Someday

I need to be reminded sometimes of how my life here in LSE has been everything my heart had been hoping for. From being constantly in the last classes in my top all girls Primary and Secondary school, I had been implicitly told that I wasn't good enough, not smart enough to amount to much in life. Teachers said we were lazy, and a teacher scolded me in front of the class saying I was a disgrace to my family and stupid. I cried. I cried everytime inside when I got a mark in the 50s. It seemed that I was doomed to failure. But somehow, I managed to nudge my way into yet another top Junior College. On results day I cried out of relief, not happiness.

At Junior College I was surrounded by friends who scored brilliantly and were brilliant in their own manner. I still scored 50s no matter how much they tried to help me. I cried again. I got scolded by the principal for doing badly in Chinese and being the last for Math. I got more stressed. I started getting anxiety attacks over academics. Results day I felt my heart sink deeper and deeper as rows and rows of people left the seats and went on stage. The feeling of being left behind, shouted you are a failure to everyone, especially myself. My lack of academic capability was clear for everyone to see it seemed, and I felt naked. My heart had been broken again.

Then I got into LSE, the reason why I had spent two years working my life away straight. I had never given up fighting what everyone had told me for 12 years of my life, that I was stupid and unworthy of academia. The feeling of intellectual inferiority still plagues me today, but I know that as long as I keep trying and fighting I have already succeeded in my own small way. I am tired of feeling and thinking that nothing I do will ever be good enough.

Bloomsbury

I think I have damaged the tiny veins under the skin of my hands. Cold hands constantly plunged into hot water lead to great bloomings of shrunken constricted veins, some going into shock with the sudden change in temperature. The skin on my hand turns bright red in angry patches and I cannot touch hot water without feeling slight jolts of pain emitting from a deeper layer of my skin. Little bumps raise up in protest, stop doing that, they say. It hurts.

But I keep doing it anyway because hot water in a cold foreign country is one of the consistent few pleasures that life has accorded me. I apply hand cream over the bright red skin, in hopes of soothing it. My hands now smell of cranberries. As I run my fingers over the other hand, rubbing in cream, I remember the other hands that once caressed it.

I continue washing my hands in hot water and watching my skin bloom.

Technology and Tactics baby

My mind is currently overwhelmed with 10,001 ideas for my essay on the Military Revolution 1500s - 1800s in a rather happy way. It just reminds me how much I enjoyed the war and technology section when I was studying for the IB, especially when everything is consolidated in one overarching picture.

I get a little voice in the back of the head saying, "you're doing the wrong majors!"

Elephant and Castle

So anyway I go off for tutoring today, and find a few steps away from my room that my left rubber ear bud for in-ear-earphones is missing. Okay nevermind, its a minor thing. I can always buy another one. Just ten quid, no sense getting upset.

I arrive at Harris Academy to find no one there. OKAY. Breatheinbreatheout. Call people. Get told no one is coming to Ber-fucking-mondsey (meanwhile Irvine Welsh narration comes into my head). Okay smile, go and tutor. Get stumped by questions that I have not seen in ages. Oh my son. Feel stressed. Get message from stressed Hardeep. Unload stress. SMILE.

1 hour of intellectual ego massacre passes. Try to feel better that I could answer most of the questions with the second girl. Wait for bus, get on, get kicked out at Elephant-and-fucking-Castle. Start worrying about getting stabbed. Start worrying about getting raped and robed and thrown into the shrubbery. Start worrying about getting stabbed in the face. Start thinking about yummy calming chamomile tea in room. Get stuck in jam on Waterloo bridge. Ignore old memories and The Pierce's Ruin, playing more (un)fortuitously at the same time.

Find rubber ear bud piece attachment below my desk. Type this out. Take a hot shower. Drink tea. Relax. Thereisnoplacelikehome.

Pinpricks

I woke up this morning feeling like I had just suffered a heart attack.

Now the blood that flows through my veins feels like its prickly and thorny, poking my soft skin from underneath. I feel it poke at my arms and at the pack of my neck. Studded metal haemoglobin globules bumping along narrow blood lines. I feel my heart clench constantly, like it has forgotten to diastole. I feel the prickly blood flow to the back of my head, creating tiny little pinpricks in delicate walls and slowly, but surely, letting my life flow out of me.

Happy

Today after EH101, I had hot chocolate in The Garrick with Swan Yee. Then afterwards I walked back to Passfield. I acted like a penguin in my penguin get up (large poofy coat, funnily shaped ugg boots) while waiting for the traffic to stop, chased after pigeons in Russell Square, dashed across roads, hopped up pavements, avoided the cracks in the tiles, jumped up stairs and jumped down stairs... right into a oddly large crowd of Chinese people I have never seen before in our TV room. Cue retarded smile followed by a quick dash out of the room and balancing on brick planter boxes.

I have not felt so happy and satisfied with life in a long time.

Our Daily Bread

This was the last devotion stored up on my Google Reader, and I read it and cried http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2010/01/15/devotion.aspx

It really feels like I have been given a second chance at life again, with all the writing and contacting of long lost people again. It may sound extremely rich coming from me, but it suddenly feels that for the past 5 years God has been working subtly in the shadows around me till I returned.

