It is 2.30am and I am up finishing the second draft of my English Lit coursework. This is only the second – there will be two more due before November 15, when the final draft must be handed in. But I think that after tonight, things will go just a little easier.
My tweets are so long and my blog posts are so short.
I SHOULD JUST GET A TUMBLR!
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Quickies
In my opinion, the feeling that I have been productive and acted with discipline is one of the best feelings in the world, but it is one that eludes me. I am nearing that point where I never reach the feeling of productivity; think of it as a graph of 1/x (somebody please remind me what the name of this graph is!) – it never really reaches the axis, it never really reaches zero – it only draws parallel. Likewise productivity is always just a little out of reach, because no matter how much I do, there is always more. After I finish the proposals for the A-Levels Production, there is piano to practice. And after that is done, I have to look up the pieces I’m practicing so I can start on my program booklet for the Performance Cert exam in December. I’ve got a SASA Group 3 meeting tomorrow to finalize details on the bazaar, and I’m sure I’m in trouble because Captain Chew’s been handling most of it on her own; and I’m praying that the WHO members do their bit for the blood donation drive in October. I have to study because my Chemistry and Maths are in disaster zones, as is Literature coursework, and I haven’t even mentioned university applications yet! And of course there is a little bit of personal drama to spice things up a little.
A bit on university applications – I’m applying to the UK for law, and I’m applying to the US as well. I’m sitting for my SATs in October and Subject Tests in November. I still have to squeeze in time for the IELTS and LNAT.
The pile of work is never-ending. Trying to finish it is a Sisyphean task. It is exhausting, physically and mentally. A little more worryingly, these are feelings that I have become accustomed to as of this year.
Today, however, has been so productive that I’m suspicious – I’ve searched up and practiced my piano pieces, I’ve finished my proposals for the production, and I’ve finished my Chemistry and Maths revision. I did one practice SAT test last weekend and got a very very satisfying score of 2090, and I’m hoping that it’s not a one-off. Basically there’s nothing that’s urgently due, AND it’s only 4pm on a good day-off. Almost too good to be true.
Do you see what’s wrong with me? Everything is fine, but I keep feeling so apprehensive and suspicious. Where’s the tension and the panic that I’ve become so used to? Last night I tried to read For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (which I last attempted in January) and it’s lovely, but I couldn’t absorb it. My thoughts are along the lines of come on, hit me already: what is it that I haven’t done? I’ve turned into a lifeless workaholic.
It scares me that I’m making the same kind of complaints that working adults do and I technically haven’t even finished high school!! This could be a preview of what the rest of my life is going to be like – stuck in a boring office, carrying out tasks that seem to have no purpose, an in-tray that people keep topping up as they walk past, and an out-tray that never empties. Me, looking harassed and stressed out (much the way I do now), struggling to keep up with the workload and the rat race; and then there’s me, single at fifty, telling my nieces and nephews that my life has been following the same emotional routine since I was eighteen.
I THINK I JUST NEED BETTER TIME MANAGEMENT LOR.
And I need to get out of the house!!
Edit: Just realized what it is I’ve forgotten to do – my personal statement draft #2 wtf.
Labels: ECA, Gloom And Doom, Musings, Personal
Three weeks seemed like a longer period of time before the exams ended! I had a list of things I wanted to get done. And I did manage to do all or most of them, but looking back it doesn’t feel like a lot.
Then again, maybe I should stop whining and learn to be satisfied with everything I managed to do, for once.
So here’s what I did with three weeks!
- ICRC Humanitarian Law Debate
The entire HELP delegation at break night, sans Kareem.
- Had a wonderful family holiday at Pulau Perhentian, resulting in me becoming a shade darker.
- Managed to cross snorkeling and scuba diving off my list of things!
- Painted the lamp sitting on my bedside table! (This was part one of a three-part resolution to redecorate my room. The other two parts were to hang up my inspiration board – done – and paste wall stickers on the wall, which couldn’t be done because my sister hasn’t got enough money to pay for her share of the wall stickers yet –____-)
- Learned how to debate British Parliamentary style.
- Celebrated the birthday of a wonderful friend with many many wonderful friends (Hi Jo and Dan!).
