Marcus Yong is asleep and I'm crashing his roomie's place for the night to do media in America.
I don't want to wake him up seeing how he's been killing himself over studies.

I feel guilty.

For not bothering with stuff until its too late.
While people have to compete and fight to get to where I am now,
all I did was sail in. Stuff just fell into my lap. Things just work out.

And now, I realize the extent of the fuckery I have mired myself into.
Now I realize how horribly inadequate and undeserving I am.

And right now I need to wake him up.

WHY LIKE THAT ONE?



Why the Miss Bala never return anything, never give grades, never say anything? Like that how to study when i don't know what is wrong siaaaa? And i am typing in a more conversational tone to practices broadcast writing because that's what the notes say. Must be more conversational, no need so eloquent and no need funny funny prose. CCB.

I lub Jay Chou. Do you?

Like that how to be journalist? English also CMI, Singlish also CMI, Chinese no need say la. HOW SIAAAAAA.

KNN. So stressed.
Okay actually its my fault because I only open notes yesterday.
Wah lau eh Nabei.





One day I will look back at this entry and wonder what the fuck I was thinking.

Marcus & Natalie,

I am writing to provide you with feedback about the final project you submitted for CS803: Media in America. The goal is to give you a sense of what I liked about your research effort and offer constructive criticism aimed at helping you produce even more superior work in the future. Overall, you have produced the top project in class. Congratulations, truly. This is a marvelous magazine. It is of course highly creative and engaging in its design. It is very easy to follow in its layout format and general section structure. You provide a wonderful mix of sources- I especially loved the personal touches at the start. The extra effort to interview some of the Twitterers (or is it Tweeters?) and bloggers that really matter is definitely appreciated/noticed. You also displayed a thorough knowledge of the online platform and nicely touched on its influence in the personal, political, American, Singaporean, celebrity, and news media universes. In general, this is a job extremely well done. I will be showing this to future classes for many years to come as an example of how to do this project RIGHT. All my best on the upcoming final and I hope you have a relaxing break and a productive second semester. Please keep in touch! Grade: A!

--
Daniel Reimold, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information


YAY FOR OCSverymanlyandcool as well as yours truly! (:

We are all barreling toward the same destructive end.

There must be a reason why divorce rates go up, families get smaller, childhoods get shorter and we live longer but unhappier.

I think its the rat race. I blame competition. We are so preoccupied with staying ahead that we have no time to look, no time to fall in love, no time to understand, to talk things out, to communicate. We don't talk to each other, we talk AT each other. When we run into problems, we choose the exit strategy. We don't have kids anymore because we don't have time to make love. Besides kids are expensive and a risky investment. And anyway, why would you want to have kids and make them go through this education system? You won't be present for their childhood, and by the time you stop to care, it would have passed you by. And we why do we live so long? At this rate, we're going to die alone, lonely and helpless. And possibly painfully, for who knows what health problems we would have afflicted ourselves with and ignored only to find out too late.

The irony is that I learn so much about communication in theory but I have no time to apply it to my life to make my relationships with other people work better.

Academia. I will blame you when I pass away, old and lonely, with only my pet cats to mourn me.

First heard the song 'Desperado' on a cold night out with Supergirl not too long ago.
Actually, no. It was pretty long ago. March to be exact? Perhaps April?

The Westlife version plays on loop with other classics like 'Lovefool' and '温柔', still, I prefer The Eagles original.

The increased frequency of blogging means I'm really, really stressed out now.
Missed Econs paper today and right now my stomach is still doing flip flops at the thought of that dreaded subject.
Been stuffing my face so much I don't think I can even muster enough courage to look at the weighing machine.
This is not good.

I want to quit the fuckery that is hall and just hide in WKW forever. The thought of having to resume cheer + swimming + volleyball + scrabble + havoc after exams just makes me wish I could hang a hammock between two pillars in WKW and sleep there. Srzly. I feel nauseous just thinking about it.

Maybe it isn't hall.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm holed up in a dingy old room in some faraway land away from civilization and everything/everyone who matters with a stranger-friend roomie and strange people mucking around outside the confines of my private space. And did I mention that the roomie brings out every territorial instinct in me? I feel like a dog guarding a bone and snarling at any one who tries getting into my personal space. Who knows, maybe one day I'll start peeing all over the place to mark my area.

Being at home is good.
I can sort out my thoughts in peace without anybody trying to intrude. The downside though, is that I'm far away from the sole important people in my entire University life who can actually understand and empathize, and I have to confront my own insecurities, fears and other thoughts alone.

You know what, I really love school.

