This morning I woke up at 6 o'clock because of the SATs. As a result I ended up feeling very weird again.
First came a sense of my mental processes being blocked - this was on the car ride there. Then next came a running internal commentary (which was rather rude) on everyone I saw at the centre, from complaining that I felt like sheep being pushed about to random criticisms of bad dress. Best of all was the people I saw cramming right before the SATs, they were criticised the most by early-morning-me.
Overall the SATs were okay I suppose. Only time can tell however what my 'okay' means, through truth be told I personally find the whole thing inconsequential because my personal aim is for a university across the Atlantic where everyone is a 'daft punk', so I don't really mind if I do that badly? I think.
The weird mood continued till after the SATs though. I called Cielo but she was with someone else and briefly considered calling Nic to ask for Zhe Xian's number but in the end decided to walk around myself. So feeling very detached from reality, I walked from Cuppage to Paragon with a blank look on my face while everyone around me was running to avoid the rain. I also bought a very delicious looking lemon cupcake.
When I went to use the bathroom in Paragon - a old man walked in. I stared at him blankly before someone shouted 'Uncle! Next door!' and then the man gave a very surprised 'こ゛めねさい!' before scurrying out. For some reason that made me feel even more blank and detached - like when I saw bus number 77 taking another route on Wednesday to avoid the jam caused by this accident at the T-junction of Sixth Ave and Holland Road.
I then wandered over to Ngee Ann City where I went to buy more shorts because I realised on Monday night that I couldn't fit into the ones I had when I was Sec 2. (It's horrible how in Sec 4 I could still wear my clothes from primary school - now 2 years later I can't even fit into my Sec 4 jeans anymore!) While browsing the racks, I still felt weird, so when I went to try clothes on I ate a banana inside the changing room. For some reason I felt better after knowing I just did something weird.
Then I went to buy books, because when I feel odd I usually end up buying books. I was debating whether to get The Unaccustomed Earth or Kafka on the Shore, or even buy a better version of Jude the Obscure so I would finally read the book - and somehow I ended up buying て゛んしゃ おとこ instead (and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five after I kept thinking about it during the SATs after Johannes mentioned it on Thursday).
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On another note, last night I finished reading Socrates in Love by きょいち かたやま. I realised I ought to blog about the books I read, so at least in case I forget (and boy do I have a bad memory) what I read, I can easily refresh it.
So these are the books I have acquired recently:
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
なかの ひとり - て゛んしゃ おとこ
J. R. Tolkien - The Lord of The Rings I (on loan from Arjun)
Anne Enright - Taking Pictures (finished it on Wednesday)
きょいち かたやま - Socrates in Love (finished last night)
Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None (this is my first Agatha Christie book! I have had a deprived childhood of Sweet Valley High, Fantastic Five, Horrible Histories and Sally Lockheart only)
よこ おか゛わ - The Diving Pool
たいち やまた゛- I Haven't Dreamed of Flying for a While
If you are wondering why I am spamming Japanese ひらか゛な, it is because for some reason the impact of 'use it or lose it' in reference to languages has just hit me. Nooooo. I must not forget basic Japanese.
Also: the overload of Japanese authors is because I've been going to きのくにや rather than say Page One because it's more convenient, and I figure I can get other English medium books elsewhere so I might as well get the specialty books! I think that makes sense.
Today I went cycling in Pulau Ubin with Louis and Arjun. The last time I cycled must have been around July last year, when Lauren was still visiting Singapore - we were at East Coast Park and it was drizzling a little. Then school work started increasing, shit started happening and before I knew it I was stuck in a cast for a month and given orders to not go cycling till my tendon healed.
So anyway finally, on the 3rd of June 2008, 7 months after my accident involving a glass door, I have gone cycling again :D
We met at Commonwealth MRT station at 8:00 am and traveled to Tampines MRT station together to take 29 to Changi Point Jetty in Changi Village. On the bus ride there however, we noticed that the sky appeared to be having some self esteem issues - in particular it was emoing over our patch of sky.
Upon arriving at Ubin and getting our bikes, it started to rain. We ended up cycling a few meters and ended up hiding in a small shop with tables out front - Arj and I bought drinks to justify our presence, and so we sat there waiting for the rain to end. At the shop, there was also this grey parrot which kept meowing and saying hello. I rawred at it (in the cat sort of way, not the lion way).
When the rain finally abated, we got on our bikes and cycled toward Chek Jawa (give or take Louis' bike chain coming off once). To my immense horror when we reached there, I found out that when the map meant the road there was a dirt path - it really meant a dirt path complete with uphill and downhill bits. Oh noes.
Somehow, I managed to survive the dirt path to Chek Jawa. I had to stop some bits and push the bike up, had trouble controlling the bike on an uneven path, and went racing downhill faster than desired (and this is like the 5th time I've ever been on a bike!) - but in the end I reached the Chek Jawa visitor centre without losing more than the usual amount of skin cells, thanks to the patience and help of Arj and Louis.
Then it started raining again. So we ended up hiding at the little museum they had there, watching planes land on the mainland and talking about nothing in particular. When the rain ended again, we went off to walk on the sea facing boardwalk. There was nothing to see on the boardwalk however, because it was high tide thanks to the rain, though we did see a monitor lizard. The mangrove boardwalk however was a different story. There we saw many mudskippers, little fish swimming in the calm waters and hornbills.
On the way back out of Chek Jawa, we took another dirt path out. This one was far more inclined both upwards and downwards, and I was rendered remarkably tired by the earlier path to Chek Jawa - so the inevitable happened almost 20m from the tarmac.
I was behind the two of them, struggling with my bike after going uphill, when upon going downhill the bike started to drift towards the foliage on the left hand side of the path. As I tried to regain control of the direction and turn it to the right, I inched closer to the foliage and earned a few scratches from the whipping leaves. Just as I thought I was okay, I saw a tree trunk appear right in front of my mildly out of control bike, so I quickly braked and swerved to the right. The sudden change in direction caused my bike to jerk to a sudden stop, and I flew off and landed on the dirt path after sliding down a little from the original impact point :s
Initially I tried to get up by myself, but then I felt too weak and tired for some reason and ended up having to be pulled up by someone. I sat there dazed for a short while as Louis took out wipes and stuff to clean the wounds I sustained on my two knees and right elbow. I remember feeling really disgusted looking at the (deeper) wound on my right knee because I could see through the epidermis to the dermis underneath where there was a pattern of little red dots forming. Brrrrr. I looked at my watch, it was 1:30 pm.
After resting a while, we cycled back to the main village for lunch. Then it was back to more cycling around 3 pm, and we ended up bumming about sitting on a bridge for quite a period of time talking again about nothing in particular. As we were heading back, it started to rain again. So thus ended our tenure on Pulau Ubin, and I left many many skin cells lighter.
We ended up taking 2 back, and alighting at Tanah Merah MRT station instead of the originally planned Eu Tong Sen Street - then took MRT to Queenstown MRT station where Arjun and I ended up waiting some time for 970 to come trundling around and poof! I was home.
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This is a really boring and badly written entry. I am hungry.
2nd June - Make a Collage Day (of at least 7 pictures)
Just now while walking back from the bus stop to my house, I saw a dead bird on the side of the road.
