I’ve better start cracking

It is beginning to feel scary that I don’t feel the urge to slog it out hard for the prelims. And I don’t think I’ve become really complacent, just that I’m feeling very slack at the moment. And its not that kind of Ok-I’m-cool-collected-and-composed kind of calmness which shows that kind of confidence that I will ace it. Instead its the lazy, carefree, nonchalant, laid back kind of person the past few days. It’s been a long time since my brain has been saturated with a lot of facts  (and it felt kinda good honestly). Holidays is a sure way to pace down, hopefully I will get my spark of creative juices and brain juices flowing (after breakfast cause thats were all the food and whatever juice goes in) Perhaps,  I’ll find my focus again.

On another hand, I’ve been so motivated to finish  Ms Arfah’s homework which was due like on Monday but I’ve only submitted one section yesterday. Just kill me. I really hate to procrastinate!

On a more positive note, I’m looking forward to the picnic after A’s so I can test my cooking abilities again. I’m sure my friends will be accommodating even if my cooking sucks..

And I’ve been overly obsessed with games these days.

Contacting the outside life

Bliss of the Blue...

It have been such a mundane day, though I didn’t really actually seek to do something exciting at the outset. I woke up at 5 only to munch a bit of chappati and laze around the house logging on to facebook and played some games. Had a small chat with Joyce and Fan Zhi. Kids, if someone advise you to Seize the day, please seize the day and not sleep the day. I for one, do not know how to live up to the values I cherish. But I guess I was innately tired from all that cleaning and thus I need a proper nap  (which somehow spans over 4 hours).  And yes, I didn’t know I’ve been such a hermit, cocooning in my own shell! It has been like this for about 3 days. That bad. No, I’m not withdrawn. Fan Zhi thought I should actually go out.

Wandering

No longer a reticent person..

These past few days have been a little idyllic, where I spend a lot of my time laying at a corner of my room letting any sporadic memories flash in front of my dazed eyes, plugged to music that has weightless rhythm – you could almost feel you are part of the time… I don’t really reminisce so much of anything in this revision period. But I guess circumstances had left me to be reflective and comfortably lonely, away from all those happy or silly noises outside. I am not really a recluse individual, but if it makes me happy to trail on a more sombre mood these days – so be it. It could even be delirious, as I sometimes long for the morning showers and drizzles only to take comfort under my blanket..

“I sound like someone/something that’s totally devoid of love and desperate for it, in whatever form it comes in”

Such was the mention of someone I had a chat with over msn. In this years of chemical imbalances in the hormonal changes, we seem to seek love and thats me being direct about it. Obviously I do, though heavily subdued by the routinized and ambitious mugging periods. I do often sleep with my bolster in my embrace, and to imagine that there is someone there, willing for a warm hug. I haven’t really felt like this for a long time since I often ”collapse” after a tiring day. But I do think about love often, sometimes even anxious in how will I meet my right one. Sometimes I could picture fragments of romantic moments. Should we dream about ideals that may give us a false and sometimes needless longing or should we instead, live in dreams as in reality?

And speaking of dreams..

When brightsparks came to school for some presentation the other day, I felt displeased again. It always makes me feel undermined in some ways. They give us choices that in one way, could be presented as life greatest jokes. It feels like only the better few,  and i mean, exclusive few could get the scholarship due to the fact that they were given a chance to offer 11 units. Of course a little glimpse of sorrow is a realisation of reality time and time again. Seeing many of my friends  who are obviously not very significantly smarter or intellectual than me had a chance to offer the lofty H3 which is denied by my school in my case. You cannot blame me for being too cynical because I am sure (and not naive sure) that I am capable of a H3 offer. Sometimes there is a conflict of being realistic (of trying not be able to bite off more than you can chew, or being sensible and not appear stupid to clamour for something that others don’t think you are capable of) and chasing my ideals and hopes of making dreams becoming my  reality. I guess making my smaller part of my dreams coming true may be hurtful in a sense, because it breeds greed insofar your larger hopes and dreams are dampened by reality. I am so dying to rid myself in some vicious cycle of failures I unknowingly inflicted myself in the past..

So where am I wandering now… To give up hopes of relinquishing my underdog status and make significant leaps in life, and be another common man on the street…….or to dream on….

With sorrows like this, its no wonder I am sometimes disgusted at myself for vouching for something I do not deserve (a place for scholarships) or sometimes dig deep into past regrets…

So where am I wandering now? Its not about scholarships rather but my value system. Should I value success or intangible happiness? The joys of seeing my family and friends smile, cherishing all my quality time spent.

And of course right now, I do not need anything else. No more euphemisms for what I want. I don’t care what the world thinks but…
I long for your embrace..

Sleepless

Sleepless in Seatle, Singapore, Sembawang.