Find the Way

Today I bought 3 large blooming daisies from the florist outside Holborn station. As I walked and listening to my ipod, through my usual route of Hoborn-Bloomsbury Park-Bedford Way-Russell Square, an old song that I used to listen to in 2006 came on: Mika Nakashima's Find the Way. I started thinking about here I was, on the cusp of two-oh, walking in a foreign land carrying three bright blooms when it suddenly hit that as much as I thought I never got any better from 2006, I had. 4 Years ago I was suffering through the worst period of my life and I had survived.

I had gone on to a good school, I had made friends that I know will stay with me for life, I fell in and out of love, I developed mentally. I worked my ass off, I got results that were enough to bring me to my next desired stage in life. I fell in love for the first time with a boy, a boy who was probably the only person who ever really loved me for who I was, I experienced a new side of life with him and his friends. I came to London, I learned to carve a new life here out of nothingness. I relearnt the pain of loving someone to no avail. I learned lessons of the depths of human love for one another from the people who have cared and checked on me the past two weeks. And most importantly I learned that I have been wrong for 5 years, I have been wrongly angry at God.

I have changed, in the smallest minutest of ways. I have become more compassionate, more loving, more able to stand up for myself, more able to control hurtful emotions. I have learned how to be stronger, how to appreciate my life more and how to always keep on fighting for life even when there is no hope. I have become the person doing things now that I at 15, all upset and brokenhearted at the cruel twists in life, had wanted to become. And I know I still have some way to go to becoming that person in my mind who I greatly respect, but am now closer to being that young woman than I ever have been.

I am so sorry Lord for blaming you these past 5 years.

Chipped Nail Polish

The mark on my fingernail is still there from that night when we went out to Sainsburys' together. We got back really late and my roommates were sleeping, the door was about to slam shut when I stuck my hand to stop the door from waking my roommates up. It hurt like hell. I wanted to scream in pain. Later that night when I saw you again I showed you my finger, with pink flesh turning purple. You touched it and said it looked painful.

Now you're gone, from me. Taken by forces that were out of my control. No matter how hard I fought, I could not win a battle that required the hearts and wills of two. That mark on my fingernail is now covered with chipped nail polish, hidden and out of sight, but I know it still lingers on.

I can listen to Halfway Around the World without feeling sad now

Every morning when I wake up I am most despondent, and every night after talking to people the entire day, my night ends well.

I have truly been blessed. It is ironic that it is only when we are in the worst possible situations that we really how much truly we are blessed (though I felt like half murdering Zoe when she told me this last night). I am surrounded by the most caring people here in London, even though I might not have known them barely half a year ago.

And I am making headway :D

Blind, by Lifehouse

Last time when I was younger, I used to cry silently. Tears would just form in my eyes and slide down. Now however, whenever I cry it’s a rather violent and physical affair, with screaming and hitting of objects. Somewhere down the line, the emotional pain just escalated till I couldn’t cope with it anymore. Not only could I handle things less well emotionally, I couldn’t handle it physically as well. For the past few days, my appetite has been gone, I’ve been getting bad stomachaches, my head feels dizzy and my breath feels sucked out of me. Plus I keep vomiting. As a result I’m paler than a Brit now because I literally have no blood flowing through my veins. It’s like getting a mild version of extremely bad stomach flu.

Like I said, I wasn’t always like this. It’s not hard to imagine why I want to go back to the past. But today though, I laughed and felt genuinely happy for the first time in the past few days.

-----

I was 13 when I had my first boyfriend. He was someone from my church, called K. He was a year older. He pursued me. He also dumped me 3 days into the relationship. Fantastic. All we ever did was text and instant message each other, but damn did being dumped leave a nasty impact. It made me feel worthless, and I felt that I couldn’t face him. I left a series of dramatic messages where I told him not to contact me. I also remember being fairly depressed, something that didn’t lift for months. I couldn’t really remember why I was depressed, except I’d start crying in class, be really moody and snap at people. I shouted at my teacher once when I thought she was being unreasonable and immediately burst into tears. It only abated when I got really upset and started scratching myself. Looking back, I think it might have been related to my first failed relationship, but I’m not too sure. I actually forgot about K all these years, so I guess he left a smaller impact than originally thought.

Of all my years in Secondary school, I remember Secondary 2, when I was 14, as the fondest. I remember it because it gave me some of the best friends I ever had, Ianthe, Stephanie and Angeline, even though I’ve lost touch with Angeline. I remember all the useless project work days when we would hang out at each other’s house with the pretense of doing work, filming and finally video editing. I remember doing really retarded things, while screwing around with the camera. On a more somber note I also remember spearheading a petition to get the class chairperson ousted. It was so happy, that I don’t really have much to write about. I also remember running home and playing a lot of Warcraft III and GTA: Vice City. I scraped by in school again.

I guess its fair to say when I was 14, something happened that forewarned of the mad path my mind would take. At the end of church camp in 2003, when I was 13, I met a guy called M. He was 4 years older than me, and obviously was in the same church as me. He and I would text each other everyday and talk on instant messenger every night. Once he mentioned how awesome it’d be if we were both got married because our wedding invites could just say M2. AND of course being 14 and absorbed in my world, I didn’t imagine for the slightest moment that he liked me. And liked me he did, soon convincing himself he was madly in love with me. Like all completely irrational and hormonally imbalanced teenagers, I freaked out.