But I hate NTU. I hate living in hall with people outside of WKWSCI.
And I hate that I am mean to perfectly nice and harmless people.

Quit rambling, start reading.
So fucking behind everybody else.

Sia la. I haven't dared to step on the weighing machine for months now.
Time to exercise the yearly eating disorder inclinations again.

One day I'll learn to push the puke button properly.

[edit 2216]

Today I learnt that there are many ways to get to where you want to be. You can be pretentious, shallow, superficial and a generally mean, backstabbing bitch. You can lie, cheat, steal, betray and hoard. You can put on a class act and fish secrets out of others, then save them up to blackmail them. You can break hearts at a whim.

Or you can just be truthful, genuine and trustworthy. You can speak when you need to and know when to stop yourself. You can be real, but arm yourself with tact. You can let somebody love you, but stop yourself if you can't give anything in return.

I live in a small, small world, and I think I shall retreat further into my cocoon.

Shelter me, I'm afraid I can't take the rain outside. And I don't have an umbrella.

[edit 181109 1159]
Feeling extremely nostalgic as 'Lovefool' plays on loop.
Can't post this on twitter cuz many people are watching.

So I'm really screwed for all my modules and the only thing I can think of to stop myself from sinking into panic mode is blog. On a brighter note, however, geek day at wkw was awesome because I got to be a cedarian for one more day. Check out the tie-wearers in the middle of the first row. Ties are the <3 plz.

Economisery.
I hate how they have to mathematicize everything.
It takes the whole learning process away.
The concepts are all lost, and I suck at math.

I really appreciate how supportive the parents are over the dilemma of whether or not I should report sick for the exam. From the looks of it anyway I'm likely to going into panic mode and have the runs once again. Happens every time I get nervous or hung up over something. Arghhh. We'll see.

Removed myself from Hall 5 and not going back until trainings and IHG/ISG starts.

Now excuse me, my insides are protesting again.

"You write beautifully", they said, "I wish I could write like you"

"I don't write beautifully.", she replied,  "I write devastatingly. My entire life has been spent in devastation, waiting and watching. And I wish I couldn't write. Like you. They say writers are sad people. They go to hell. With the poets, linguists, lawyers, politicians... and homosexuals."

Head throbbing, stomach pickling itself, chest contractions, knee aching.
Physically, I think I have the body of an 80 year old with menopausal metabolism to boot.

I've lived the past week on a bullet train and its no wonder I got lost in the flurry of activity.

Achievements this week:
MB103, or Marketing is done and probably fucked.
CS803 is in Marcus's hands, safe, sound and pretty.

What's left:
Mindmaps for COM201
Readings/Research for COM203, as well as test.
More stuff for 204 on Monday at Bala's whim.
Learning Econs from Benjamin on Wednesday.
Opening the damn Marketing textbook.

Exams from 19th to 26th November

This year has passed really fast. Roomie's completely in the Christmas mood, blasting Christmas songs every night. Now that she's attached, I hardly even see her except for quick greetings before either of us hurry off to somewhere else. Perhaps it is for the better.

I wonder what this Christmas will be like. I figure it will never top last year's simple, quiet and wonderful Christmas Eve. But what's past is now long gone, and in what I'd like to be the candy jar of memories I will never forget despite my failing memory.

And the years go by.

This December month will hardly be a time to rest at all. Hall commitments, cheerleading and IHG will keep me busy. Thank God then, that I have WKWSCIFOC and ISG to restore my sanity and keep me happy, healthy and intellectually nourished. School may be a bitch but manyloves anyway.

I'm really excited about being part of WKWSCIFOC'10. Even as an ini machiam ikan billis small little subcommer doing programming for FN. I know it will be awesome without me having to make it awesome. One day I might have to resort to bringing a hammock and sleeping between the pillars of the WKWSCI benches.

My CS803 twitter project is awesome, as is @marcusyong, Without him, I'd probably be turning in some crapshit essay amidst the creative projects that others are gonna churn out. Manyloves there to you <3

<3 to, to JX, for finally helping me to wake up my idea and endeavor to start 203.

And Manel, I'm sorry for being perpetually late. Mindless spendthrift shopping and Brazilian waxes should be a part of our routine from now on plz <3<3<3

He is with me. I finally started to truly believe that again this week.
This immense strength cannot be possible without some sort of divine help. I'm not about to define myself as religious and faithful yet. But perhaps that day will soon come. Miracles happen.

I draw strength from You and the wonderful souls you put around me.

Make something happen for me please.

I used to say how much I hated it that every single love song told our stories, and how every corner I turned would bring about memories of the remnants of a past I still hold on fondly to.