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If I were childish, I could say that the source of all human suffering is male gender.
But I'm not childish. I have to say something like 'the source of the human suffering is the opposite sex.'
But then again, I've lived too long and seen to many things to know that statement is nothing but a gross oversimplification. In truth, the source of all* human suffering is ourselves. It is our humane inability to do the things we know we should do, our inability to resist doing the things we know we should not do, and our inability to cease thinking of what should not be thought of. It's not that we can't do it - we can! If we couldn't do it, then well your suffering falls under another category. The worst suffering is the suffering you know you can prevent, but still don't do so anyway and live on with the consequences.
*things always sound better when you use 'all': I should think most readers here are astute enough to know what I mean.
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It is no secret that for the past few months, I have been suffering from intermittent depression. It comes quickly without warning, every week. In this time period, suffice to say I have been nothing but absorbed in myself, my feelings, my life, with trying to hold on to the shreds of sanity and soul that I had left. I had no time, no feeling, no ability to even remain much in the interpersonal sphere.
However now that my life has been stabilising, I have been slowly easing back into the lives that revolve around my life sphere - and I feel so overwhelmed.
A lot of things that I thought were okay, that were fine during my recovery period - are not. Perhaps it was because these people wanted to leave me be, give me the space I needed, I don't quite know. But now things do seem quite fucked up. Fucked up beyond belief. FUBAR.
One part of me says, now now please don't go all dramatic again, maybe things will be fine. Then the other part screams NO NO NO! I can see disaster happening, and it is this part which dominates my person. I am worried. The implications behind all of this makes my head spin. I feel my heart ache.
I really need to do some running today.
I have actually been avoiding my blog because I have failed to complete the last two tasks :/
My autobiography has been stuck at Pri 4 for the past few days. This is largely because when the person I was following the calendar with, Hion Lam, asked for an extension, I fell into a state of inertia (which is pretty much what this past 1 week of holiday has been so far for me).
Yesterday Arj and I walked from Little India, to Haji Lane, to the Beach Road place that sells the army/camping stuff, back to Haji Lane, then to Bugis and City Hall. At City Hall we met Lex and Elliot going for a manly shopping session (ohoho!) and followed them for a while - and so marked the first time I ever stepped into Springfield. We then went to Funan to eat dinner, because it seemed to be one of the least crowded places to eat in town on a Friday night.
Our last stop before heading home was Gramophone. I must say I was really impressed by how they stocked Stars, Broken Social Scene and Iron and Wine, of all places I didn't expect to see them in Gramophone. That being said, last time when Cielo and I were there in March they were playing Bird and Bee's How Deep Is Your Love, so perhaps they stock more 'indie' stuff that I originally thought. Anyway I ended up buying Stars' In Our Bedroom After the War (which is now loaned to Arjun - you'd better listen to it multiple times!), which quite cleaned me out :/
In the store they were also playing Jason Mraz's new album, which I was also quite impressed with. So when I went home I did the normal thing most teenagers do nowadays, I downloaded it. I also finally listened to Blonde Redhead again, so for today my current song obsessions are 23 by Blonde Redhead & Lucky by Jason Mraz (+ Colbie Caillat). Special mentions include the very dodgy Upside Down by A*teens which I have been leeching off Nic's simplify and the rest of 23 by Blonde Redhead.
Argh I feel really frustrated by my inertia. I need to do work ):
I feel displaced again today.
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Yesterday was Read A Chapter of a Book day and I read finish The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin (since it had no chapters) and read two short stories from Taking Pictures by Anne Enright.
I got shocked just now trying to switch on the bathroom light. My left index finger feels all tingly now, and my left arm is shaking ever so slightly.
Today was Go Vegetarian for a Meal day. Last night as I was about to sleep, I realised that it should be 'Go Vegetarian for an entire day' to make the task harder to complete because one could cheat and just eat bread for breakfast... which incidentally was what I ended up doing because during dinner, I realised that there was minced meat on the tofu that I was eating. D'oh. So er, I'm not quite sure if I failed/passed today. Technically I passed, personally I think I failed.
Tomorrow will be a more challenging day.
Today I woke up twice, both because my brother came into my room. (The 'x's indicate where he was).
1) Around 7:00am, I woke up to see him standing next to my bed and drinking out of my cup of water - I proceeded to wonder why he was not in child care, then yelled at him to bring the cup downstairs because he drank out of it.
2) Around 9:30am, he came into my room and standing flopping onto my bed. I woke up to see him burying his face into my comforter. To the left is the very old blanket my mama gave me, more than 10 years old, still covering my legs.
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Today was the ACSI open house. Not wearing uniform had some perks, like I got to go up to the Math booth and ask about Math Studies when the guy was '!!!'-ing away. However I also ended up helping out, and hard sold History to some Crescent Girl and her mother, told people who wanted extra files from the general inquiry booth to add a fake name to the list, pretended to speak Malay/Tamil at the Malay/Tamil B booth.
For Gerald's birthday today, we went karaoke-ing at the NUS guild house. I sang till I lost my voice -____- We sang old stuff like Scrubs, All Out of Love, Queen of My Heart, Wannabe, 25 Minutes, etc (you get the general idea here) + a very rousing combined rendition of It's My Life. Afterwards we wandered over to NYDC, then Malcolm's place for drinks. The night ended relatively early because most of us have con camp tomorrow, and I have a World Lit 1 about Medea and Hedda Gabler to reckon with now. Woof!
For the past week, I had admittedly not been following the May month activities all that well - except for one or two times a day. However as requested by a certain bum by the name of Hion Lam + a collaboration with him, we have come up with a June holiday planner, with the theme of 'self improvement':
26th - photograph the first thing(s) you see when you wake up day
27th - read a chapter of a book day
28th - go vegetarian for a meal day
29th - write entire autobiography in one day day
30th - make soup day
2nd - make a collage of 7 pictures that you love day
3rd - submit postsecret day
4th - go to pulau ubin day
5th - back up hard drive day
6th - draw a picture of 3 things you use everyday day
9th - no swearing day
10th - perform a random act of kindness day
11th - exercise day
12th - write and send a letter to a friend day
13th - iron clothes day
16th - learn 2 new words, and apply them day
17th - talk to a friend you haven't spoken to in a year day
18th - quote King Lear day (IOC prep)
19th - hug your parents day
20th - listen to pre-2003 songs day
So here's to an awesome and non-useless June holiday! Credit goes to Ianthe for the original May month idea.
I'm feeling kind of brain dead today, so I'll make this post as short as possible. After school today, Kaijun, Arjun and I walked from ACSI to his place in Hume Avenue. On google maps it says it's a distance of about 7.8 km. We started around late 3 o'clock in the afternoon, took a break around 5 o'clock-ish at the Al Ameen Eating House opposite Beauty World and ended up at Arj's place around 6 o'clock. On the way there/afterwards we met:
1) San Ge Ren at the Sunset Way bus stop
2) May-E and Shane somewhere between/near Singapore Institute of Management and Ngee Ann Poly
3) Random ex ACSI person wearing an old corporate tee that Arjun and Kaijun faintly recognised outside Ngee Ann Poly
4) Someone called Eugene and some other guy at Al Ameen Eating House
5) Cheang Jin outside Bukit Panjang Plaza (we went there for dinner)
So, this is how the three of us spent Arjun's first post council afternoon. Ta dah.