I cut off all contact with him. Whenever I thought about him, all I felt was fear. I was filled with an insane fear that he was going to pin me down and rape me. Once I saw him in church and ran out to the toilets to cry. I had an asthma attack. Then another time when I saw him, I hid in the darkness of my now empty Sunday school classroom till I was convinced he was gone. It was madness really, looking back. All his friends hated me. Hell if I were him, I’d hate me. But yet I did it anyway. I still remember it vividly. It was an all-consuming fear, a fear that made my heart race and adrenaline kick it live never before. It was a fear that completely overwhelmed all mental rational processes and defenestrated it. It was a fear that turned out to have lingered for so long, than when he asked to be my facebook friend in 2007, I rejected him while feeling the same fear coursing through my veins.

2005 however, was the pivotal year of my life. It was the year when I was well and truly kicked into the realm of maturity. I like to think that the events that happened in the end of 2005 and early 2006 that ended up shaping me into the person I am today, batshit insane anxiety, full blown proper depression and extreme paranoia included. It was because everything happened at once, in a most violent manner.

2005 however, didn’t start on such a dire note. I remember it starting as the happiest year ever, when I confessed my liking to a guy I had liked ever since I was 13, A. It was one and a half years of liking the same guy. He was perfect to me, smart, funny and passionate. We would talk online and message each other with our phones. It wasn’t till end 2004 that he started attending the same church as me when our mutual friend brought him. At first after church, we’d go out as a group. Then when everyone slowly left to go home, we’d hang out together. He was the first person I kissed. I still remember the afternoon when he first brought me up to the top level of Tan Tock Seng Hospital and showed me the view. Then there was the afternoon we hung out and he lay in my lap at the small park next to KK Hospital. I documented everything thing down excitedly in my diary.

But he refused to commit. I didn’t press the issue that much, I think.

However at this point of time, L (as mentioned in the previous section), decided to hold training sessions to groom a new generation of church leaders. I wasn’t chosen because I wasn’t deemed ‘holy’ enough. All my friends, the gang I hung out with in church were chosen. Now this was highly unfair of a number of levels. It was evident that she had picked and chose those that came only from good schools, with no respect to actual depth of Spirituality, because A who was chosen had just become a Christian recently. Finally I had been serving the church since I was 13 by helping out in Sunday school and teaching. I was the ones who had gotten my friends into even serving in church to begin with. For all I had done, I had been unfairly passed on to be groomed as a church leader. I was upset enough, but I bore with it.

As friends are unconsciously wont to do, they drifted. All they talked about were little in jokes and things that happened during the training. Plus as the classes happened right after our Sunday school, I didn’t even have time to hang out with them. It also so happened that my best friend, C, was one of two girls really chosen in a class full of boys. I remember saying rather bitterly then that it was more of a potential mating club than a real church leader training group. I felt even more hurt by the fact that I now felt alienated from my friends completely.

And then before I knew it, the signs started cropping up. He started talking to me less. She started telling me less. Then I found out by accident that they were hanging out together a lot. Still I wasn’t sure. This was at the end of 2005. Then it really happened. I still can’t remember when I found out exactly, but it was to the effect that everyone now knew they were dating each other. But what about me? He, the guy I was crazy about, never told me anything. Nor did she, my supposed best friend. I was devastated. The two people who I trusted most, had betrayed me.

I had been with Hakka Methodist Church for my entire life, but I had to leave. I cried and cried for days in the interim. Even leaving the church cut me to pieces. This was the singular institution I had spent my childhood days playing about, where all the familiar faces of my parents friends were. This was where I imagined going to church my entire life. This was where a large portion of my hope and life had been. With one fell swoop, I had been betrayed by a church elder, my best friend and the first boy I really liked. Worse still was the growing gap I felt between my friends and they not even attempting to pull me back. It hurt. For all the love that I had given, I felt nothing in return.

I dropped contact with almost everyone. But they kept finding me, finding me on facebook where even now till today their little church outing photos pop up in my livefeed, and I tell you it still hurts even now because it feels like for all I felt that I had done for them, they had not appreciated me. They didn’t chase me when I ran. They had forgotten me. I felt like I had been easily replaced. All we were was just facebook friends, who didn’t contact each other directly.

At the same time I was experiencing problems in school. A classmate had tried to commit suicide at the end of the year when her school results showed that she had not qualified to move on to the next year of school. I still remember the blame I heaped on myself, for not taking Angeline’s casual passing remark about that particular classmate mentioning suicide before, for letting her out of my sight. As I ran through the corridors that day looking for her, I felt all the hope fly out of my life. We found her. We cried.

That Saturday I remember I started thinking about the events during church practice. I remember breaking down uncontrollably and crying without cessation.

When 2006 rolled around, I was a Senior in Girl Guides. During one of the first orientation meetings, some of the older girls were trying to break in the juniors by making them play those typical orientation games with the apparent idea that public humiliation = bonding session. I remembered being an awkward 12 year old and not wanting to make a fool of myself, so I stepped in and told the other leaders that if those girls didn’t want to do the chicken dance – or some other absurd thing – then they shouldn’t be forced to. I walked away not knowing the implications of what had happened, that the other leaders felt offended by what they felt was an usurp of their authority. They started boycotting me.