It seems rather, with my energetic mood today, the day may have seemed accomplished (until…). Yet this is another one of the days where the sense of accomplishment is watered down by my own insolvent mind. Do I really need to feel the pressure looming in near-proximity of the exams so I could spur myself to better utilise my time? I could pay only insipid attention to the details in these stupid academic notes and documents, testpapers and the drudgery of academia during June holidays. Prosaic…

Who knows what lurks in our futures?  I msned up with Joyce Ng in some rare circumstance yes perhaps I was bored. We spoke about the array of topics, the Christianizing MI (only God knows why), spotting exam questions, the perennial JC-MI comparison, the chat about our occupational futures. It could only be justified why we are apprehensive with our doubts on our occupation. On what we are going to settle on. Lawyer, working in MHA, setting up a biz, journalists, newscaster, travel journalist and the frivolity of thinking of dying on the job (literally, and metaphorically from routines). Once again, I brazenly impressed myself with what I just said to her,  given her innate fears of routine, “You can’t change routine. What you can change is how interesting your routine is”.

I guess we subtly question ourselves our own personal futures on what really gratifies and delights us? What principles, ethics, and environment are we going to live by? I mean, it may seem a little auctorial thinking about something that is adult and everything that connotes adulthood – responsibilities, taxes, mortgages, paperwork, the inanity of corporate lingo, jobs..But to me there is always something pensive about this. Not that kind of sitting along the beach with your lover watching the dusk, pondering about the affairs for tomorrow. But more of an imagined reality (yeah i know it doesn’t quite fit), where we are carried away with the torrent of fuzzy images of working 9-5shifts(or more), driving our own cars, drifting amongst buildings….but just not in Singapore. There is something quite peculiar in the mood of solemnity in such a mind-drift.

Soon, will we be the ghost of our futures or the glories of our past?

Another Epiphany

Upon reaching home, I wanted to get some 40 winks if possible, but I felt my mind was too awake to do that. Then I chanced upon something that intrigues me. No, it has more links to life than merely acadamia.

I have many arguments against or for the feminist psycholoanalytical thought. But for simplicity sake let me give you an illustration.

There was a play that we (literature students) study in our A level curriculum and watched, called Top Girls – a feminist play advocating a certain ideology that is against the style of feminism that simply turns women into new patriarchs and argues for a more socialist feminism. And simply because it goes against conventions or go against movements that does not change conventions, the structure manifest the same though. It goes against the phallogocentric model, a linear way plays should be. Now you must be thinking what the heck am I talking about? Psychoanalytic theories (female ones) suggest that a woman think in a whole different dimension where Helene Cixous argues that female thought differs from the usual way we see things (men/society) due to the fact that the language (and hence epistemological realm) is determined by their sexuality. And hence the disruption to the conventional way the play was constructed,  where Churchill’s postmodern language disturbs the traditional (male) linear play.

If that was Churchill’s art, it would have been successful because she has constructed an artificial realm outside the patriarchal one we live in today. It is played by all female cast, and hence males like me are a little alienated from such a structure. But such method – Verfremdungseffekt also alienated my female peers and they were also thrown back by such a structure…and it impedes their comprehension at first meet. What does it mean? Does it mean that women such as our friends are linguistically aligned to the conventional ways and not the postmodern feminism that is shown in the play?

Women writers have addressed the issues of masculinized writing through male gendered language that may not serve to accommodate the literary understanding of women’s lives. Cixous believes that our sexuality is directly tied to how we communicate in society.

Bullshit right. My female friends have not been used to the feminized way of looking at things, especially the one portrayed in Top Girls at first encounter. Since when knowledge and logical flows are determined by sex? If it was, gender inequality is a norm already right?  I guess its linguistic difference as a whole.

So what about the argument that gender is not a biological construct but psycho-sexual development when there are already assimilation between how males and females communicate. I know emotional disposition affects the way we communicate yet it seems like feminism is useless today (if speaking about Singapore as a context). Then why the need to supplement sexual education with gender education like how Chan Wai Leong argued? Education itself allows us to shape our knowledge, linguistic and hence, gender norms. Feel free to challenge me.