In the meanwhile, the 'holidays' have finally arrived. Despite the mountain loads of work I expect to trudge through, I am thankful that at least I can get more sleep. So in this upcoming first week I need to:
1) Submit the other half of my CAS file which I left at home today
2) Edit + submit EE
3) Submit TOK essay
4) English Goddess' essay
5) World Lit 1
Today I finally got a look at the new issue of !nk. It was during SL3 Biology, which I went to 15 minutes late because I got help up during contact time in 6.9. I rushed there, afraid of the shellacking I'd get from the Indian Lady - only to burst through the doors and find scattered classmates, all female, sitting about doing their own work. The Indian Lady, it turned out, was on her way to some exotic destination with her Year 5 form class.
I went to sit down at my usual place, Y----'s table, and coveniently spotted the current issue of !nk peeking out from underneath. I picked it up and started browsing though. The first thing I saw was that on the contributor's column, my name was absent. The second thing I noticed was that someone had also omitted Yihang's name under writers, shoving him into a lone section while spelling his name wrong. I then further scanned down the column, and found out to my dismay that Kaijun left the [insert name here] inside the correction I gave him, so instead of an apology it turned into a guessing game cum all round farce.
I browse through the rest of the pages, while getting random smatterings of commentary from my Bio classmates on the issue, spot more random barneys including a recycled shooped image, and finally spot my contribution near the middle of the page. Next to Yihang's agent fatass, it looks far shorter in comparison. As my eyes take in the entire article, I spot words which were never present in my vernacular sticking out of the prose I 'wrote'. I look further, and realise someone else has completely edited the article beyond recognition, it is no longer me speaking but a secondary source pretending to be a primary source. The missing credit then makes sense suddenly - except my name has been plastered all over the article I did not write: someone decidedly masculine has overwritten my feminine voice. I then spotted my face poking out from a bottom corner of the page and feel dizzily sick, so I flipped the page and continued scanning the rest of the issue. I feel even dizzy than before, the issue seems to go downhill from a downhill.
Closing the paper, I shove it back under Y----'s desk. I spend the rest of the period watching Jeanette and Rachel play some DDR-like computer game with anime songs. They play the mortal combat theme when Butler comes in.
The next lesson I spend reading Middlesex. It is TOK. Cielo speaks to me for a moment, then tells me to "go do my work". I suddenly feel myself floating above my body. In my disembodiment I stop feeling simultaneously while feeling everything at the same time. I feel the air conditioning blowing on the back of my neck. I feel my blouse touching my skin. I see the bleached white grey colours of the classroom washing everything around in its monochromatic hues - colour drained away. I hear the amplified voices coming from my left and behind me. One is a normal, averagely pitched murmur. The one behind is loud is booming.
Cielo speaks again, "Stop stoning, go do your work!". I somehow manage to open the pages of my book even though I am floating above. Physically I read and absorb, but I feel myself far away from my body. After class my body stands up and I trail behind it, flying in the gentle breeze blowing. My body tries to make casual conversation, "what is the next period?", even though I already know the answer. After I ask that question and receive a response, I feel myself completely separate from my body. I don't feel like speaking anymore. So I don't.
I still feel the wind blowing on my skin and my nerve tingle away, transmitting their electrical pulses to me. I feel the pull of every muscle in my leg as I walk up to class. I feel tired of being overstimulated and hypersensitive to my surroundings. My mind feels like it is caught betwixt some conundrum of feeling simultaneously nothing and everything at the same time.
On the way down to recess, Lex chatters away. I somehow find it in myself to respond, though I don't feel very much like speaking at all. I float about and eat my food. I feel myself slowly returning to my body. I still feel hyperaware about my surroundings, the red, yellow, blue SAC tables juxtaposed most glaringly with the bleached surroundings make me feel more tired. My eyes are getting strained trying to cope with the contrasting colours. I return to class, walking almost robotically. My calves feel every drop of lactic acid produced by underutilised muscles. Class is too noisy, so I pick up Middlesex and my sweater and head outside to read.
Outside the sensory overload doesn't seem to be abating, but at least I feel no wind on my skin. I read. I feel the feeling return to my shoulders again. A voice calls out to me. I feel irritated - I don't feel like speaking at all. I say 'hi' and quickly return to staring at my book. But she doesn't take the hint. She rightfully suspects something is wrong, so she lingers about trying to coax a conversation out of me. But I don't feel like speaking. After a while she gives up and I return to the world of Calliope. Calliope is a green coloured word.
During Econs I finally collapse from the oppressively excessive stimuli and close my eyes to rest. I feel weary, like I have not slept in days. Every cell in my body screams for rest. Oddly enough, the Indian Martini makes no comment. So I rest.
When English finally rolls around, I have stopped thinking. My mind feels hollow and empty, and I get a nasty feeling of being a sponge - undeservingly soaking up the thoughts of others. Her English Highness prods me for a comment, her eyes looking right inside mine. I feel my heart rate slow down till it almost stops beating. I give a sheepish smile even though I don't feel sheepish, but it's the only appropriate response. She starts groaning about us not being as vocal as before and for a second, I feel guilty. Then I feel nothing again. I try to pay attention to her discussions with the other students, but I find myself unable to follow their lines of thought. I feel cold. I look at her dress. I like it. I study the lines and the cut, and come to the conclusion it's inspired by 1940's fashion - the liberty print some throwback to the prairie inspired looks of the '80s.
I leave right after her class, sans green form because I don't feel bothered enough with paper work. In the car my dad starts talking to me, so I force myself to speak again. It is the most I have spoken in hours. I feel slightly less disembodied. Arriving at the outpatient clinics, I meet Joash and his father. For some reason he is wearing the cohort shirt. I walk on and take the short cut to Medical Social Services, only to find that I got the timing wrong. The session is for 3:00pm, not 2:00pm. I laugh. I sit at the reception area, waiting for my father to appear. I am still wearing the school sweater, with its amplified school crest - which is what everyone walking by stares at.
My dad calls, to tell me to meet him at Cheers. I have no idea where Cheers is. I get up and start walking, and wander from place to place. I feel people staring at the school crest. I get the distinct feeling of being lost, yet feel no urge to ask for directions. In fact, I vaguely enjoy the feeling of aimless wandering. Then I turn around the corner to discover the subconscious memory of my feet have led me to Cheers.
We drive across the road to a Malay coffeeshop. I want Thosai, but they're out of it. I self destructively order Cheese Prata (which is why I can't stop burping now). Half reading and peering around the small shop, I note that my father and I are the only Chinese around. Everyone else is either Malay or Indian. The Chinese people walking past the coffeeshop give surprised looks when they spot us eating there. Odder still, there is a random China Chinese coffeeshop helper working there, looking rather out of place. His skin, paler than mine, is contrasted sharply with the dark puckered and aged skin of his tiny bosses. For a second I think he is an albino, so I search out his eyes with mine. But no, his irises are as black as mine. A fly lands on me, and I feel it's legs tap away on my skin. I think it's because I'm Chinese.
