on my very brief CV--I'm glad because it gives me more time to rest this holiday. Books, essays, salsa and friends, here I come!
I wonder where I'll go, and I wonder how far I'll get, with this pathetic CV (it is pathetic because after 10 months I still cannot stand being in school after lessons are over) and a C in econs that I have no idea how to transform magically into an A. I can't possibly imagine myself anywhere but in Singapore for the next few years, and you know what? It's really not that bad. I mean, Singapore is home, and in Singapore at least you don't need to worry about never having friends or getting fat due to overeating in a bid to stay warm in cold weather.
I never thought it was a horrible prospect, really, but when you get into school and listen to Barnard speak about Oxbridge and look at your classmates and see "Ivy League" or "Oxford" written all over them, you begin to wonder.
I could apply to be attached to a law firm, like the teacher offered, or I could go in March, but I don't know. I don't know, because I don't want to get caught up in all of this. I wish I weren't so selfish, and I wish I didn't have to think about all these things, because I just want to be able to go out and have fun and dance and read and y'know, do all the things that really seem to enrich my life. Humans make things so complicated.
Do you think Sabah is pretty? Dad wants to take us there during the last week of November. I've never been to Sabah, but he says it has nice scenery.
jac was here with you
10/31/2005 04:35:00 pm
YDo the Math
I always thought ignoring problems wasn't the solution but maybe sometimes they are when the problems are irrational feelings and worries. It's when I try to analyse them and dwell on them that I get even more depressed and worried, and it comes back to me that "You will keep in perfect peace he whose mind is stayed on You" (Isaiah 26:3; a mixture of the NIV and KJV versions), not on my problems. You see, I keep being preoccupied by the imperfections in my life that they cancel out everything that's great about my life.
Today I didn't want to wake up because I was scared to face the day. I had to stay in school till 3 and after that go to Bukit Batok to give tuition. After that I still had ballet, so I'd be coming back at around 9, and I really hate it when I'm away from home (that's another thing I have to deal with--I think I'm too attached to my home). After I pulled myself out of bed, pried open my eyes and gotten myself to school in time for assembly I discovered to my great delight that I didn't have to go for the S-Paper briefing so I got to go back at 12 and had time to rest. Then I got freaked out about the two history essays I've got to do over the holidays and tried to calm myself down. Now I'm feeling better because I talked to Zhen and Nic and Zhen's being her irrational happy self. It's just amazing, the sine curve of emotions that goes on inside me every day.
It's too much to think of, all the things that go on in my life. They're right when they tell you to take it one day at a time, because if you don't you'll break. I can't keep on thinking about the negatives; I have to learn to enjoy the day. I can't control my moods, though, and that's the part that scares me, because obviously I don't enjoy feeling this way every day. And that's when I commit it to God, and trust that there's a reason He's putting me through all of this.
jac was here with you
10/27/2005 02:37:00 pm
YLargely Uneventful
Zhen: I know I was supposed to do this ages ago but I forgot and since I have time now (well, sorta), I'll just do it.
20 Random Things About Myself.
1. I used to have a dog, but she ran away from us and we didn't look for her because the next few days it rained and she was old anyway. (I sound so heartless) She was actually my uncle's dog, just that his apartment didn't allow pets, and after he moved into a new place that probably did allow pets he just left her with us. They stupidly asked an 8-year-old me to name her, so I named her 'Spot' after that children's book, but when we found out she was a girl we started calling her Spotty.
2. I hate showering at night because when you wash your hair at night it means you have to wait for it to dry before you can get to sleep and that means I have to sleep late. That's why I hate being out the whole day. I don't use the hair dryer unless it's a last resort because a. it dries my hair (as in sucks out all the moisture so my hair won't be nice and shiny--at least, that's what I believe) and b. it makes me feel as if I'm in a sauna, or in the hot sun on a Saturday afternoon--ughh.
3. I am unofficially the shortest essay writer in my class because when everyone does 7-side essays, my essays come up to about 2 1/2 sides at most. Strangely enough, the only time I have a lot to say is when I'm writing letters, and I'm fantastic at writing emails (Zhen can attest to that). I think it has something to do with the fact that you can talk about tonnes of random topics in one sitting. Like this.