In the past two weeks, I have made the teeniest of steps back to my faith by saying grace at mealtimes. I've met up with people who are important to me, though not all of them. I've derived an almost sick pleasure from throwing myself into the world of photoshop, a territory completely out of my comfort zone. I've been caught up in the daily drivel of academics and Hall activities. I have finally proactively decided to do something about my electives that have laid neglected. I have realized that true friends don't just get drunk with you, they also clean up your puke when they could very well leave you soaking in your own vomit, in your own room. I have learnt that my temper truly scares people sometimes, even big burly guys twice my size and older than me. I ran the Human Race. I made a resolution to one day do the 84km ultra-marathon.

In the past two weeks 'Graduation' by Vitamin C has been playing on loop, and it brings more memories than any love song that I've heard. 

It has taken long, but I think I'm finally out of love.

Friendship is beautiful.

Dearest Theresa, Yixin, Faith, Karmun, Bernice, Xiaowei, Manel, Bryan, Joshua, mateys, Teacher Catherine, Teacher Mavis, Yingying, Marcus Yong&Yew, Jianxuan, Andrew, Malcolm, Kangwei, Wayne, Amelia, Samantha, Joanne, Yanyu, Yumin, Naima, Elvis, Claudia, Patrick, Anandhi, Kanchana and probably more, thank you for all the times and the years gone by.

Back to mugging.

Finally awake after a night spent wasted.
Somehow I didn't get as drunk as I would have liked.

These wonderful days pass faster than I would like.

Walking down memory lane today proved less of a harrowing experience than I thought.
Just a dull ache now. And even that is disappearing too.
I could capture those moments on a polaroid. I could give it a sepia tinge.
My world turns into one of those old school black-and-white films.

And all that is just, nostalgia.
Good times when friendships were purer and less complicated.
Though i wouldn't be as deluded as to say it was completely without politics.
I remember only the good now. And we, had a good run.

First boy, first times, even first loves.
First time falling. First time tasting failure.
Numerous crushes, every single one fleeting.
First time tasting 'freedom' on the streets of England.
Knowing and not knowing.
Maybe I learnt more from that hellhole, than what it took out of me.
Maybe all that love isn't used up yet. Maybe it isn't completely drained.
And maybe, just maybe, I am not incapable of loving yet.

Or maybe I'm just too delirious now to care.

Today with the Bocellis, or part of them, was pretty awesome.
I guess I still function better in smaller groups than big ones.
Exclusivity. Doesn't that just smell awesome.

Maybe dictating who can and cannot be in our group gives us this false sense of empowerment,
thinking that there'll be someone to cover our backs for us. It makes us just a little more courageous.

At least thats what it does for me, though not to the extent of delusion that if I suddenly decided to sling a carton of expired durian mooncakes at the lesser beings who inhabit NTU, these people would stand by my ridiculous and completely uncalled for barbarism. They have class like that.

Not particularly brilliant with words, nor good at expressing my feelings upfront.

On a completely separate note, I now have a squatter roomie in the form of my previous CT rep.
Feeling extremely neutral about his whole affair. Too neutral to be normal.
Take three girls, each from a different clique in class and with completely clashing personalities,
throw them into a dingy little room with too little and yet too much furniture, and watch and see.

We're too boring for catfights though.

Sometimes I'd like to pry open the brain of my roomie and peek in to see what exactly goes on.
The meanie in me would say, "Not much." But then again, perhaps my mind has too much.
Story details have been repeated too many times to all those who care to be repeated here.

Too much to handle.

Still, I love the roomie, very very much.
Perhaps not as much as the cliques, or the random ones here and there.
I wouldn't like to spend one-on-one time with her as much as I would with some others.
But 3 months of living together has to count for something. And I'm still thankful for her.

I have not slept properly since 0730 yesterday, and by properly I mean >3 hours.
School life is okay. Hall life is hectic. I would like to say it was the other way round.

Gonna be a programmer for WKWSCIFOC'10.
Not going to miss it for the world. That's where my loyalties still lie.

The JC kids graduated today.
I wish I had the sense back then to capture all the memories in photos.
Relying on my failing mind is not exactly the best thing to do.

I miss them all. Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. everytime.

The number of things I'm caught up in for Hall makes me feel like a sellout.
Its almost as if I've left the English-speaking world to defect to the Land of the Ching Chong Cheenas.
And no, I do not really care that my url is up on my FB profile so anybody who clicks can see this.
Maybe I will go back to locking this again when they find out the meaning of 'sellout' and 'defect'.