My dad drops me off at the hospital again and I move to the waiting area outside the counseling rooms. I see a few people gathered around the chairs closest to Room 6, one is sitting in a wheelchair, so I move to the row of seats next to them. They soon disappear, filtering into one of the many rooms around. Most curiously, they have left the wheelchair behind. I feel the impulse to walk over and sit in it, to pretend I can't walk again. Then I realise that would make me appear more unstable than I already do, so all I do is gaze longingly at the wheelchair while trying to read. I feel my heart rate accelerate thinking about the upcoming counseling session, I feel scared and anxious all at once without really knowing why. Then, she pops her head out of Room 6 and calls me in.
During the session she calls me Melanie again. She also asks for my blog address. So Hello if you are reading this (though I seriously doubt anyone has bothered to read this far). While speaking I also notice that a man has walked through the doors and is sitting in the cubicle next to mine. His leather shoes and black socks peep out from behind filing cabinets, and a barely discernible masculine voice indicate his presence. Curious, I ask her if this is a pediatric counseling room. The Sesame street toy is still perched above the partition, diagonally across her cubicle I espy more children's drawings stuck to the window and an orange paper cut tiger grinning at me. To my left either Chip or Dale is sticking its head out of a clear vase. I thought it was a pediatric counseling room. But she says no, the toys are there because 1 colleague has kids, the other just like toys and she has her own possessions about. ERRRRRRRRRRR. I feel silly.
On the way back home my father stops to pick up some masking tape from a hardware store. He buys 5 pieces, ripping them out from their original packagings. As a result, two pieces of masking tape circle shaped plastic are still wedged between the tapes. I carry them to the car. Initially I like the feeling of carrying them, of holding something in my hands. Then I lift them up to my right eye and look through. I close my left eye. I remain this way, peering out of my right eye through the plastic lenses of the masking tapes till I realise I'm seeing mainly the interior of the car. I then shift the tapes to my left eye.
I look out, looking at people passing by. I see some people staring at me. I ignore them. As we drive on, I open the right eye. Blink. Left eye. Right eye. The colour changes. The red lettering on the inside of the masking tape rolls have made my left vision more saturated with red, the right appears more bleached. I alternate eyes again. The colours of the masking tape lens remind me of a holga. I return to looking out of my left eye. My eyes spot some grains of dirt on the plastic sheeting. I count 4 of them, within close proximity to each other. They frame up a palm smudge nicely. As I look at the dirt, the background has blurred. I switch from foreground to background and back. I alternate eyes. Foreground. Right eye. Background. Left eye. Blink.
When I finally remove the tapes from my eye to open the gate, there is a red indentation on my undefined cheekbone flesh. I immediately start missing my holga vision.
For once in a very long time I find myself in a horrible mood and blogging at the same time, mainly because I have been avoiding blogging when I'm in one of these moods so things look better to myself when I'm re-reading the old stuff. Though to be fair that is not quite true, I have generally been in a better mood but tonight is one of those off nights again where I:
1) Get angry at people for being insensitive
2) Get frustrated because I haven't finished a piece of work in days (well minus History IA)
3) Doubt myself
4) Doubt the value I place on myself
5) Get irritated at the feelings and thoughts I cannot control
6) Get pissed and worried at the same time over a classmate
7) Feel blah at another classmate
Yes, I think those are the things that have been disturbing me most tonight. I don't know - I just feel very cheesed off in general. I just hope I don't snap.
Today was Sing Pop Songs From Primary School Day! I managed to get quite a few of my class people into the act, like Justin, Ted Kin, Joash, Lex, JLC - not forgetting Jim who was playing the songs on his laptop and singing along with me the most.
We/I sang (ranging from some lines to the entire song):
N'sync - Bye Bye Bye
Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life
Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
Faith Hill - There You'll Be
R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly
Air Supply - All Out of Love
Er I forgot the rest, besides random Venga Boys and Aqua.
For dinner today, I found myself alone and searching for a seat in a kopitiam in Clementi. After walking one round around the kopitiam, I came to the conclusion that there were no empty tables to be found and instead switched to looking for people who had a table and looking willing to share and came across an old man. When I say old man, I meant older than my 70 year-old-grandfather sort of age. If I could guess he was at least in his eighties, or he could have just been one of those unfortunate people who aged fast.
After asking to share the table with him in Mandarin, I went off to buy food - chicken rice and returned. As I sat there opposite him, sharing a small two person table, I felt my mind race and sprout out various questions. I wanted to ask him how old he was, his name, where he stayed, who was the first person he ever loved, what did he regret most in his life, what advice did he have for the young? The only thing that really hindered me from doing so (besides the sheer oddity of it all), was the language barrier. What if he said something I didn't understand? Wouldn't it be too weird? So in the end I didn't.
After he finished his food, he got up and left and I said bye to him in Mandarin. He turned and gave me a small wave, and walked off to wherever he was headed.
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Today was Bring A Pillow To School Day - so I brought my pillow (actually a cushion) to school. It came in really handy when the Indian Lady didn't turn up for Biology,so I returned to class to nap. Except it wasn't a really good nap; just like how I've been having nothing but bad sleep for the past 2 weeks. But at least I got to rest, sort of.
Ice Skating after school was pretty enjoyable, but for some reason this week the rink was really really crowded. Worse still, it was filled with amateurs and idiots. The problem with amateurs/beginners is that I can't stop, and they can't stop. So I have to worry about them skating onto my path and me not being able to stop in time (this problem I try to avoid by skating away from the sides of the rink). My next problem is how they love to link hands together and skate in one mass of epic fail. When you link hands, you are blocking my path. I don't really want to have to plow through your mass of uselessness. Also when you are skating in a line and suck at skating, when one person goes down so does the rest of the line. Today I saw a few lines skate themselves to doom and people falling left right centre. Once I saw this bunch of kids dressed in school uniform (how the hell did they get in?) link hands and skate, and one girl fell on the ice and a few others tumbled on her. She ended up sitting on the ice crying and saying 'hen tong!' and everyone else just skated around her. Some of her friends even went off to skate, leaving her and a few others of the group to stand around her helplessly.
The idiots part came mainly with the speed skaters, who looked to be in some sort of gang setting - from what I saw last week and this week. They would skate at insane speeds around the rink, deftly avoiding people but making me worry that they would inadvertently crash into me. They also gathered in corners to scrape ice (which ruins the surface and is bad for skating). Two of those gangs even got into a shouting match on the ice - and when one guy skated away the other chased after him. I kind of hoped they'd fight, because it would be some kind of awesome to see people fighting on ice skates, disregarding aggressive ice hockey.
My last gripe were these two kids (about 8 - 10+) I saw on the ice. They were skating with the frames for support (so well they weren't really skating) and were zooming all over the place. They were like the speed skaters but without sensibility, skill and less consideration. I saw them zooming all over the place, indiscriminately crashing into people. When one of them skated into a cone (how the hell? It's a stationary object) and fell over, he couldn't even get up and some guy had to come lift him up. I almost wanted to tell the guy to not help him since the kid was being such a dickhead. They even skated into some girl that I had helped earlier. She had lost her rings when she fell. I can only imagine she lost her rings again when she fell down the second time. The first time when I helped her she was complaining about being wet - now she was even wetter. I saw her complaining to one of the ice skating coaches on the rink who had skated to her when she fell.
