stop slacking 8(((
Anyway, I just went to listen to Drew Ryniewicz (she says it as "rye-ne-wiz") on the X Factor, and her voice is really touching. She's only 14, and it makes me think about dreams and how people pursue them so perfectly.

Here I am, at this crossroads, and each direction seems to be the right one to take. I do have a preferred choice, but that choice involves (physical and possibly emotional) isolation and possibly some amount of hurt. Do I take the plunge?

It's a bit like a micro-debate on whether to think like a traditional Easterner vs a traditional Westerner (like a Greek). We learnt that Easterners think not for themselves but for the good of their family/clan/community. Westerners think for themselves and rarely regard the benefit of the family/clan/community in their decisions. Of course these are all stereotypes but there is a grain of truth in them, although these differences in thinking could probably have blurred with globalisation. 

Anyway, which way do I pick? And are their differences really significant?

For now all this is unimportant. As I type, A levels are 10 days away and ticking menacingly towards me (and you). T.T The terrible single digits are coming! 

Today I'm actually feeling at peace with the world :)

Here's an interesting song. I don't actually listen to lyrics, I google them and read them. The lyrics of this song actually have a subtle message. It's just that I'm too lazy to think about them and I settle for a particular vague feeling I get when I read the lyrics.
How do you feel, I hope you're feeling at peace with the world too! :)

Something is going wrong. Nowadays when I feel bored I'll go online and I'll instinctively go to facebook. What for, I don't know, it's just like checking some live news feed. Except I don't actually read the news as frequently as I go to facebook. >< And I feel less interested in things, and I feel empty and I cannot type a coherent and substantial post :( I can read people's blogs and appreciate what they write, but I can't write anything myself. So I'll stop here. I think I just wasted your time.

I'm seriously feeling a little palpitated, is there such an adjective?
I should just learn from Chris Martin here and flail my arms around. Looks like some serious emotional catharsis.

CHILL MANZXZXZ!

If I were to give this week an atmosphere, I'd say this has been quite a humbling week... Sometimes little things happen that make you stand back and look at yourself from a 3rd person's perspective and you realize things. But nothing drastic.
And there was graduation. I enjoyed the singing session.
Today was the last episode of ai! Watched two violent (and emotional) deaths in the first 15 minutes, then things began to fall into place, and in the last 10 minutes everything was rosy and dandy. There's a charm that long-running dramas have, because they play back scenes from hundreds of episodes before, and this makes you feel really in touch with the character. I felt a little sadness and admiration as the camera focused on xie mingming's face :3 She's the prettiest character there (and the most intriguing).
Let's move on, seriously.

Unsure
Of the present
Running away from myself
To where? The future?

But wait... people are actually preparing graduation gifts to remember this moment, and this moment of me and them!
Why am I so unfeeling?
D: It's so unexpected that graduation's coming. I don't even feel the need to remember or celebrate stuff at all... although just now I did think about some things, and I decided that I'll eventually feel fuzzyhearted when the time comes anyway.

Some people inspire you so much that even when they've disappeared from your life, you can suddenly think of them and feel this renewed spark in you, all over again. It's like discovering a whole part of yourself that you found but eventually lost, only to recover it again today.

Here's a post about an event that was quite trivial but gave me a fresh perspective anyway
I was feeling a little dazed today after sleeping at 1am the previous day (I was trying to finish homework), so I was standing beside p today with my mind floating in clouds above my head. I dimly registered the fact that I was going to the library to mug... Then unexpectedly, p, who was beside me, said her whoever said I'm (fill in the blanks). My reaction was "wait...what?" I've always thought of myself as a (opposite of 'fill in the blanks') person, honestly. I wasn't offended at all, I need to make this clear! But it was in fact quite refreshing to hear some negative comments for once. I always hang out with people I'm comfortable with, and if you're comfortable with someone, chances are you don't critique that person's character. So I've been free from negative comments for a really really long time, and today provided an interesting new angle on...myself. It has sort of removed me from this cocoon of oblivion... that stands between me and the world.

I woke up this morning to an interesting article, which was a tribute from a reporter to his humanities programme teacher, Mr Barnard (who is retiring). The phrases that jumped out at me the most was "rush to produce scientists and engineers....students...being drilled into timidity and submission" (something like that, not word for word), and how this reporter ditched his triple science education for a HP one. This is definitely not an attack on studying science in school, but these phrases made me think about whether I could be one of the students who submitted to traditional ideas about the merits of studying science.

I admire my two friends who jumped from their triple science sec sch education into the HP, for not being afraid to take the untried and untested route, to do things based on their own gut feeling. Honestly, at the end of sec 4 I considered trying out for HP, but I didn't because I felt I didn't have the knack for humanities. So I wondered if I had chosen my current subject combi through a process of elimination instead, and not because I really wanted to learn science. 

But I think if I could time travel like Zac Efron in 17 again, I would still choose my current subject combi. Because I think studying Bio has been fun, and it was especially so in J1. 

I remember taking a taxi home one day. The driver started asking me what I wanted to do after JC. "Be a doctor lah," he suggested in Chinese.