4. I went to watch Goal! with Andrew and Brandon on the last day of our promos, and right when David Beckham appeared on screen I let out a great big gasp and went, "That's David Beckham!" like a rabid Beckham fan (which I am not) and Andrew looked over at me like I was a, well, rabid Beckham fan.
5. No one copies notes from me because my handwriting really looks like chicken scrawlings. It's all nice and cursivey and all that but they're all in pencil and look vaguely like trails of ants making their way from one end of the page to another, where all the food is.
6. I used to have this thing about getting eyebags because I thought they'd look horrible on me, and every morning in MG I'd go up to Tash and Nic and start complaining about it. I remember going to the toilet with them and staring at my face in the mirror and whining and having Tash and Nic sigh and tell me I was being ridiculous because I don't have eyebags and Tash would point out hers to me and I'd try to protest because she looks fantastic anyway. Now I don't care anymore; sleep's more important.
7. Today the weather was so hot that when I got home I told my mother I wished the world would just hurry up and end because I couldn't take it anymore.
8. I've started saying hello to Goh Chok Tong's guard whom I pass every day while either returning from school or walking out to the bus stop. I figure they must be pretty bored, standing there, so I tell them, "Have a nice day," and most of the time they nod, or smile back at me. I've been doing it since Thursday. Strangely enough, the euphoria of doing something that seems so absurd and unthought-of gives me an extra bounce in my step as I walk off.
9. I'm always in need of more shoes.
10. When I was in Sec 2 I wanted to be an intern at Seventeen (I think I figured that since I couldn't be their model I could work behind the scenes and maybe still get nice clothes). So I sent out a resume by email to them with absolutely nothing of value on it. I didn't get any reply but I started getting mailers from them about the latest issue of Seventeen. Darn, maybe I should have taken up Mrs. Nat Lim's offer to work at Cleo.
11. When I'm done with my A's I want to do waitressing because it'll probably be the only time I get to do that sort of thing and besides, it looks so interesting! I want to find out if it's as cool as it looks on tv.
12. Harold Pinter's Betrayal made no sense to me, and thus all I could do when Brandon was ranting about how stupid it was after the show was nod and try to say intelligent things (which probably did not succeed).
13. Sometimes I wish I could run away and become a ballet dancer and never have to study for another day in my life. But I probably don't have enough stamina, and I don't think I could take the pain.
14. The most vivid memories I have of myself when I was young are of me cleaning a magna-doodle board in an empty pink room and playing with my brother and his lego blocks and hot wheel toys.
15. I don't think I started watching tv until my brother did. I wonder how he discovered we had a tv when I had been completely oblivious to it.
16. When my maternal grandfather was alive, he made a book for me about a rabbit. He drew it with a red pen. He was a good artist, because I remember the rabbit really looked like a rabbit, and I wanted to make it like one of those open-flap books so I cut open bits of it and wrote stuff on the pages behind. I didn't have a pen knife so I poked holes in the paper with the pen instead. I wish I'd kept that book somehow, but it's lost, along with the other memories of my past.
17. I refuse to read the newspapers except for Today and the Life section because they make me more stressed than I already am.
18. 10 months into the year and I still dislike staying in Hwa Chong longer than I have to. The earlier I get away from it, the better.
19. I miss my boyfriend and I think the Singapore government should stop digging up roads and use all that money to employ an army so girlfriends won't have to lose their boyfriends for 1 year and 10 months. :P Think of it as part of your procreation campaign--if you keep them apart for so long, they're sure to break up, and then they'll spend the next ten years searching for 'The One' and when they finally get married they won't be able to have babies anymore.
20. Finally, because I cannot think of anything else to say: I'm not going to tag anyone because I don't know that many people on livejournal and technically Zhen's not allowed to tag me but since I'm waiting for my hair to dry I might as well do this anyway.
Thank you, and good night.
jac was here with you
10/15/2005 10:47:00 pm
YFor No One
Today I am at home, clattering at the keyboard, listening with one ear to Heavier Things and John Mayer's mellow, soothing tones, and with the other ear vaguely tracing the tinkling on my neighbour's piano next door.