On the upside, I managed to avoid falling down today. So this makes it the first time I have been on the ice since P3 when I first went ice skating. I think this is 6th time I've skated before. Today I also managed to skate faster both frontwards and backwards + mastered the wiggle method of skating backwards. I'm really enjoying the ice skating, which kind of makes me wonder what would have happened if I really did have the ice skating lessons with Petrina, Krystle and Linette in Sec 1 - like we planned. But then again life is filled with many loose ends, what-ifs and possibilities and that was but one of them.
Today is Smack Some Ass Day, so I smacked:
1) Arjun (5 times)
2) Kaijun (3 times)
3) Brendan (2 times)
The rest in sort of chronological order:
- Joash
- Malcolm
- Johannes
- Cheam
- Gerald
- Elliot
- JLC
- Sean
- Jess Mallek
- Yihang
- Tricia
- Putu (he was the cutest! I went up to him and said it was Smack Some Ass Day and he turned around and offered me his bum)
- Jim
- Hidayah
And I only got hit by Hidayah. Ohohoho, the perks of being female.
Today during PE it was my turn to try the Vertical Challenge thing, and boy was I freaked out. It was yet another one of those conquer-your-fear things that I do even though I know I will freak out. I really felt terrified climbing up, my heart was thundering away and I felt my palms get really really sweaty. I also felt a little faint. (I have a horrid fear of heights and falling, even though I am sometimes tempted to fling myself off high levels - there must be something to psychologically analyse there)
I kind of hung around the top of the ladder for a few minutes, too petrified to even move. As I was up there the idea that I was blocking other people from climbing/attempting the Vertical Challenge, so I ended up feeling bad amidst the freaking out. When I finally got to the little grey platform at the top I sat there for what felt like ages, too afraid to move again. Finally I stood up and even climbed the green netting halfway before being let down. Throughout I kept thinking 'OMG OMG OMG/FUCK FUCK FUCK/If I can do this I can do anything!'
Fascinating juxtaposition of thoughts.
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The highlight of the day when we won the rugby match! This was a huge contrast to when last year we lost in the finals to RJC - and I finally started to understand the scoring of the game and was able to actually keep score this time round :o... at my last rugby match ever. I also cheered so much that I feel my throat being kind of hoarse now. Hopefully that feeling will go away soon. That and I hope we get a holiday :D
Sexually Inappropriate Day!
1) Called various people names like sexy/hot buns/steel abs
2) Smacked someone's ass (though I should have reserved it for Monday)
3) Slided up to Chong Wee (I remember doing this to someone else, but I forgot who the other person was) and slid my hand across his shoulders - ohoho!
4) Leaned over and breathed on Jia Hui's neck
Er that was about it. There was nothing shoutily outstanding about today events - other than the ass smacking which made the victim drop his (thankfully!) padded laptop. The only reason he shall remain unnamed here is because someone might come after me that it is really dodgy if a girl smacks a guy's ass. So HOHOHO!
I don't know. I didn't really do that much. I did a lot of talking to Jim during History class though - we were both really high. He kept doing a lot of shit to Gen, then later Chun Wui came by to gay hug him. Fun stuff.
After school I saw Iron Man with Brendan, Stephanie and Louis. When it was time to go in, we discovered that the lady who had given us our tickets had messed them up, it was printed for The Island at 1:00pm. We bought the tickets at 2:50-something -_______________- AND the Island was long gone out of cinemas. So we ended up having to follow the ticketing lady down to the ticketing counter to get new tickets + seats. Thankfully there were still some spare seats at a good altitude.
We later met up with a very high Jia Hui and Hui Ming - and JH was complaining like hell about these 3 year 5 boys who were in front of them during their screening of Iron Man. It was something about how they mistook Iron Man by Black Sabbath as song by AC/BC. No that is not a typo, they literally called it AC/BC. So in addition to getting the name of the band who did the song wrong, they had also gotten the wrong band's name wrong as well.
Then the 3 music offenders turned up. JH and Hui Ming went right to me and Steph who knew them went to talk to them. I swear JH was DAMN LOUD complaining about them, and the tall one of the lot kept giving me the eye. D'oh. Of the lot I recognised one of them from YLS (who shall be unnamed for crimes against music) and the other as this really weird Indian guy who was playing with catch with his wallet in the SAC - then dropped it next to me and it sort of bounced away and he had to stoop down to catch it. I mean I have embarrassing stuff like that happen to me often but this kid screamed bad weird from every pore. So yes, AC/BC.
After Louis, Brendan and Hui Ming had left, Jia Hui, Steph and I were wandering about Plaza Singapura in search of food. We bought soups from saybons and went to the park above the MRT station. To our surprise it was also some sort of improv skate park, but we hid in a corner. After a while I ended up progressing from sitting on the marble ledge to sitting on the floor, then I finally laid down and stared at the sky. I felt really brain dead. We ended up leaving at about 8:30 and then I came home. Voila!
I'm feeling rather melancholic again today - and again I am not yet sure why. Yesterday during ice skating I felt a huge yawning ache in me, one of loneliness and I was inspired! Words were running through my mind and I longed to start writing, "It was the ice skating." would be my opening lines. But I was on the ice, there was no pen-and-paper, no Saoirse. Today the feeling has gone and work that I have been neglecting has risen right to the top of my consciousness again. O horrid horrid reality, I do loathe thee.
Anyway in celebration of today's Accuse People of Random Crimes today I...
1) Accused 3 people of stealing my heart (which resulted in a priceless reaction from Johannes where this look of shock washed over his face and he literally froze)
2) Accused uh 2? people of stealing my eraser
3) Accused someone of stealing a pen
4) Accused Daryl of stealing my book, then really took his book from him
5) Accused Malcolm of stealing a plant
6) Accused someone of committing incest with a test tube
7) Accused Gerald of making a mess in the SAC
8) There are probably a few more, but I forget.
Yes I am unoriginal. Worst was when I ran up to Cheryl and went 'YOU!' and then my brain died as I tried to think of a crime to accuse her of. I ended up saying '...stole my heart' because of this really dumb pick up line Gerald is now synonymous with. One day in a pick up line showdown, he went 'Stop that man! He stole my heart'. Awesome.
I got accused of:
1) Raping Johannes (which made me freeze and wtf because I forgot temporarily forgot the day)
2) Committing genocide
3) Killing someone's butler
Tomorrow's Be Sexually Inappropriate with your Friends day should be more interesting.
Since today is supposed to be the official 'speak in a bad British accent' day and it would actually be that much more weirder to be speaking in a bad British accent all by yourself, 'accuse other people of random crimes' day was switched to tomorrow.
I kind of forgot about the day till morning assembly when the NPCC guest of honour was introduced as having graduated from Cambridge, then I turned to Malcolm and started speaking in a bad accent and he spoke back in one. LOL. The rest of the day was filled with smatterings of bad British accents floating about because Malcolm and Jim were also celebrating the day. I even met Brendan Ma and got him to speak in a bad accent for 1 line.
However the best was when I met Johannes on the way to Biology class. I told him it was Bad British Accent Day and he immediately got into the act. Throughout Biology we would say random things in bad accents to each other/other people/the Indian lady much to the amusement of the rest of the class. When I lapsed and started speaking normally, he would make some 'EEEEEEE' sound and give me an unhappy face. LOL.
