ohyay

PW’s ending in less than two months, so yay! How long has it been? About seven effing months of cursing and swearing, I guess. Trying to juggle the Written Report, the Oral Presentation and the Insights and Reflections right now, not to mention promos too, oh well.

WR’s almost done, just a few final edits; OP is like a distant thought, and I&R is just a pain in the ass. Have to submit the first draft on Tuesday. I’m trying really hard to start on my I&R but I keep getting distracted.

Grr stomach feels funny, been eating lots of rubbish today. I really should start on my I&R. Wondering what’s wrong with me. Can’t seem to force myself to do anything.

The year’s almost over. Good. I can’t wait. One more year of going through the motion, and then what? Oh well, at least I won’t have to go to wake up early after that, if I’m lucky.

Been feeling lethargic lately, more than usual. I don’t know why. This wave of listlessness hits me sometime, when I think of what could have been. But hell, it’s no time for regrets. Some things I wish I had done, others not so. Always happens when I think of what could have been.

I should learn how to give chances, I guess. But fuck it all, is it even that important?

My stomach feels funny. Oh no.

Nothing much has been happening recently, just going through the motion and the like. Oh wait, it’s national day today. Parents will probably order KFC. Sad, I’ll have to eat instant noodles again. Guess I’ll probably catch the NDP on tv this year, huh? I can’t remember when was the last time I watched the NDP. Heck, I don’t even care when the fireworks happen. I don’t run to the tv and go gaga over the pyrotechnics. I’ll probably be thinking, “Oh, it’s the fireworks again.”

Same old, same old.

Which reminds me of the national day celebration we had in school on Friday. No offense, but the band was pathetic, probably because it’s so small. Pretty much slacked around. Was supposed to have PW discussion, but seeing how Xiang didn’t come and Marinah had to go for some Malay dance thing, JiaYing and I just sat around and I forgot what we did. She read, I think, and I alternated between stoning and watching Rachel amuse herself with the fake tattoos the school issued, then we went and holed ourselves up inside the library.

Sometimes I think people care too little for fear of caring too much. Otherwise, they don’t care because they’re just not interested.

I hardly give shit to school celebrations. This national day celebration not being an exception. Just sat around and clapped when I was expected to. Reminds me of the seals in zoos. Now let’s analyse those sentences. Suggests that it was a routine, that it wasn’t spontaneous, but merely convention. The dehumanizing comparison between people and trained seals suggests that perhaps we have been taught to behave so, that maybe we don’t really think before we do what we did, to put on a show. Makes us wonder who the real performers of the day were, huh? Or maybe it’s just me, I think so. There’s always the urge to follow the crowd.

I just don’t get why people do things because almost everyone else is doing it. We call it crowd mentality. Starts out with a handful of people doing something, then it multiplies like the number of flu cases, and there you have it, an epidemic. It’s like x² where x ≥ 2 (mainly because if x = 1 you’ll just get 1 anyway, and because there’s no 1.5 persons, or it’ll be strange, stupid.)

So yeah, at first it was just a few rows of people standing up and waving and swaying, stuff like that. Then as more and more people join in, you suddenly realize how chaotic it is, and you think, “Woah, what’s happening here?” You have people running around and tossing each other about, and I’m glad I’m not part of it.

Then you have those who stood up because it seemed like the whole world was doing it too, and they just stand there and look awkward. I figured that standing up and looking stupid is worse than sitting down and looking stupid. Those who stood up blocked me from view anyway. I don’t know, it just struck me that those who stood up but are not part of the crowd are kind of sad. Not sad in the haha-you’re-such-a-loser sense, more like being lost and unsure. So I was pretty contented with my ass on the floor, being able to stretch my legs because there’s so much room to do so.

Oh boy, I’m on the way to outcasting myself yet again. Guess I could be sociable if I wanted to. But I don’t like the trade-off. I like my privacy and personal space. What’s personal remains personal. I realize I tend to behave rather coldly towards people when I feel as if they’re intruding. If it keeps people at an arm’s length, why not? If I wanted people to know what I’m thinking, what I’m doing, what I’m eating, where I am, who I’m with, I can write a book.

Which is also why I never ask people about themselves if they’re unwilling to offer information about themselves. If they wanted to share, then it’s okay. Yeah, sure, sometimes I get curious as hell, but it’s about respect, I guess. I don’t want to keep bugging people and annoying the hell out of them.