At the same time, a lot of my classmates were also in girl guides. I remember calculating that either one-third or a quarter of the class were girl guides. I first found out by the boycott when a long time friend just stared ignoring me completely. While the rest of my classmates still behaved as per normal, she ignored me completely. But there were the others that treated me coldly. At the same time, I had also been talking to and counseling my ex-classmate who had been retained. That my classmates had so easily forgotten about her, and had written her off as “desperate for attention” had affected me badly. I could not accept that others could do such a thing to another person, a depressed one at that.

The more the life that I had known and previously treasured deteriorated, the more inward I turned. I lived 2006 inside the confines of my mind and online, talking to Suat Ying, I had literally felt that my life had gone, I had no classmates, no girl guides and no church. The three largest portions of my life had turned into a nightmare for me within a few months.

2006 was the year that made me into the person that I am today. The crazily depressed, anxiety ridden, paranoid and insecure person that I become whenever I feel life goes out of control. The scars from 2006 affect me even today.

And that is why I’m writing this, so I can finally learn to let go of everything.

I worked my ass off, getting 10 points for my O levels and somehow making it into ACS(I). I felt like I had finally succeeded and was working to a better life, to leave 2006 well and truly behind me. But of course more things happened.

watching the flames of candles flicker calms me down.

Eyes Wide Open in Horror

It is yet another day. My eyes open up as I wake and I stare at the wall. Slowly, the realization hits me that the last two days were very much real, not some terrible nightmare conjured from the deep-seated fears of my heart. The idea of the nightmare that I find myself once again having to pick up the pieces of my life. I cry, because honestly, what else can I do? I long learned that keeping tears In just makes you feel worse. That’s why whenever I can, I cry. I wasn’t always like this. In fact it wasn’t all too long ago that I was very much a different person. I was less scared, less anxious, less troubled and perhaps less aware. But 5 years is a very long time in the development of a person’s character. Thing is: I still feel the person that I once was inside of me. I feel it whenever I talk to friends, whenever I am with my family. And I miss her, I miss her a lot. Though I know there are some things that are well and truly irreversible – I don’t think I can ever go back to the carefree and somewhat ignorant person I was then – I also realise that somehow, I need to get rid of all the emotional baggage that has been saddled on me these past formative years before I have any real hope or finding real lasting happiness.

I still remember an incident when I was about 12 or 13 vividly. I was with my two best friends then, and we were a silly lot. There was a store that sold sambal fishballs in school that were really yummy. My friend and I would scarf down 2 of them, then run all the way from the canteen to our classrooms where our water bottles lay. Run because honestly the sambal was too hot for us to handle, and it’d make us cry. But we felt free and happy. People looked at us weirdly as we tore past them on the staircase, but we couldn’t care less.

I never felt like I fit in anywhere. I always felt like the child that was a bit too weird for the norm. Too rebellious and stubborn even at a young age, too much of a troublemaker, too energetic and too enthusiastic. I remember because I felt so out of place, I was constantly searching for affirmation. I tried to hang out with the ‘cool’ girls, like all misguided kids do. Of course they evidently didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I even remember a friend I had since I was 7 jokingly referring to me as someone she didn’t regard highly when we were both 11. It hurt then, it still hurts now. Somehow, I managed to survive with nary a conscious dent, though I know deep down it exacerbated the already present childhood traumas of my heart.

My family was a very unconventional one – and by this I refer to my father’s side of the family. Its structure was mainly matriarchal. I came from a line of strong and empowered women. Even though my father was evidently the one that wore the pants in my parents relationship, I always knew I was surrounded my strong women. My grandmother, just 70 this year, used to run multiple businesses in what was very much a male dominated field in the 1950s, much less in a conservative Asian society. Her mother before her also ran the family business after her husband died and built up a family fortune only for it to be gambled away by her second son. Then there was my Aunt, an opinionated, assertive woman who again worked in a male dominated field – computer science in the ‘80s, who was also simultaneously battling lupus. It seems evident that a streak of strength, determination, ambition, stubbornness and intelligence ran through my blood.

However there were other things brewing in the family bloodlines as well. There were also propensities to extremely bad tempers, extreme anxiety, paranoia and depression even. It’s of much debate whether such attributes are passed through the generations through genes or nuture, but all I can say is I either inherited all the abovementioned attributes directly, or through my relationship with the family absorbed all of them. I do wonder if things were ceteris paribus, whether I would have gone on to be close to where the Wong women are, whether I’d be more settled and happy. But either way fate threw me a wild card: my brother.

My brother was probably the first indication that I would live a less than average life. Born when I was 4, he was supposedly a playmate that I longed for. My father always said that he didn’t want a second child because he knew that as a child, I needed a lot of attention. Either way this got thrown into the wind when it was discovered that my brother was also autistic and a low functioning one to boot.
I remember being very happy when he was first born, but as I struggled to understand why my brother wasn’t like the rest, I got angrier and frustrated. I didn’t understand why everyone was making such a fuss about him, I remember getting very jealous and upset. It’s one thing to say “your brother’s different” to a child, but very much another for that child to understand. To understand why her brother isn’t talking, and playing with her like she thought he would and at the same time taking the family’s attention away from her. I ended up bullying him. I was the proverbial horror child without a conscience.