So yes, jolly good!
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Today during SL2 I was with Arjun and Stephanie bumming about the connecting bridge. I went to the side and pointed out my still precariously perched ruler and then Arjun suddenly got frustrated and wanted to take the ruler down from the awning. Next thing I knew, he went into .3 and came out holding a broom, a pole with Louis trailing behind.
First he tried leaning over the 5th level with the broom to knock down the ruler, then he gave up and passed the broom to Louis and headed downstairs to try and nudge the ruler from the 4th level. After discovering his method worked (and nudged the ruler more vertically to the awnings), he gave the awning one large knock and the ruler went flying into the air and glided down to the 1st level. I kind of cursed because there was no way I would walk down 5 levels just to pick up a damned 70 cent ruler which wouldn't draw straight anymore so I continued to stare at the pond area downstairs in some sort of despair.
As I stared down, broom straws started to rain down from my right. They floated down kind of oddly, like dead weight. The ruler on the other hand, had cut into the air and subsequently slid into some unseen place under the connecting bridge area. Then unexpectedly, Arjun popped out downstairs. He had gone down to pick up the ruler!
After he returned and handed me back my ruler, I ran my fingers up and down it. It felt rough and looked a shade darker than it had before. Then someone else turned up and I said something really dumb and Arjun took the ruler away from me and threatened to throw it down again. For some reason I didn't mind even after I had gotten it back, the idea of throwing something down just seemed to thrilling and illegal. Then Stephanie took it and really threw it down.
For the second time today the ruler went a-flying, this time all the way down 5 stories and it landed splat in the middle of the weird mosquito larvae breeding/tranquil pond. Bye bye ruler.
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After school today I went for the Ice Skating CAS with Tricia, Sarah, Joash, Elliot, Alvin, Javis, Darren, Joel, Natalie and Sui Liz.
After skating for about 5 to 10 mins, I felt confident enough to let go of the railing and skate normally, and was happy skating about in circles by myself. Some others like Natalie were really good, and the rest picked skating up pretty fast too, like Elliot and Alvin. Joash as the exception: even at the end of the session he was still clinging onto the railings.
Tricia and Sarah were teaching us stuff beyond the basic skating, so after some practice I can skate in some weird open knees close knees way, and skate backwards really slowly. As we neared the 2hr+ mark, my muscles started getting really tired and it got really hard to skate properly because I couldn't control the skates well. The rink was also really slippery because the ice was melting from the sheer number of people on it - there were literally large puddles of water everywhere, which made it harder to skate.
After resting a little, I got up and started skating again, holding onto Joash to get him to skate away from the railings. This however, tired me out more because I had to support his weight. Then as I let him go and started to skate by myself, I finally slipped and fell down -___________________________________-
Blah. So much for my streak.
Yesterday was take 'unlimited pictures of your day' day. Except I found myself at a 'limit' around mid-day, because my camera was running out of batteries! Shit. It was also a good thing that I was looking at it when I was eating my breakfast in the morning because when I found the SD card was full I managed to run upstairs and quickly insert another one.
I loaded the pictures on flickr, because it would have been a nightmare sticking them here. But then flickr gave me problems too -_____- (this is why some of the pictures are out of sequence) and made me quite pissed off. Anyway I managed to get the pictures loaded, complete with some commentary accompanying the pictures, so without further ado I present my flickr. If you're wondering why the colours are so saturated, it's because Nic set the settings to chrome on my camera and I didn't change it back, but now looking at all the pictures I think the setting is so good I'm going to keep it like that permanently.
I also ended up having to wash the camera cover with soap, which is a bad idea considered it's made of some faux leather shit with a felt inside. But then Louis put the camera cover on top of the dustbin as he walked away from me ): wtf. I ended up asking Gen to carry it into class till we could get back from PE and I could wash it. Yes I have OCD.
After school I went with Jim, Ted Kin and the rest of the council people to the ACSI vs RJC semi final match. I was amused at the reactions of people who boarded 74 and saw the zerg rush of red shirted counselors on board - it was something like shock and then unhappiness at not getting a seat. I was also kind of shocked to see how few supporters had turned up, RJC has sent classes and their council was out in full rah rah force and plus the Y6 council and girls' touch rugby people (I think?), there was only about 10 other supporters. Also, the parents were the most enthusiastic of the lot of us - screaming vulgarities, insults and advice. They also almost fought with the RJC parents. This would be a lot less surreal if some of them weren't soccer moms, but well...
I also felt bad when I heard the RJC people cheering. They had so many more people than us! Our cheering if not delayed, also fell apart into random bursts periodically with some random pointless screaming which did nothing but generate noise (the girls were pretty good at this, completely reminded me of MGS). It also didn't help that I didn't know how the game was played and neither did Arjun/Ted Kin/people around me, so I never knew who was winning and kept feeling anxious. The feeling didn't even abate after they officially announced that the winner was ACSI, so I went home feeling anxious. And then I felt anxious the entire night.
And then I couldn't sleep till 2am (they are probably not connected though).
So today's Act Like A Zombie Day was almost half done.
I zombied my morning about, but after Math test I felt better. After recess and walking up with the class people, I started to zombie walk. Well tried to anyway. I also chanted "brains brains brains". I walked into class like that and managed to shock JC a little. When I went out of class to throw my half eaten sandwich away, some girl walked around me because I was really slow zombie walking -_________- afterwards Malcolm gave me some act-like-a-zombie lessons when he said I seemed like an injured person more than a zombie -__________-
Tomorrow is Accuse People of Random Crimes day + Nicholas' Birthday. So if you see this, HAPPY BIRTHDAY O PERVERSE ONE.
As I type this, I have a most uncomfortable and ill-fitting piece of tissue wound around the middle of my left index finger. Just now as I was trying to open the foil covering off a bottle of orange flavoured lassi, I took out a steak knife to cut out the foil. That knife never really did cut well, I think my mother bought it for like $1 with some other badly made and flimsy fork with a wooden handle, but it grazed my index finger. I didn't even feel a thing, I just looked and saw a small line of red forming against whiteness.
I felt a bit sick and dizzy after seeing it. I went to wash off the blood, but even with the blood gone I still felt a little light headed. So I headed upstairs to hide and now sit here typing and feeling even fainter.
I remember in Sec 2 when I sat next to Angeline in class, she had this black file covered with lots of pictures. One was of Marilyn Manson in some freaking red/yellow contacts. That picture used to weird me out every time I saw it, and for some reason he reminded me of Darth Maul. However the picture which sticks most in my mind was this picture of someone sticking out their tongue and using a razor blade to cut their tongue. There was blood too. Angeline said it was photoshopped, but every time I saw it I felt really faint. How I survived sitting next to her file is kind of beyond me - but I recall us having to change seats in some mass reshuffle and ending up next to Ianthe.
Last year when I kicked the glass door, my first reaction was to close my eyes. I felt something wet on my foot and didn't want to know what it was. I kept my eyes closed through out journey to the hospital. I felt the wetness spread down to my other foot, and with every erratic sharp turn (which basically defined the entire ride there) I felt some sort of wet liquid following down my body. I tried to think of how it wasn't blood, maybe it was an uncapped bottle of water. I didn't open my eyes till we reached the hospital and my dad carried me out, and even then I was staring at my surroundings. I remember lots of white interior and my dad shouting frantically, then frantic nurses as I got dumped into a bed, but I don't remember any blood at all. I managed to avoid seeing it.