![IMG_8548_thumb[2]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5j1TXjQhEk1pkRXD2IBJ4VdlXTgKkPTtEBcrP0dTmm954G3mfvi2IEixUHR4XjvrVa02mjTbjiuMdDA5pDA90D4uRYYPDzCajjAQ0rNkdn_UCmzDsQaE-c4Or1mVsg890lXo5KKSgLFRt/s1600-h/IMG_8548_thumb%5B2%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "IMG_8548_thumb[2]")
My personal favourite picture from the party (:
- Had the worst driving lesson of my life, resulting in my aim to get my driving license before these 3 weeks were up to be terminated. And when I say it was bad, it was BAD! I knocked down umpteen poles and almost reversed into another car!! No pictures of this, thankfully. (:
- Helped my dad manage his church fellowship dinner. And did it like a pro too. (: no pictures.
- Volunteered at PAWS for the Pet Exhibition at Mid Valley Convention Centre. And once again… Need I say it? (My new year resolution to take more pictures has obviously gone down the drain.)
- Watched TWO movies. And this is worth noting because everyone knows I can’t be bothered to watch movies!
- Attended TCSHMUN 2010, my 2nd MUN conference, and got a resolution passed! Well, two resolutions; I was co-submitter for the other.
I think more can be said about this last one. It was infinitely fun, and although the level of debate at HELPMUN was far more intense, the people at TCSHMUN were definitely a lot warmer. The chair of the General Assembly Shafeeq was incredibly diplomatic - except for the instance where he blandly told the Delegate of Latvia that his blazer was horrible (“Don’t wear it, please!” he said). I’ll always remember the GA delegates of Malaysia, Sweden, North Korea and Brazil. Delegates didn’t go out of their way to shoot down a reso, although there plenty of silly analogies bouncing around. At HELPMUN we got miniskirts, tube tops, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. Here we had golf courses (full of holes), fortune cookies without the fortunes and godonlyknows what else. There was so much crap about spoonfeeding, breastfeeding, Kim Jong-Il, genetically modified messenger pigeons, the recruiting of vampires as riot police and the use of a Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift remix as torture punishment for those who misuse subsidies.
Delegate of North Korea (GA): This delegate would support the use of genetically modified snails to convey these reports to the United Nations headquarters.
Delegate of Brazil (GA): *poker-faced* Is the delegate of North Korea not afraid that the snails might get stepped on?
*
Delegate of Brazil (GA): Honestly this delegate thinks that the delegate of North Korea is just upset that we beat him in the World Cup a few weeks ago.
Delegate of North Korea (GA): How do I put this nicely… We let you win. Because, you know, some people don’t like losing. They cry.
*
Delegate of Myanmar (UNEP): This delegate asserts that freedom of speech is overrated, and that without the Military Junta to take control, the situation in Myanmar would have been much worse.
Delegate of the Russian Federation (UNEP): So is the delegate of Myanmar actually condoning the Junta?
Delegate of Myanmar (UNEP): Yes. Because this delegate has no choice. If he doesn’t condone the Junta he will be shot.
Superlatives were funny too. Trishna won just about everything in her council (Best Dressed, Next UN Secretary-General, Friendliest, Best Couple with Dhinesh lol). The Delegate of North Korea was voted Most Likely To Nuke, Most Likely To Be Nuked and the GA’s Best Speaker.
Oh and apparently Naomi, Dhinesh and I will be flirting our way into the United Nations assembly one day.
(Come on guys. Seriously. Naomi and Dhinesh, fine. That’s probably expected. But ME?! A flirt?!!)
I wish I’d gotten a picture with Ez and Trish – the latter of whom also got Best Speaker for the UNEP Council! And Haran was Most Diplomatic Speaker for UNEP too. The HELP Delegates rocked TCSHMUN! - but I suppose the pictures will turn up later. Besides that, I only have one other picture to show for it.
HEHEHE yeahhhh baby (;
Warning: from this point on there’s a complete change of tone!
I’ve now reached the last half-hour of my post-exam holiday. I feel nervous as I turn, as I force myself to stop looking at the past, and now face a completely new direction: the new term of A-Levels.
I try hard to be optimistic but I’m not going to lie to you: the road ahead looks ghastly. There’s the Lit production we’ve got to work on (no script yet, oh joy), Lit coursework, and I’ve got that piano exam coming up in November/December. Not only will everything be much harder this time around, I haven’t got Miss Caroline and Miss Joanna to help me. The new timetable looks awful – we end at 4pm just about every day!!! And on top of that I’ve still got to manage the flailing HELP Debate Club and its numerous competitions and fundraisings, United Nations Club WHO and SASA. Things look especially bleak since this time round so many friends will be gone: Ezreena, Lily, Ramya, and soon to include Zean Shiung among the list of those who’ve gotten scholarships. You can see why I’m considering not applying to university till next year!