Today I have finished a novel, planned for cell on Friday and am walking around with pedicure toe-dividers in order to stop my bunions from growing bigger, admiring my pretty plum toenails in the process.
There are two poems in front of me, a sonnet by Shakespeare and another sort-of sonnet by Carol Ann Duffy. We did them in PC class but I took them out because I feel like looking at them and reading them and trying to figure out which one most accurately fits my state of mind.
I smile as I remember yesterday's conversation over lunch with Sandra. She had been so dismissive of the unseen poem Debbie got for her lit exam, and I had gotten so agitated trying to get across to her that is wasn't just a load of rubbish about a garden being dug up, it was about what the garden meant to the man and his feelings towards it being dug up. I probably looked like a crazy fool in the midst of Novena food court.
I am thankful for the rest I have today, and for the fact that exams are over. I am bracing myself for tomorrow and whatever life is going to throw at me, because after you are removed from the vacuum of exams you have to confront all sorts of responsibilities and tasks you could have evaded with the excuse of exams.
Sonnet 50-something (according to Mr. Perry)
(Isn't it brilliant? Gosh.)
Shakespeare
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch.
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet-favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day or the night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus mak'th mine eye untrue.
jac was here with you
10/10/2005 01:04:00 pm
YA-drenaline
I feel so fidgety--Ahh! I think it was the adrenaline from econs exam, but it worked the wrong way. It's supposed to make you concentrate better. It made me want to get out of the room and run screaming down the hallway at the prospect of no more econs for the rest of the year! The first I did, half an hour before the stipulated ending time, and the second I refrained from doing with difficulty.
I mean, what's happening, Jac? After one month of stress and studying and stressing about studying (or lack thereof), I feel like throwing caution to the wind. I wish today I could go through all my papers so I'll finally be free.
Unfortunately, I cannot, and so I am stuck having to prepare for tomorrow's math and Chinese paper (they're two separate papers, luckily). There's nothing to do for Chinese, I'll probably come out laughing again because I'll be guessing the answers half the time (my standard response when I can't do a paper is to laugh--I came out of econs today hysterical and called Gilly to share my hysteria with her). Math, on the other hand, I am really sick of, despite still being unsure about intergration. At this rate I am never going to get S math.
What I am looking forward to is after exams, and tutoring Dean and James and Claire. I'm pretty sure that when I'm actually tutoring them I'll probably be tearing my hair out because explaining mathematical concepts can be so frustrating sometimes, though. I'm not looking forward to PW and Interact, though. Sometimes exam period is nice because apart from exams there isn't anything else so you can laze around. Sometimes. Very rarely.
It's funny, I remember being so nervous about econs before the paper, sitting with Hsien and Liling and Sam Sim and answering Sam's questions on ATCs and MCs absently while wishing I could be anywhere but there. We did the essay questions first, and when Barnard told us we could start I was so paralysed because there were 7 questions on the paper and I had to choose 3 to answer and I didn't think I could answer any of them, and I was so afraid I'd run out of time, but once I got going things got better, and it didn't matter so much that I knew my answers were imperfect and could have been better. I got a bit annoyed at some of the stuff I wrote so I was making funny "argh!" noises all throughout the paper--my life is full of sound effects. I remember laughing and wondering what Barnard would think of me writing all this stuff down and when I handed up the paper I really wanted to get it back quickly so I could see how well (or badly) I did.
And I didn't want to wait half an hour for our MCQ paper to start because I just wanted to get everything over and done with and go home. It was as if something in me wanted to reach out and grab the paper ferociously, like Mrs. Diana Goh used to say--"Let me at it! Let me at it!" We had one and a half hours to get through the MCQs. I took about an hour, flipped the paper about and checked some random questions, then--as is my routine--calculated the opportunity cost of staying for the whole period of time, twiddling my thumbs because I knew even if there were mistakes I wouldn't spot it, and realised that it wasn't worth it, and went home.
And now I'm home, and I really should get working but what I really want to do is to go back there and do what my mum told me to do during O'Levels: go kick some exam paper butt.
jac was here with you
10/03/2005 01:17:00 pm