Having a brother like Ryan also had another effect on me, it made me partly the centre of unwanted attention. Everyone didn’t know how to relate to him. It either went two ways, the oh-my-dear-you’re-so-pitiful way or the why-is-that-kid-so-weird way. More than often it was the latter sort of stare. Growing up I remember the dehumanizing stares of people around me as I went about with my brother. I could see the way they looked at me differently, as the cogs in their heads started moving, trying to figure out whether or not I was mentally disabled too. I felt burdened by the way people viewed me. People assumed I was mentally disabled by extension.

As a child growing up, two of my biggest social groups I remember were that of my mother’s family and church. My mother’s family, bless their souls, were a wonderful and kind lot. All of them happy-go-lucky folks. However as much as they were accepting people, they never knew how to relate to my brother. It’s almost as they saw him their minds immediately blanked out. They just didn’t know what to do or what to make of my brother, and I, the sister was caught up in all of this. I always felt alienated from them because of my brother. Sure every Chinese New Year they’d grasp my wrists and tell me to eat more, else I’d be blown away by the wind. They’d pat my head and tell me I’m a smart girl and to study hard. But I felt less like a person and more like an object. I was the unrelatable unreachable enigma.

Church as well posed similar problems, but to a lesser extent. This is probably because in church I was separated from my brother. Still it lingered, all the curious questions, all the stories that people begged for from me. I admit to telling great whopping lies at the expense of my brother to make the others laugh and like me. I still remember the details of those stories, probably because I still feel guilty. There were other aspects too, like hearing others, especially the younger children say things like ‘Why is that Ryan so weird?”. Hearing that hurt me to no end. Sometimes I’d fight back, but more often than not I’d just keep silent.

My parents were also very different from that of other parents. They always treated me in a mature manner. I’m not sure if this is because they had their hands full with my brother, or whether that was their actual parenting style. They pretty much let me do whatever I wanted, with little discipline. My parents really only scolded me when I got exceptionally out of hand. As a result when I was young, I went about mostly untamed, doing things impulsively and speaking my mind without care. They didn’t even force me to study, resulting in me pretty much coasting about with bad grades for most of my schooling life. My parents also never stopped telling my how much they loved me, how clever I was and how pretty I was, yet it served to have little effect on my self esteem.

Looking back, I actually attribute most of the stereotypical parenting to have come from my paternal grandmother, Mama as I called her. When I was young, I clung to her like crazy. Once I even spontaneously flew with her to Ipoh because I refused to let go of her at the airport. She used to wake me up every morning, get my clothes ready and make breakfast for me. After school she’d teach me Mandarin for many hours (which would later turn out to backfire) and force me to exercise. She’d make a special dinner for me because I was a fussy eater and then force me into bed next to her when she went to sleep at 9pm. For many years that was my routine, till finally I got too rebellious for her to handle at 11. She hired a tuition teacher.

My relationship with Mandarin has always been a tricky one. It started when I was first dumped in Nanyang Kindergarten, a rather traditional Chinese school, after we moved, from a predominantly English liberal sort of Montessori. Naturally this move was akin to caging a previously free bird. First day of school I went home crying because I had been badly scolded for not knowing how to write my name in Mandarin. That was really when my grandmother really started intervening in my education.

I hated that school. I don’t remember having many friends as the new kid. The others weren’t friendly at all. As a result I recall trying too hard to fit in, with the end result of being subjected to even more social isolation from the others. The boys, who I really wanted to be friends with for some now unfathomable reason, turned this round on its head and ended up bullying me. I remember Nanyang so vividly only for how miserable I felt, all 6 months long of it. To this day I can really only recall having 3 other kids who were nice to be a treated me kindly.

Primary school was a well known Christian Girls School, the main reason why I was even planted in Nanyang for 6 months. First day of school I remember being really happy because C my friend from church was also in the same class as me. We talked so much that we got separated by the teacher within the first few days of school. I don’t really remember very much except that I spent the next few years doing the same things, trying too hard to seek affirmation from teachers, trying too hard to seek affirmation from classmates and random incidents of talking back to teachers. I fainted once when I was 9 and the teacher had to carry me to the sick bay. When I regained consciousness, I puked all over her. I was incredibly awesome in that way.

The first time I recall really really having to study hard was when I was 12 and sitting for the PSLE. I had gotten 192 or something for the preliminary exams and my mother panicked. She took leave for a few days and sat me down for some good old Singapore style cramming. It was the first time she actively participated in my education. I sat for the examination, scored 212 and managed to get into the sister Secondary school. Hooray. But there is one incident that happened on that day that stands out in my mind though it wasn’t made known to me then, of a certain call made to my grandmother by C’s mother, L as she shall be known. L, a long time church friend of my parents as well as my Sunday school teacher. In the call she asked my grandmother how I did for the exams, and when my grandmother told her she sounded very surprised, then annoyed. My grandmother was offended and relayed this to my parents.

