I actually wanted to do PI (for the nth time), but I got distracted by things like people's blogs and facebook and youtube.

Ahhh I'm in love with owl city! Their lyrics are so cute! :D

YAWN.

So tired after jumping around so many times for NAPFA today.

Okay I don't have the time nor the mood to blog and think and probably be emo...

which might be a good thing!

So I'll be off now.

:)

http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/eventdetails?action=details&id=68

Nice, not?

Go and see.

Want to watch?

PIIII~~~

Lol I was told to keep my eye on facebook for certain reasons.

Sometimes I think I should just try to have more fun.

What a week.

Let me just start with how I feel now.

Stuck in a limbo between home and school. Spending so much time in school and spending so little time at home that I don't know where I belong.

Stuck in a limbo between great friends who've spent time with me for so long, and people I don't feel for at all. Spending so much time with those I don't feel for at all. It's creating a desert in me. Dried up. Seeing great old friends but the setting just isn't right for small heart-to-heart talks. Because everyone has different places to go to, so many things to see too before the end of the day. We all don't have time for emotional exchanges.

Seeing great old friends but not knowing what to say to them. Your heart warms, but your mouth stalls.

The best time to talk is when we're free, which is when we reach home. And even then we can only communicate either through phone or through msn. Can't even see each other's faces and look at each other.

Trying to be friendly to everyone, looking for a new friend in them, to while away those school hours devoid of emotion.

But still, everyone has different places to go to, so many things to see to by the end of the day, they don't see you at all.

Not liking how some exchanges have ended up on facebook, for all your contacts to see.

-----

Been sleeping so late the past few days. My time management isn't up to standard.

So sleepy now.

Had dinner with pam and pling after band today. Went home at 9.50 pm. Feeling out of touch with whatever the thirteeners have been up to.

-----

As I type my eyelids droop.

-__-

But I'm not in the mood for sleeping.

-.-

-----

How do I cope with such a life for two years, man.

I wrote something else here actually, but after reading it, I decided it didn't go well with what I wanted to express. But I'll keep this part:

I once dreamed about a world where there are no schools. Just apprenticeship. That was last year I think. Here it goes.

When you're a child, you stay with your family and hear stories about wonderful teachers, masters, sorcerers, elsewhere. Then when you "come of age", like the characters always do in Greek myths, they journey off in search of their One Teacher.

If they don't get a teacher they at least get to experience the world.

They don't get cooped up with volumes of paper and textbooks.

And if they do, they get education that is personal. Not just premium-cookie-cutter education. Note the premium. Not education with teachers who are there, but aren't really there for you. Although I'm sticking to my opinion that teachers are generally noble of heart (come on, they look through all our work, bad or not, drooled-on or not.) But you get my meaning, don't you. They aren't there.

This style of education makes it almost impossible for them to be there.

Definitely you can spot gaping flaws in this dream world of mine. I'm not going to bother to think of them. And I know I'm asking for too much.

But it's called Utopia for a reason.

------------

Read about liberal arts. Liberal arts is apparently the education denoted to a free man (Wikipedia). Sounds good.

Liberal arts in the USA sounds absolutely wonderful.

The teaching is Socratic, to small classes, and at a greater teacher-to-student ratio than at universities; professors teaching classes are allowed to concentrate more on their teaching responsibilities than primary research professors or graduate student teaching assistants, in contrast to the instruction common in universities. Modern liberal arts colleges accommodate the non-traditional student, which allows for - among other things - part-time study.

(Wikipedia)

They say Singapore should have a liberal arts package. I think we should. I would really love to see Singaporean students as something else other than students of normalcy.

I koped the 2nd half of the last sentence from somewhere. I think it is the Disadvantages of an Elite Education article.

Bonus for myself if I get plopped into it as well, sometime in the future.

See, fantastical thinking. Too much fantasizing, too little action. Chop-chop! Bye!