Oh and have I mentioned how much I’ll miss the seniors now that they’re gone? ):
I sound remarkably stoic if I say one way or another, we’ll survive. We always do. And yet there’s always that irrepressible lingering doubt – Of course I won’t die. Of course it won’t kill me. But this time something’s different: the next six months leave plenty of room for me to do something inherently stupid that will ruin the next five years of my life. And then I’ll wallow in regret, I’ll cry, and descend into a general state of general depression and misery. And I’ll still be alive to live and breathe all of that.
But it’s not like I have a choice. And so survive I will. The question is whether I’ll have the strength to pick myself up again if a life-changing mistake is made.
And now it’s five minutes to midnight.
Here goes nothing.
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Picture Post, Very Long Posts
I am pissed off.
You know that saying, “I’m happy even though my life isn’t perfect; I’ve just decided to look past all the imperfections”? That’s me. My life is full of flaws and it is far from perfect. I’m highly doubt there are any people who know me who would want to live my life. But so many things have happened lately: ICRC is over. Exams are over. I’m on holiday. I went shopping :D I had fun with the SASA-rians at the Fete De La Musique. I had fun with the debaters at ICRC and while I was watching movies with them. I created an awesome dessert from scratch and on my first try at making it. I didn’t get any scholarships that can potentially mess up my life lol. My temporary laptop’s been given back to my mom, which means that a proper laptop of my own is probably on the way. MY PHONE IS BACK (in case I haven’t told you yet)!!! On the whole, I feel more relaxed and happy than I have been all year long. Because I’ve chosen to not worry about my exam results, university applications and what not. Every other worry of mine has been wiped out and resolved. I have awesome friends. I have an awesome family. I feel like nothing can go wrong, and if it does, it won’t remain so for long.
The joys outweigh the tears right now by far right now. I can see it.
But I can’t feel it.
All because of one small imperfection which, try as I might, I cannot seem to be able to look past. Normally I’d deal with this kind of imperfection by distracting myself but distractions aren’t working. And this imperfection is preventing me from appreciating the extent of just how wonderful it is for me to be alive right here, right now.
In short, I am pissed off – because I continually allow myself to dwell and moan on this imperfection, because I cannot find in myself the belief that I am strong enough to ignore this imperfection; to accept that this is the situation, and I can do nothing to change it. It pisses me off because it’s such a small, shallow, superficial thing to hold my attention. And because of it, I am rendered completely incapable of being happy, although by every other right I should be.
Being a reject sucks balls.
Somebody needs to slap some sense into me.
And now for something completely different.
:D
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Musings, Personal, Random-ia
In one of the debates at ICRC, one of the speakers on the opposing team stood up and began her speech by announcing that goldfish have a memory of three seconds, and that she hoped that all present had memories like goldfishes. I don’t really remember why exactly she hoped we had a memory span of a fish; maybe so we could forget everything that their team’s previous speaker had said that had screwed their team up. But if it makes her happy, I think I really do have the memory of one of those gaping guppies: there are so many important things about life that I forget.
And I say forget, because it’s not like I don’t know these things. They just… Slip my mind at the most inopportune moments.
I have to remember that the opinion of one person doesn’t signify anything; that I shouldn’t rest on my laurels anyway; that there is no shortcut to anything worthwhile; that everything is subjective, even if people choose to believe otherwise; to screw talent, just outwork everyone else; to not edit my feelings; to be bigger than my troubles.
I have to remember that there will always be second chances; that consistency pays off; to stop wishing and start working; and that I have a piano class at 9.30am and I am still up this late, blogging as if my life depends on it wtf.
Evidently I also have to remember to prioritize.
So there.
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Personal
This country continually lets us down, in more ways than we could ever imagine.
I was blog-hopping and I came across this incredibly disturbing personal account of a student who witnessed a horrific traffic accident involving two smaller cars and a lorry. The passengers of one of the smaller cars were able to get out of the car easily, but there was a girl trapped inside the other car, screaming for help. The car was crushed and she was badly injured. The student tried to get her out, but noticed that the car had caught fire and was just beginning to burn. He quickly drove to the a petrol station which was a mere 500 meters away. He ran to the station attendant and asked to use one of the 4 fire extinguishers available, explaining the emergency and hence the need for it. It wouldn’t have harmed the station just to borrow one of them for a while. There was someone’s life at stake after all.
Here’s the horrible part, the part I find incomprehensible, shocking, and left me feeling dismayed with the station attendant’s reaction: he refused to let the student borrow the fire extinguisher.