L, was the person who would later destroy my old life and change me forever.

Details in the Fabric

That's it: I'm gonna muthafucking write.

The night is always darkest just before the dawn.

I am incredibly disappointed with life.

I saw the saddest thing today in M&S

Today I went to M&S for underwear shopping. I wandered around aisles of impractical lace covered things that would invariably jut out under t-shirts and plain-boring-rough-cotton-white things. I also saw the saddest thing ever, next to what was probably belongs to freaks of nature: cotton white 32 AA bras with cups half the side of my already small palms and I-forgot-what-number G cups with cups the size of my head. Other than that there were the great mysteries of the earth to reckon with, like why women with D cup boobs need push ups and additional padding, in twin packs too.

I also incidentally, cooked. Some sort of garbled Chicken Tomato and Broccoli Pasta (Salad):
300g Chicken Breast - 2.39
6 Tomatoes - 1.02
1 Head Broccoli - 85p
1 Sainsbury's Tomato and Herb Sauce - 85p
Rosemary
Garlic and Mash Seasoning
White Ground Pepper
Fusilli.

It was the first time I had ever dealt with broccoli, and mid boil I had to scamper downstairs and google 'How to Cook Broccoli'. Nice stuff. The answer is 4 to 7 minutes, or in my case till I deliberately waited till I could smell the scent of cooked broccoli.

I also lost my temper today because I missed my stop at Euston. I was on bus 73 to Stroke Newington and boarded outside Selfridges. There was a girl in front of me, also waiting to alight. Our exit was blocked by this old man and woman shuffling into their seats. Okay, no problem. Then just as they moved out of the way, the other girl and I went to the exit of the bus, only to have it close 1 second before we stepped out. The girl started calling out, the people around started pressing the Stop button to help us, and the bus driver drove on to fucking British Library.

My first thought was to let out one large almighty FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK at the driver. My mood had been exacerbated by being stuck in traffic for a long time along Oxford Street. Then my next thought was 'what if I get in trouble for it?'. So instead like a good downtrodden citizen, I just stewed. But the word stayed in my head. FUCK BRITISH LIBRARY. FUCK 4 EXTRA BLOCKS FOR NO REASON. FUCKING MORON DRIVER. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. I wanted to scream it all the way back to Euston, but there were too many people around. Not that I haven't done that before in London, when I stepped out of Barclay's with Daryl. Then I saw piles of snow in Euston, and felt the urge to really kick it about all over, but I restrained myself. Instead, I went back and complained to every single friendly face I saw in Passfield.

Well, that and muttering fuuuuuuuuuuccckkkkkk all the way back from the British Library and Euston.

Phew

OHHHH IT WAS IN A BAG AT MY FEET.

I thought it was a pair of shoes.

Yay.

I found it

the ring that is.

But I don't know where my mousepad and USB hub are, still.

Oh no oh dear

Oh no oh dear I can't find my ring anywhere I don't remember seeing it when I went to shower last night and I didn't wear it before then so I didn't have it by then and the last thing I did was have dinner and wash the dishes in the kitchen and I usually take my ring off to do that but then I don't know where I put my ring at all and my Daddy gave it to me and oh no oh no has it been lost I don't want it to be lost I love that ring crap crap and my mousepad and USB hub is missing even though I saw it yesterday when I was unpacking and now I can't find it oh my God why am I losing so many things?

At least my lugggage finally came.

Collect Call

Things I can do with my spare time:
Photography course
Ceramics course
Read
Watch films
Watch shows
Play The Sims
Become more involved with Amnesty
Watch plays/musicals
Hang out with friends more
Volunteer
Write
Exercise

"I apologise, they are French, Madam"

So anyway as some of you might or might not know, I flew back to London yesterday. And another that some of you also might or might not know is that my baggage went on a mini Parisian holiday without moi. At least it wasn't avec a sticky fingered thief I suppose. ANYWAY, it proved to be a rather stress-free flight - somehow. It was only towards the end the rubbish started happening.

On the first flight, I watched Gattaca, which was surprisingly really good. Then I ate and went to sleep. Woke up with about 4 hours to go and ended up watching Julie and Julia, then the absolutely wonderful and amusing Whatever Works. I burst out laughing multiple times during the movie. Landing in Paris was fine, and I bumbled about with my large carry on backpack throughout the terminal to my next departure gate - getting pulled over for a security check over what turned out to be Cashew Nut Cookies. (I don't actually know how I remained calm over this)

My flight from Paris to London ended up being delayed for 30 minutes. This was because the plane was frozen. The thought of that alone, especially sitting about in the plane, made me inwardly face palm. Something along the lines of "good grief, that's how cold it is". Oddly enough I wasn't stressed out. Just really sleepy and waiting for the plane to take off so I could close my eyes.

We landed in Heathrow 30 minutes late. The landing seemed especially violent and jerking. A real slam-on-the-brakes kind of affair. I actually felt a bit thrown off from my seat. I wonder if this was due to the ice I presume the plane was at least slightly skidding on.