Their inadequacies do not make them any less pleasant,
and they have truly been tolerant of me and my idiosyncrasies.
Perhaps, like I told the rest of the group this afternoon over tea,
we are caught up in the sort of world captured in "I am Legend".
And perhaps, like the true ending of a fittingly morbid storyline,
we find that we are now the aliens, the outsiders, not them.
And then we kill ourselves.

Does it really matter even if they think the past tense of 'put', 'cut' and 'hit' is 'putted', 'cutted' and 'hitted'? Or that M, M's roomie, J and I may just be the only people left in hall who can string a grammatically correct sentence together in English? At the end of the day, they exasperate me. They drive me up the wall. The way they phrase their sentences and look at me with confusion the moment I open my mouth irritates me to no end. Yet they find humor in my halting Chinese and attempt to translate so I don't feel stupid.

I still feel insulted though when The Mother insinuates that I am soon becoming part of the Hall infrastructure just like the roomie.
And yes. We fought again. I'm contemplating going home just once in two weeks if thats what it takes to keep my sanity.

School is fine and not so dandy. Friends just get better and better.
My grades will be atrocious alright. But right now, that's the least of my worries.

Life sucks take drugs.

Seeing you again today made me realize what exactly it was that made me fall for you.

Its the littlest things and the smallest gestures.
Faint smiles and shades of bravery.
Tears, joy, pain, laughter. Experiences we shared.

Everything that made us what we were, are not and will not be.

If I could turn back the clock once, I would turn it to a year ago.
Then I'd regret and turn it further back. And further, and further.

Life can be confounding when you don't believe in values that most people subscribe to.

Like faithfulness perhaps? Monogamy? I don't know.

Its 3:16am. I would like to be up at 6 but reality tells me I can't.

I don't know where this goes.

I'm too used to calling the Yishun place Grandma's house and its not possible to snap out of it and realize she is long gone.

The extended family was there tonight cause of Mid-Autumn and I think we offered enough mooncakes to Grandma to send her diabetes skyrocketing so high from another dimension that Tua Pek Kong has to call and ask us to tone it down. Or maybe in Taoist heaven there is no diabetes.

Humor in bad taste aside.

I spent most of today's visit bugged by what a social misfit I am even in my own extended family. The lines are drawn so clearly that treading in the grey area is an arduous and lonely journey. The womenfolk belong in the kitchen, bustling around and generally making an annoying racket that could drown out the tiongs in heat at Yunnan Gardens (Very bad joke again). The menfolk sit around the table discussing anything from current affairs and technology. The toddlers, children and teenagers are shut into a spare room to entertain themselves with their gadgets and the TV.

I observe this while drinking my soup in a seemingly leisurely manner at the men's table.

I do not fit in with the womenfolk and their penchant for whipping up family friendly Chinese dishes. I can pretty much live on instant noodles, perhaps bake a few desserts and random foreign cuisines. And I can feed on Hall 5 zi char forever. I detest the smell of oil lingering in my hair on my clothes. I don't like rice - They dream up millions of recipes with it. Their topics revolve around their children or random gossip surrounding few common acquaintances. Again a big no-no.

The men don't want me at their table. They view my vaguely formed, slightly larger than average-ly muscled arms with suspicion. They look at my hair, or what's left of it. And they judge me. They talk about things that do not interest me. Every time we meet, they make conversation by asking me what University I'm in, what course I'm doing, and if i still dragonboat (No, btw) and swim (Yes). They cannot define me, so they avoid conversation beyond the rudimentary questions. They seemed more interested to know about me and my life when I had long hair. Or maybe I'm just paranoid, no?

I am almost twenty. Barely a teenager any longer. Most certainly not a child. My lack of fine motor skills whatsoever do not allow me to enjoy portable games or any games that involve moving more than 2 fingers in general. My gross motor skills are even more epic fail. With them, I feel old, jaded and cynical. I don't belong there any longer.

Twenty, and still a child.

I abhor this.
Oh the perils of being the eldest grandchild and also a 100% girl that happens to look really like a boy.
Don't we all hate those obligatory, superficial socializations we have to make? 

This post is so raw I am almost tempted not to post it.
But its nice not to shroud your thoughts in obscurity once in a while.

I think I said about 2 sentences to the rest of the world today after leaving JX and Ame.
Me FTW.

Fucked up hair, new pimple, eye infection, blocked nose, 25 hours and counting of no sleep.
Gross tan, chunky thighs and chicken, potato, muffin, chocolate, ham and cheese leftovers in my braces.

I feel highly unsexy but motherfucking lovely now.

JX, OCSwoman and amelia. You three are awesome <3