Elite

I know I'm supposed to go and bathe and then subject myself to mugging for the lecture tests I have not started studying for yet. And finishing my undone homework. But wait a minute. Actually, wait much more. I wanted to change my msn pm. After reading through it once I thought it too personal for the general crowd.

I have no life. I only have fear. And a faint glimpse of a possibly, hopefully, more fulfilling future.

This is true. The reason why I push myself to do all my homework after a tiring day at school is because I'm afraid to fail the next lecture test. Okay, I shall say this: fail it again. Even more afraid of failing the block test, the promos, oh, and the A levels.

That's why I squint at my homework under heavy eyelids and inch my hand across my worksheet. Trying to finish everything before I go to school, oh, what(?!), before I wake up for school about 5 hours later.

Oh, nothing much, some people say, I'm equally sleep-deficient. Stop whining.

I don't have any reply to this.

I like the subjects I study. I like KI. I like Biology. I, well, like Chemistry. I quiite like Maths.

So you can see my favourite subjects are KI and Bio.

I manage my time well. I judge that by my own standards.

And yes, these standards are not what you would call dismal.

What is my hard work going to reward me with?

No, this is the wrong question to ask.

Instead, how can I turn my hard work into something more meaningful? For myself. Not for my teachers.

I started being slightly disappointed after I found out I got rejected for that summer programme and after that I got emo reading that article called the Disadvantages of an Elite Education.

I'm going to sound quite childish/defensive but I must say that I found that article first. Before it got posted on the school's website.

:)

I like this paragraph...

Some students end up at second-tier schools because they’re exactly like students at Harvard or Yale, only less gifted or driven. But others end up there because they have a more independent spirit. They didn’t get straight A’s because they couldn’t be bothered to give everything in every class. They concentrated on the ones that meant the most to them or on a single strong extracurricular passion or on projects that had nothing to do with school or even with looking good on a college application. Maybe they just sat in their room, reading a lot and writing in their journal. These are the kinds of kids who are likely, once they get to college, to be more interested in the human spirit than in school spirit, and to think about leaving college bearing questions, not resumés.

... and I aspire to be the second type of student.

The student who does not measure success by grades but by his/her own sense of fulfilment.

I can imagine how some people might react if I said to them everything I've said in this post.

Especially my brother.

"Yeah, quit school now, that's what you should do. Go sweep the roads."

(But don't accuse him of being ... I don't know, being such a pragmatist, maybe. He is someone who deserves to be admired.)

And I don't mean any offence to sweepers out there.

Yes, sweepers who drive a cart and let the brushes underneath the cart do the sweeping. Hahah. So high-tech, yah.

Yes, if you don't have time to read this whole post, you can go straight to the 6th last paragraph, or, for those who want to save more time, just go to that sentence coloured in orange and read the paragraph below it. Might be too late to say this though. Heehee.

I'm off to study. Bye.

And I do feel more cheerful now, after throwing such a fit online.

:D

-Five minutes later, after checking SMB-

Might I add that such a post as I've written could only come from less high-achieving students. Yes. Like me.

You don't see students in Olympiads and students with dozens of A1s write such things.

I don't know how to judge myself, already.

See how fickle I am.

I still have that fear in me. And so I should go and study now.

I will work on this in the next few days.

No no the previous post has nothing much to do with me. It has a lot to do with my class though. That's why I'm amused but not troubled :) Sorry for the vague phrasing :D Was in a rush that day.

And I'm playing the piano now. It started off as an attempt to clear my head (I've been feeling very heavy-brained the whole morning) and I decided to listen to some piano music for once.

So I started playing the piano.

My first attempt at the piano after at least 6 months. I think it's actually been a year already though.

I hope that when my neighbours hear it, they will at least think it's an experienced player hard at work and not some stiff-fingered wannabe trying to poke at keys.

Homework! Homework! Come again another day.

I've lost my flair for blogging.

There's a very odd smell wafting in through my window. It's either the smell of someone baking very sweet doughnuts or the smell of sweet rotting trash. :X yuck.