The real nightmare I imagined was that of immigration. Lovely charming gormless British Border Customs, or something along those lines. Watching the students being grilled and yelled at in front didn't really help abate the fear I felt in my heart. I also noted how they were quizzing the of-African-origin students like crazy. My guy had just finished shooing away a family because one of the tweens was still filling out her Immigration card, so I was a bit terrified of him. The grilling was just one of those usual Where do you study, What do you study, For how long sort of things, relatively painless. So I relaxed. HAAAAAH.

Anyway picture me, sitting on my carry on baggage on a cart, watching luggage going round and round. Waiting. For 30 minutes. With every minute getting angrier and angrier and thinking, GOOD LORD MY GRANDMOTHER MOVES FASTER THAN THIS BAGGAGE. Then poof. No more baggage, except some bubblegum pink Hello Kitty hard case shits going round and round. Too embarrassing for even their owners to pick up. (I kept thinking of the Scotsman I met at Paris CDG during the security check, where he laughed when I said I was going to Heathrow, he said "Good Luck". I should have known this was a bad sign)

Pull a baggage guy over. Baggage guy looks annoyed. HELLO IS THERE ANY MORE BAGGAGE COMING FROM FLIGHT AF 1080. He goes to the control room to check. NO THERE IS NO MORE BAGGAGE. I think: WELL YOU TWIT COULDN'T SOMEONE HAVE TAKEN THE BOTHER TO COME TELL US THERE IS NO MORE BAGGAGE COMING OUT AND YOU TWITS HAVE LOST IT? Instead I say: so, what do I do now? Redirected to Claims. More lines. More people. Oh great flying fuck.

SIDENOTE: There were lots and lots of bags lying around all over. All these unclaimed missing wonders. It looked like a Holocaust Museum, where all the owners had been gassed to death. Thousands of gassed dead owners and thousands of unclaimed stacked-against-side-of-wall-uncaringly bags. So much for unattended baggage being cause for alarm anymore.

Meanwhile I talked to the people around me. This man who joined the queue in front of me found his bag in the aforementioned Holocaust pile, wished me good luck and scooted off. The girl behind me, fresh off a holiday from Korea, ended up waiting at the wrong carousel for her stuff. The man behind her, who remained with my most of the way, was thiscloseto snapping. He was very tired, a business traveler, and evidently did not need this shit. He shouted at people who tried to cut the line. He seemed like a really nice man, just having a really bad day. Can't blame him. Meanwhile it took me almost 40 minutes of waiting to finally get a talk to the holders of what must be one of the world's shittiest jobs - Missing Baggage Claims Counter Assistant. Blablabla We'll deliver it by today afternoon, here is your reference number, THANK YOU.

I walked out, was about to blow past the alcohol duty free. Stopped, vaguely recalled someone asking me to help him buy alcohol, thought FUCK IT, and continued walking. 2 hours after I landed in Heathrow airport, I finally walked out. The first thing I did when I saw Sheun was hug him, then I cried.

What a fucking day. And it was just 10:30 am in the morning.

-----

Anyway to cap off this saga, I came back to Passfield from shopping today at about 5-ish. I went to reception and asked - no bag. I went back to my room and called them. I spoke to some fellow, who was evidently not French. I confirmed that they found my bag and had passed it to the delivery company. As I said Thank You and Goodbye to the man, I thought I heard him say,

"I apologise, they are French, Madam".

before putting down the phone.

My elbow joints ache

Today I went cycling with my Dad in East Coast Park. I hadn't cycled for a while and so started off really shakily. After a while, it got better and I felt more confident. We cycled all the way to Changi Airport and watched some planes set off while resting. Watching the planes made me feel a little funny inside. Oh well.

On the way back, as I was cycling under some trees. Something landed on my leg. I looked down and saw some long brown thing and thought it was a worm. My first instinct was to brush it off, which I did, and in doing so fell over, bike and all, on the road. Initially I thought I busted my left ankle since it was really stiff. I also got some scratches on my ankle. I managed to get up and cycle back to the rental store though. It felt a little stiff afterwards, but otherwise it seems to be fine.

Then we went to Katong to eat Peranakan food. Yummy chicken buah keluah, sambal sotong and sambal long beans. There was also ngoh hiang, but I don't really like ngoh hiang in general. Then it was a fairly long (by Singapore standards) car ride home.

I fly off in 8 hours. Oh dear.

Avatar had the same plot as Pocahontas

The last few days have been kind to me. From having lengthy and random conversations with Daryl over msn, to hanging out with the Math Studs (albeit separately) and Steph, JH and Ianthe, I still feel the same oh-dear-God panic in my belly, but it is slightly more muted. My heart still doth race in a completely un-sexy way at the thought of my 2330 hours flight tomorrow night though.

Sunday I had breakfast with Hadi. He was late, as usual. I bought 2 books from Borders while waiting, so it wasn't a waste of time. One was booker winner How Late It Was, How Late and the other was An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England. I hope the latter is amusing because I have reached my current threshold of depressing literature. It'll also be good to have something to destress with on a 16 hour plane ride back to Londonium. Anyway I had a nice breakfast at Cedele with him, and all the laughing made me feel nice and calm. Then we went to Starbucks and I got green tea latte all over my mouth and he didn't tell me.