You really cannot blame the student for shouting at the station attendant, who was all the time sitting benignly behind the glass of the counter. According to this frustrated student, he just kept saying “cannot borrow” and refused to open the door. At one point he changed his story and said that his boss did not allow him to lend the fire extinguishers to anybody. He even got another of his partners to come and back him up. The two of them stood their ground against the student.
By this time the student was kicking and punching the glass of the kiosk; which, considering the blatant lack of empathy from the kiosk attendants, was actually quite an acceptable reaction. He even said that he would leave his IC with the station attendants, saying that if he did not return the extinguisher they could report him to the police. And still, for some incomprehensible reason, they refused. They even had the gall to say that the CCTV had caught all his actions on camera and that they would be reporting him the next day.
Giving up, the student drove back to the scene, only to find the car completely on fire. The poor girl was burnt alive inside.
The student later then reported the actions of the petrol station attendants to the police, who were angered as well and promised to take action. But of course by then it was too late to do anything about the dead girl.
There are no words to describe how I felt when I read this. I feel so, so angry with the station attendants. Why could they have not lent ONE of the FOUR fire extinguishers to the student? For what reason did they decide to cling to the fire station property like it was the Hope Diamond and not a fire extinguisher that they were charged with guarding?
Why could it not have occurred to them to see the accident for themselves if the student was telling the truth? There were two attendants after all, one could have guarded the station while the other went with the student to make sure that, against all odds, they would get their precious fire extinguisher back. Why could they not have accepted the student’s offer of his IC? That alone should have proof of his sincerity. An IC isn’t quite a fair exchange for a fire extinguisher.
The problem is that now I am angry. I can just imagine the attendants languidly denying him any access, possibly even making fun of the student’s frustration. It’s something we’re all too familiar with – the tak apa lah attitude of Malaysians that I have come to detest. How many times have we witnessed a situation where we should have spoken up, should have acted, should have taken a little more initiative to right something that went wrong, and then decided that it wasn’t such a big deal and could live with the cons? How many times have we been the ones saying aiyah never mind lah? Think about the time you were at the public library and they didn’t let you borrow a book because there was a system error and the librarian couldn’t be bothered to figure out what the problem was. Think about the time you last saw litter lying on the ground. Think about the time you queued up for something and it gets to your turn only to be told curtly that what you want isn’t available/is not allowed, and worst of all had no alternative solution offered.
Believe me, this is related to my rant: this disgusting tak apa lah attitude can and has lead us to believe that the world revolves around us, and nothing potentially harmful will ever happen to us. We begin to dislike venturing out of our comfort zone, and therefore become increasingly complacent. We develop the mentality that nothing untoward can ever happen to us. We think it won’t happen to me.We invent excuses as to why we don’t have to do things, to act on anything because there is sure to be someone else who’ll pick up after us. We blame it on computers and bosses – the big unseen people whom we will never get to speak to and therefore do not need to deal with once the complaint is gone, shoved to the back of the mind to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. This is the kind of attitude and mentality we’ve developed. Only in this situation, it was taken too far.
How about, no, it DOES matter, that if something seems wrong we have to act on it, and we can’t leave it lying around and expect another person to fix up? That if you see litter lying around, you have to pick it up? That what little you do DOES make a difference, no matter how small or insignificant the action? How about, no, someone’s life does depend on your passing me one of your four fire extinguishers; and whatever consequences your boss will deal you don’t mean jack in this situation?
As usual I don’t think I make sense. I am outraged and very, very bitter with the way this life could have so easily been saved, but wasn’t just because someone was too fucking lazy to look outside the window and try to feel a hint of compassion for the person stuck in the car, just because it’s not happening to him and (in his mind) probably never will. They chose to remain cruelly and blissfully ignorant. I am so angry and full of disbelief that something as cruel as this could have happened so close to home, in a city and country which boasts of first-class infrastructure and harmony and unity among its people and many other things. And yet it can happen – it did. I have never felt so unsafe, scared for my own life and for the lives of the ones I love. I have never felt so let down. And I have never in my life wished so hard for the concept of karma to be true.
Congratulations, Malaysia. Negara ini memang boleh.
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Musings, Rants, Very Long Posts
I need to be a lot more realistic about the person I am. There are some things you just can’t be, no matter how hard you try. A less shallow and insecure person is probably one of them.
Remember how at the beginning of this year I was agonizing about choosing between Econs and Physics?
Tomorrow I will find out if the choice I made was the right one.
On another note, anyone coming with me to this?
Labels: Gloom And Doom, Musings, Personal