Once I cut myself in the shower. I think I was Sec 1. It was a really small superficial cut and I remember trying not to freak out. The blood oozed out a little, and I started to feel really faint. I sat down on the floor with the water still running in order to try and regain some sort of strength back. I somehow managed to crawl out of the shower and run back to hide in my room. Afterwards the bleeding had stopped and I showed it to Mama and she put a generic plaster on it.
I never really understood those plasters, they're supposedly skin coloured but I have yet to see someone with that shade of skin. They always stick out oddly, badly camouflaged. Every time I have one on my person I always think how it looks like some sort of lab manufactured synthetic skin and have to resist the urge to rip it off, like something is trying to take over my body. Then on the other hand I enjoy the feeling of it on my skin, the snugness of a mini-hug. It feels cosy and comforting, like a treat.
This morning I finally finished reading Plath's The Bell Jar. Her style of writing detachedly and the entire plot quite bowled me over. For some reason it really reminded me of Miranda July. Superficially, that is possibly one of the oddest comparisons one can come up with because one lady is clinically depressed and longs to die while the other is filled with love at life. Some of the things I noticed were similar is how there is a lot of introspection about life in general and deriving comfort from small things. (I was about to type something here, but I just realised that Miranda July might be more depressing than I originally thought.) However I must confess I often swing between both ends of the spectrum - live life love life and a morbid want to just lie down somewhere and die, sometimes within mere hours of each other. They really aren't that dissimilar after all, they both involve feeling - shed loads of it, till it gets uncontrollable.
The part of the book that chilled me the most was around page 155 when she contemplates committing suicide (out of multiple times) by opening her veins while floating in a bathtub. The imagery made me sink down in the couch and feel like I was going to black out. I felt really sick and disoriented, but a desire to clear reading that part made me press on. At the end of that episode (a grand total of 1 page) I felt quite worn out, yet felt like someone out there understood me. Which is probably not a good sign, seeing who that person is.
Because I just got really worked up and pissed off trying to find Miss Julie (bloody bum fuck, how am I suppose to churn out two world lits by Monday?), I decided to scan in this old thing I just found. I call it an old thing because there is no real way I could ever give this a proper title.
So courtesy of the overbearingly boring combined social studies/history classes from Secondary 3 AND Misses Stephanie Low and Misses Ho Zhuan Yi, I now present this mindblowing masterpiece drawn on my Science Pad:
I actually spray painted a photo frame white so I could frame this up, but then I forgot what happened to the photo frame after it dried, so this thing was wedged between all my IB notes and stuff for the past year. Now, it shall get the viewership it rightfully deserves!
OMG I just realised I really really need action. More literally and less innuendo-ey. Even the Ice Skating CAS stuff won't give me enough action hours -__________-
I HAVE FAILED. All I did was wink at Jessica Mallek, and then Wesley who has a bag that looks like a cat. This was made worse because I got depressed suddenly during recess and felt more like getting away from people than even looking at them. So I did - get away from people that was.
Even when I felt better and was walking about just as I met the eyes of random people, the nanosecond it hit me to wink at them I lost eye contact *facepalm* and then when I was out later with my Mama, the people I made eye contact with were damn #2. They were either random ang mohs with protective looking girlfriends and er. Actually I only remember that guy, I have no idea why. But I didn't exactly want some sort of odd bitch fight and I was in school uniform.
The problem (and best part!) about a wink is that it is so suggestive. Like, 'hey sexy, remember me?' AND ARGH WHY DID I NOT WINK AT SOMEONE - ANYONE! WHYYYYYYYYY. Damnit.
Monday will be better
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After my doctor's appointment, my Mama gave me $50 in Isetan vouchers which she had redeemed from some credit card points thing. So I did the unthinkable (well after scouting the rest of the clothes and actually trying some dresses on), I went to TOPSHOP :o like omg, I am so cool and scene now because I've shopped at topshop.
True enough as I poked about looking at hideously overpriced clothes ($43 for a plain tee anyone?) I saw pairs of girls decked in black baggy oversized cardigans/baby rib tank tops/black skinnies/havianas zoom past me (I must resist an urge to make fun of clones) - decked in the latest fashion style. However I actually found a dress I reasonably liked, grabbed a bowler-like hat from topman and this weird corset thing my Mama said was nice.
The corset fell right off me, which I found really hilarious. Granted it was a size too big (and the waist didn't even fit me!), but the whole idea of it falling off was so cliched that I couldn't help laughing at the absurdity of it all. Trying on the hat however, made me think of Pete Doherty so much that it disturbed me.
So to cut a long and superficial note short, I am now the owner of a dress from topshop. The impossible has happened! In my defense the dress looks reasonably vintage inspired and completely unlike the stuff one has come to expect from topshop. I'm not actually sure why I saw that but I think I am no longer allowed to be biased against it because I now own something from there. UHHHHHHH.
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With the parents out of the house, I now find myself mistress. This change in roles has been rather odd for me, like the Felice (my maid) asking me what I should cook for dinner and etc. This resulted in me telling her to cook a large pot of chicken stew so we could slack the entire weekend and just reheat the damn thing. It feels weird having to give her directions, and even saying stuff like 'you can watch tv if you want, it's okay with me'/'you can use that computer, I'm okay with you using it'/'sit on the chair!'/'come one eat with me!'.
It wouldn't be so weird if my parents were around, because we could function and interact on our usual level (as friends, she taught me gaano kalaki ang titi mo) and even talk about rubbish like sex. Well, we still do that I suppose, now that I'm having dinners with her every night. But after dinner it feels weird, like I have to assume some sort of commanding role. It sits rather uncomfortably with me.
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I have no idea why I am using so many breaks today. But Johannes if you're reading this, to compensate for the somethingawful swap.avi page, here's your favourite quote: 'son of a bloody bum fuck'.
And names with alliteration like Louis Leong the Louser are always funny.
"Diazepam has a range of side effects which are common to most benzodiazepines. Most common side effects include:
...
- Depression"
Um. Probably not the best thing for me to take right now, too late anyway.
I like how it says 'MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS' on my packet of sleeping pills.
One of the most terrible things to come down with a bout of is insomnia. Since Friday night any scant sleep that I am able to obtain has been filled with ambiguous fast paced dreams which make me wake up feeling wide awake - and having the feeling of not having slept at all.
Then there is the problem of the more conventional insomnia, being unable to sleep till the wee hours of the night because not only do you not feel tired, you feel wide awake and end up rolling about bed.
In the morning when I wake up, I feel unnaturally wide awake mentally, but my body feels like it is dying. The eyebags I've been carting about the past few days have never been bigger in my life.
As a result I've been feeling rather disjointed emotionally and mentally - yes I'm awake but I can't really process much thought. I'm also more prone to being affecting by outside stimuli so these past few days have been see saw-ey.
Anyway since tonight is an eve of a public holiday, I'll take the sleeping pills that I have been refusing to take for the past few days and hopefully get out of this sleep-less rut. I also watched Prozac Nation today, and I must say it does scare me how I see parts of myself there.