"I don't want to be a doctor," I replied.

Then he started talking about how being a doctor would be like having an iron rice bowl, because the government will never think the country has too many doctors, and how doctors never become unemployed anyway. But I'm strongly against such ideas. You don't choose a job for money. Maybe, coming from a generation of poverty, the driver thinks like this. But I have had the privilege of a comfortable childhood and a good education, and this is all because our parents/grandparents wanted us to have a better life, so I should fulfill their legacy by breaking out of these restrictions triggered by poverty, and think for myself.

I also remember how I was suddenly inspired by something a few days ago, I can't remember what. I sprung up on my mum and told her assertively that I would grow up to work for myself and not for the government, and I would be in charge of my own job and not be controlled by any boss! 

At which she gave me a bored look and said "It's good that you think this way now."

"What do you mean, now??" 

"I mean it's good that you think like this now, but it's another matter whether you actually do this next time," she said. She sounded bored.

So I gave a "hmph" and turned away. Frankly, there's some truth in what she's saying. Because I've been thinking of a scholarship and if I want a scholarship there's a very slim chance I can fulfil what I said. And if I want to be my own boss then I should be prepared for...financial losses etc.

Anyway, who knows? For now, it's time to be serious about the present, A levels are 1 month away, and I'm not treating my future seriously if I continue slacking like this. :/


yay Coldplay's so cool.

I think this is one of the times when I'm really disappointed with my results 8((((((( But that day when I went to ask my ki teacher what was wrong with my epist essay, he ended it off by asking how our results were, and after we replied he assumed this tone that people usually use when they are talking to somebody who just cried buckets, and said don't give up, there's still about 5 weeks! (we weren't looking sad, serious!!)
Yeah don't slacken or give up now... it must be because I haven't studied enough... it takes time to learn anyway, and prelims must have come at a time when I was still processing all my knowledge... :X

But alongside with all this disappointment I also feel a vague gladness to be where I am now, in this school, with all the people I know~~

(Oh, how bittersweet! ^_^)

Being the youngest in the family, I've occasionally heard my family members recounting an incident at work and expressing their hopelessness in particular situations...e.g. stories that show how they've tried but still couldn't help the person they wanted to, or the (positive) change they wanted to make, because of circumstances beyond their control. And it usually ends in them feeling dejected. Sometimes you're trying very sincerely to explain or to help but people misunderstand you, or sometimes they are just deluded and any advice you give just bounces off.
I'm pretty sure I'd like to make a positive change on people when I work in future, but I think I've realized now that it isn't that easy. But these stories represent just a few incidents, and I'm sure they only happen occasionally. (because it's not everyday that my family members recount such events)
I feel like these stories have made me more... individualistic? Like when it comes to my future job I don't believe so much in helping others directly, I believe more in making positive changes indirectly... Am I saying anything? No I'm not making sense...byeee
I guess the only real change I can work on now is improving my grades...

Today I was snoozing on the mattress handed down from my brother (and it was quite comfy) after reading a book, and feeling as comfortable as a hippo might feel lying on a mud bank. Then, beyond my foggy subconsciousness I heard a rather nice voice drifting in from outside my window, which is quite shocking considering that I live on the 9th floor. But anyway, I knew that they were giving our block of flats a new coat of paint, so I decided that the voice must come from one of the workers. Come to think of it, the voice was not unlike Darren Criss's voice; it was quite a smooth tenor. :) My mum heard it too and was also intrigued by it. And we started discussing what would happen if we drew the curtains, opened the windows and praised the worker for his voice.
But nothing else happened, okay, and I got up from the very comfy mattress.

I chanced upon this video, and I must say his voice is not baaad! If you're not a Lee Seung Gi fan you might want to skip to 1:31...hahah... but if you enjoy watching korean guys smile directly at the camera you can watch the beginning part...hahah...

Today's Children's Day. I didn't realize till now. And what's interesting is that in the morning I saw the Straits Times article about exceptional children, but I didn't recognize it was a tribute for Children's Day.
Goodbye my childhood. 8(
And happy children's day to all children out there, I seriously hope you treasure your childhood. But of course we don't know that something's worth treasuring until it's over. It's always like that.

I'm supposed to be here to do some research on universities and clear up university applications stuff, but I can't bring myself to do it, for some reason...


Here's an oddly comforting song to listen to... even though I don't actually understand what she's singing about. X years later, when I'm downtrodden and heartbroken and emo-ing over a broken relationship, I hope I'll listen to this song. Adele really sings this with Style...with a capital S.

I was dully watching the bee in the Bee Story movie get flung around, because he escaped from the hive, was caught in the rain, and somehow landed up in a car's pipe and almost got killed in the car. Despite so many near death experiences, the bee ended up home in the end. I guess this is a subtle reminder of how I should choose my paths, of how I should not be afraid of... not following the crowd. I remember reading an article about singapore's first caucasian social worker. I know her name is Ann but I forgot her surname. That was an inspiring story. She came to singapore to do social work, a few years before WWII started. How brave is that? When it was (and still is) cooler to be a doctor or an entrepreneur or a lawyer?

Who do I work for?