Another reason for that is also because I might simply be disinterested in that person’s life. I’m not interested in what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, what you’re eating, where you are, who you’re with, and you can write a book and I wouldn’t give a damn. Those people can range from mildly amusing, because they assume that I’m dying to know what’s going on in their lives, to downright irritating, because they feed me with information I have to delete from my memory anyway.

But in doing so, I try not to be rude. Inevitably, I might be, if prodded too much. And if it happens one time too many, I start wondering if it was intentional.

I am never overtly rude, unless I wanted it to be so. I just hint around and be vague. But it backfires sometimes, when they don’t get it. Reminds me of the period of time when I acted dumb just to annoy people; I really got a kick out of it. Now I don’t bother, not so much anyway.

I try not to give definite answers. Ambiguity is nice because it leaves room for manoeuvres, you just have to know when to play the right card at the right time. Sadly though, I don’t have a nice little stack of cards I can use, so I’m pretty much stuck in this situation. And I wonder how I got myself stuck in this stalemate.

If I didn’t know myself better, I would have thought that I’m sociophobic. I’m not afraid of people, it’s just that sometimes I wished the world didn’t exist, or I didn’t, and that would be nice. This place is too crowded for me. Reminds me of what I used to say when I was still a kid: “I didn’t choose to be born”. Not like I have much of a choice, seeing how I’m dumped here, but it’s still okay. We are but a second in time, which makes things a little bit more all right.

It’s funny I only feel this way now. You know, when school started, everyone missed their secondary school like mad, but there I was, damn effing happy I got out.

But now it seems like everyone’s settled already, and I’m still looking for a place of my own.

Walked past the BP holding site on Thursday, and I suddenly had this urge to go in. I don’t know, I just missed BP terribly. It’s the familiarity I can’t let go, I guess.

Almost almost skipped school on Friday. Snoozed longer than usual on purpose, dawdled about, but hey, I reached school earlier.

And why did I even bother getting off the bus, when I could have just sat there mutely and gone somewhere else? I guess it’s because I just can’t let myself go that way.

The week’s been draining. Still, it’s nice to know I am not alone, that hey, at least my distress can make someone else happy.

Guess I’ve been tolerating so many things for so long that I just got tired of being nice. Talking to a friend does help after all. Nice to know there are people whom I can call anytime of the day and just whine on and on about how miserable I am.

We all have to set limits, there’s a boundary that should never ever be crossed. It’s about respecting others, realizing that this is as far as you can, and should go. Doesn’t matter which context we apply them in. It’s all the same, all the same.

Back in BP, I always had a goal. It was simply either JC, Poly, or ITE. Clear cut and simple. Now I’m not sure if I should even remain in school. I’m not going anywhere.

Got irritated by my sister recently. The reason may seem petty, but I can’t help it. All along she’s been trying to me like me, or make me be like her, but I don’t. It’s pretty ironical — when I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to dress us up similarly. Anyway, back to the part where I got really bitchy about my sister. When I was a kid, my sister and I kept bangs, because my mother wanted it to be so. Then I slid into what they call the rebellious stage, except I reached that stage rather early, like in Primary 4, and have been stuck there permanently, or so they say. So yeah, I did what I liked, lied like nothing and grew out my fringe.

Perhaps it’s nothing much, keeping my fringe long, but it meant a lot to me. We’re talking about a girl who, after every haircut, lost a few inches of hair and cried like hell. It wasn’t the boo-hoo-hoo-I’m-bald-now kind of crying, but because I was just frustrated.

So okay, I kept my hair and fringe long, and my sister still had those awful bangs then, so she made really snide comments about how ugly I looked, and kept pestering my mother to make her persuade me to cut my hair. So one fine day my mother got frustrated and yelled at her. I admit, it gave me a kick then, and I gloated inside.

And now she’s trying to be like me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that she’s jealous of me, when she has no reason to be. I hate this. It might make no sense, but it’s so much easier to do comparison the more similar the subjects are. The differences are more starkly contrasted. It’s more right-in-your-face. This is annoying.

Sometimes, I just wish people would let me be, I’m not actually affecting them. I went to BP, got caught, saw the Principal on a few occasions, made small talk with Tiger (more like, he made small talk), almost got myself kicked out of school, but hey, I still graduated, and even though my results weren’t stellar, they were decent at the very least. I survived that. No reason why I won’t for the next one year or so, taking into account the holidays and the study leave, and of course, the days which I plan to skip school. I made it through fine, and I still will. So fuck it all.

The efforts are futile, really. I’m fine with myself the way I am, screw what everyone else thinks. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll actually change.