It just hit me (well about 1 hour ago) how huge the scope of tomorrow's test is. Not only is the scope huge, there is so much randomness happening between the pages of early Chinese history that it's like studying the origins of World War One again.
What the hell, really.
There is something most dehumanising and disturbing (alas my vocabulary fails me) with having your name being changed to another. For example my hairdresser calling me Melissa and the counselor calling me Melanie. I didn't want to correct them because I didn't want to make them embarrassed, but at the same time I derive a vague sort of desired detachment away from who I really am. Who's seeing a counselor? Melanie Wong is.
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I felt odd sitting there in the room. Sitting in a seat where I expect young rape/molest/incest victims once sat. I felt undeserving - you don't belong here! There are kids so much more worse off than you. I felt like a fraud. A fraud with OCD tendencies.
The walls were painted a light sage green with toys crammed into little nooks and crannies. A Sesame Street toy was perched atop a divider, filled with primary coloured plasticky happiness. A well handled transformer head sat at the far end of the desk, the silver paint rubbed off to show a dull curdled milk colour underneath. It looked a little sad. The transformer head was placed next to some folders in bright bursts of fuchsia which was ostensibly cheerful and made my head spin a little.
On the computer screen I saw my file open. As she kept turning around to answer her handphone, I kept peeking at screen. My address had been keyed in wrongly. I had to resist the urge to lean over and change it, but stopped it least I actually appear dysfunctional to a counselor. This drew my attention to the black keyboard, the colour accentuated by the small particles of whitegrey dust sticking to the side and larger dust bunnies between the cracks of the keys. Again I had to fight yet another urge, this time to wipe off the dust.
Outside waiting in the corridor, blatantly waiting for the counselor, I kept thinking of Sylvia Plath. I stared right ahead, face blank and devoid of all emotion for I had felt none whatsoever. I felt the people walking past me. Some seemed to quicken their pace to get past me, others I felt their pitying/scathing judgments as they walked past then there were those who completely ignored my presence and made me feel transparent and insignificant. Whatever it was, no one was really keen to see me there.*
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On another most disconcerting note, I have quite lost all possible respect for my mother. Ordinarily I'd be most angry over this unnamed matter, but it is frankly so shocking and disappointing (though not 100% unexpected) that I really have no feeling towards it left. It just is.
Furthermore the AIA website is quite a pain in the ass to navigate - exactly what are they doing with those funds if they can't even hack together a proper website? I also foresee myself receiving lots of Robinson vouchers from now on. I suspect they have some sort of dodgy agreement with AIA.
*(yes I came back and edited this bit on the 30/4/08 because it kept bugging me how badly I had phrased it)
Wow I feel so horrifically creeped out, disturbed and chilled now. Also sort of hungry.
I finally drank alcohol on Friday night, since I turned 18. It was a Vodka Sprite (which The Alchemist insists is wonderfully befitting of me) and somehow reminded me of water. The bunch of us other celebrating JLC's birthday sat opposite these bunch of ang mohs cam whoring like hell with the unusual cutlery of The Clinic, which I found rather amusing to watch.
On Saturday I was out with my mum, exploring Orchard road after I got my hair cut (finally!). We ended up having dinner at The Coffee Club at Takashimaya and I ordered some pasta dish which came with shed loads of cheese ): (I miss you, mature cheddar!) so I had to scoop it off onto another plate. The cheese pile slowly flowed to occupy the entire plate like a deflating lump of liposuction fats, which was both horrific and fascinating at the same time to watch.
As we were eating, I saw this black figure approaching from the night sky. It flew through the spot lights and dashed itself against the glass with a thump. I wtf-ed, switched my attention and watched it. It dropped a few meters, then spread it's variegated wings and rose up again, flew in a small loop and aimed itself at the glass again. It did this a few times, by which the attention of a few other observant diners was garnered. Finally it hit the class and fell out of sight.
I'll like to image the bat closed it's beady eyes and made one grand dash out back into the night sky where it first came from.
GRRRR. Look! My DAD can wear a size S of this damn fugly shirt. I'm going to be swimming in it tomorrow -___________-
And because there are spies all over the damn place, I can't even complain/rant properly.
I had a very odd conversation today. Ted Kin and Gen were talking and I happened to be within earshot as I was reaching for my school bag and I overheard the word 'celibate'. Naturally I repeated the word and joined in the conversation which then degenerated into who was 'getting some'. Then Gen said 'celibate' again, except this time it sounded like 'cerebrate' - which I then mentioned. Then Ted Kin and Gen face palmed, because they were talking about Starcraft right before I appeared and misheard -____________-
Another odd comment was when WTY was asking for our CAS hours and Song Yeong said "I'm going to get some Action sir!" From individual inward LOLs, it became a mass laughing session when someone laughed audibly. I think even WTY laughed.
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For once in a long time today, I finally drew on my hand. Except even now, hours later and numerous obsessive compulsive hand washings with soap - the marking is still there. What I find so fascinating about the marking however, is that it bled into the cracks of my skin - highlighting the little lines that are finely etched into my skin. It looks mildly surreal to even look at because more often than not we hardly take time to stare at our hands, taking for granted the little lines that are there. Sometimes I forget their presence.
The skin on my hands is pale and light, much like the rest of me. So pale in fact, that I can see the light greyish blue veins underneath (so how the hell did the damn anesthetist poke the IV drip into the wrong damn place?!) and see how they branch out into Y shaped forks. It's seems like even blood needs to make decisions - do I go to the index finger or the middle finger?
My hands are very small. They're the same size as Cheryl and Mai's - girls who are considerably smaller sized than I am, but my hands remain small all the same. The tip of my middle finger to the end of my palm is about 15.5 cm long and my palm is 8.5 cm across. My fingers are vaguely short and stumpy, which is just as well that I don't play the piano.
These fingers and hands have belonged to me since the day I was born. From wrapping tiny baby fingers around the fingers of loving relatives, I progressed to skipping about and holding hands with friends. Then as I grew older, those hands and fingers slid comfortably into the hands of others. Now those others are long gone, but at least I still have my hands. My nice small hands.
There is a really cliched saying, 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' - which is precisely what I have been doing the past 4 nights, squeezing the life juice out of those damn oily thick skinned fruits in order to carry out a Vitamin C test on them tomorrow for Bio prac. I would go off tangent and turn this into some absurd session about making fun of cliches/lemons but on a night like this I feel worn out and black holey again. Not a very pleasant prospect.
Then there is tomorrow, the 24th of April 2008. A date that is rather significant which I managed to clean forget about till the bus ride home yesterday. Today I was watching him walk about during History class and the dominating thought was 'I can't believe I fell in love with that'. Still, I can't say I don't miss everything that we shared because if there is one moment I could say was the best in my life - it was that period.
However thinking about tonight and why I once more feel down again, I don't quite think that's the main factor; it's more of a contributing one to make things which already seem bad feel worse. Then there's the thing I get when I get depressed around the middle of the week, almost every week without fail. And then there is the other thing, in which I perceive that I have once again made a terrible mistake and now have to suffer the consequences even though I was trying to avoid them to begin with.
Another hook fell off my skirt today.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