I met up with my mother (who told me about my green tea latte stained lips) and we shopped a little before I headed back earlier without her (she was going to meet friends). I had dinner with my dad at a random kopitiam in Buona Vista and then rested a bit before heading off to Cheam's place. Halfway there I remembered I hadn't seen Kaijun at all, and on a whim made a call to him. I ended up going to his place and talking to him for almost an hour before moving on to Cheam's place.

By then the lovely humidity and heat had caused me to sweat, despite the fact that there was hardly any physical exertion on my part. Since Pulau Sibu also gave me hives, I was scratching away. Cheam the boar gave me medicine with the words "It's not drowsy". When I was drowsy later, he amended it to: "It's not drowsy for me". We ended watching some MTV Top 40 countdown and half talking rubbish. I must have been prattling on about a lot of rubbish, since I was almost knocked out by the medicine. Later he walked me back, which was good since the medicine also made me insanely paranoid. On the way back, I saw someone staring out from a window at us and I said "OH MY GOD SOMEONE IS LOOKING AT US!" (really loudly too), but just as I said that the person walked off, then Cheam looked up and saw nothing. I bet he thinks I'm insane now.

Monday, Ianthe, Jia Hui and Steph came over to my place. We ate Golden Pillow :D Then we bummed in my (messy) room, talking. We should have stuck to that instead of going on the epic plan of fail that happened next. Steph mentioned wanting to play L4D2. We took a bus to Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, the guy there refused to let us play because only she was a member - but the rules which were posted all over said a member could bring 3 guests. Okay. Then we walked inside the shopping centre, to look for another lan centre but it turned out to be members only. OKAYYYYY. I was starting to get frustrated.

We then headed to Bukit Timah Plaza because there used to be a famous one there. However upon walking a few rounds, we discovered that one had disappeared. What. The. Hell. God clearly did not want us to play L4D. But no, JH and Steph were so hell bent on it (and to be honest after putting in all that effort it seemed a waste to not play) and we ended up trudging across the road to take 61 to Sunset Way. We went to Clementi Arcade for some nice cold creamy comfort when we discovered that THE DAILY SCOOP WAS CLOSED. OMG FAIL*4. We ended up eating at the eatery next door and playing Uno, and finally FINALLY managed to find a lan centre.

Then came the last fail: Steam apparently has been working very badly with L4D2. My computer (just mine) kept CONSTANTLY DISCONNECTING FROM THE GAME. I'd play like 30 seconds then the server would drop me. I wanted to cry in frustration. Lousy lousy lousy. But then on Steph's prompting I finally gave up and went to the counter girl in hopes of getting a refund or something, when she went and messed around with my computer and somehow got the game to work properly. So then I started playing :D

Actually come to think of it there was yet another fail. 1 hour into the game, my computer got stuck. It didn't just hang, it just made my screen go all white with an outline of a gun on it. I could shoot, but I couldn't see anything. Just as well since at that moment everyone kind of died and the zombies went after my stuck game next. Then I exited and rejoined, only to find the entire rendering of the game went with it. The next 30 minutes was spent bumbling about not being able to differentiate zombies from teammates, zombies from environment, and expending a lot of rounds that I didn't really have as a result.

Needless to say we couldn't complete the campaign.

Today I saw Avatar with my father. In 3D at Cathay. I also had yummy fried fish and yong tau foo for dinner. Now I am hot, sticky and sweaty, and need a shower.

Taaaa.

"Excuse me, can I massage your breasts?"

In the The Sims 3, there is a characteristic that you can choose for your Sims called "neurotic". With the neurotic characteristic, the Sims display a range of wants and actions that range from obsessive compulsive to anxious. You can even get to have an stress/panic attack on cue, which distresses the other Sims around it, but results in an 8 hour period of calmness for the Sim with an elevated mood. I wish I could be a Sim like that, then I could control my stress and have it boil and explode once everyday (or week) and then feel very calm and be in a do-not-give-a-flying-fuck mode, scaring roommates and friends notwithstanding. Instead I am stressed out constantly, all the time, every time now.

I spent New Year's at Rimba Resort on Pulau Sibu with my parents. I finished 4 books, which were all enjoyable, even the chick lit one I brought deliberately. I saw lots of Sea Turds (Sea Cucumbers) when the tide was out. The food was excellent. One of the other guests looked like Uncle Buster from Arrested Development. Yet at night the violent sounds of the waves crashing stressed me out. And the lack of things meant my mind was allowed to wander. In normal people this is a good time for them to relax, instead it starting boiling up into a panic attack for me where I starting feeling stressed about a thousandandonethings.

Today we left Pulau Sibu and went to JB. I had a nice lunch of Ba Ku Teh with my parents. I went to Giant and bought stuff that I wanted to bring back to London. I went for an excellent massage with my mother. I had not felt so relaxed in a long time, though the girl did a little switcharoo halfway, something I found out when she asked me to turn over halfway. Then I started thinking "hmm, isn't this a good way to kill someone, when they're getting a massage?". I probably undid 10 minutes worth of massage with that one thought.

Now I'm back home again, and I can feel my neck and shoulder muscles turning rock solid again.

My new year's resolution? Be less stressed, either medically or mentally. I'm going to die early at the rate I'm going.