But until recently again, when a some mentioned that “Men don’t understand women”, was this what they were refering to? A dimension of lingustics which only women can identify with? Like woah, I thought its all those frivolous language of shopping and other ‘feminine’ pursuits, if you like it that way…

Routine

[6.00am] Snooze
[6.05am] Second Snooze
[6.07am] Mother bang on door. Wake up.
[6.15am] Someone using toilet. Curse.
[6.30am] Morning Prayers.
[6.45am] Look perfect. Wear Council Batch. Wear Contacts. Do up hair.
[6.50am] Go to door. Put on shoes. Take off shoes. Get something. Put on shoes…
[6.55am] Tune in MP3. Play Fly by monkey majik. Or play Mahler 5/fire bird suite.
[7.01am] tap in: NS11 Sembawang. Finish up tutorials/lectures.
[7.33am] tap out: NS2 Bukit Batok.
[7.45am] tap in: bus number 941/157/174/66 or cab. Frown at crowd.
[7.50am] Rush to General Office. Perform duty. Attach flags. Gather announcement. Call absentees.
[8.00am] National Anthem. Shout command to whole school / raise flag.
[8.15am] Read IRP/Finish tutorial. Go toilet.
[8.45am] Lessons starts.
[1.25pm] Lunchtime – Canteen. Mug. Sleep. Mingle.
[5.25pm] Lessons end.
[6.00pm] tap in: NS2 Bukit Batok. Go to NS 1 Jurong East. Bounce.
[6.45pm] tap out: NS11 Sembawang.
[7.00pm] Queue up at Sun Plaza. Order food. Study. Finish Homework. Emo.
[7.40pm] Read council smses. Write priority list. Remember to sign consent forms.
[8.45pm] Ring doorbell.
[9.30pm] Status: Online.
[12.00am] Status: busy.
[6.00am] Snooze…..
[7.01am] tap in…..

inspired by another blogpost.

September

One could feel the mid-September looming, pervading the landscape a certain autumnal sense. I’ve never really fully admired nor hated September for its bittersweet connotations it brings – Sunset, Subtleness, Somber. It was more of a metaphor of closure which many may not be ready for, but resigned to the changes of time. Of course, I do have moments of relishing in Septembers, for its lack of austerity of submitting work and whatever I do is up to my own prerogative.

For one, I never really enjoyed getting up for sahur because of the weigh of my eyelids draping down. While there is an aura of drudgery at the dining table waking up at 5, I was also subconsciously enjoying the tranquility of the morning. Unlike most mornings, the urge of getting to school would leave the estate in echoes of iron gates clanging back to their repose, in tandem with the shuffling noises of strangers at the sidewalks always instinctively looking at their watches.  Walking to the station would always leave me in nostalgia, the worry-free Saturday mornings, indulging in the morning hum cheem pangs and yu char kway – often best eaten in cold rainy mornings (have to always remember that my family is  not even  distinctively Malay family). I always like indulging in the Saturday morning bliss watching mindless cartoons. But years have passed.

I don’t really hated growing up. It was my apprehensiveness of the future sometimes … which is always contradicting with my impatient hopes and dreams for the future. While September brings its own breed of unwinding atmosphere, it always gives a subtle void of emptiness. Or is it me? I always have the inertia to date my assignments and when I do, I’m stuck in the previous month. It actually dawned upon me that I’m just very dazed, narrating where I am and my whereabouts. It was also perhaps the undercurrent of numbness that I’m feeling right now, with my state of mind picking up after its own disarray. My life is perhaps losing its meaning with me entrenched in repetitive revisions.  I’ve actually never felt so much of a recluse individual.

Ow, 12.01am

Those emo songs worked.
It irritated the hell out of me finally so I decided that when I’m feeling bored, I will occupy myself and not listen to emo songs and stone.  Yes not even emo just stone.

Ive been feeling such a numbnut today. I became like a drifting aimless wind after my Econs paper. (which was boring and i speculate..sigh average score). I planned to go to pastamania but I decided Iwant the city escapade. Fine, went to the city and wanted the 7 buck set meal from Pizza hut from marina square but went to have Beef hor fun instead. Went to esplanade to  erm. pen down some thoughts but I guess I was kinda exhausted after the paper (and holy fuck it wasn’t even a 3 hour paper) I guess it was the ONS with my Restaurant City and its increasing alarming how im turning into an RC geek. Maybe because I have no friends and/or my friends are effing busy with work consolidation. So I stopped studying, decided that i had too much CO2 and aircon gas in my system so I went to the atrium to get some corn-cup and slacked by  the waterfront. Tried sleeping in the train back home but ended up stoning again wtffffff.

So Ive not studied anything this week, just hope I don’t screw up badly. And if I can be terribly bilingual in 14 hours, it would be of the awesomeness miracle I’ve witness for the MT oral. I am not going to chronicle the oral examinations. Last time I heard, shawn’s classmates for Chinese O’s was about aliens and spaceships. That was abso-fucking-lutely epic. If they are coming out about cultural stereotypes, perhaps i can champion that.

*Huge Gasp of depravity*

I NEED TO HANG

The paradox of excitement

For the record, I need to feel proud about something

1. I am less apprehensive and relatively more adventurous
2. I hooked up new contacts on my msn with interesting personas (though not far from ordinary)
3. Managed to remember the songs I used to like when i was 13 (before the proliferate classicals)
4. Being such a fag wasting this day away.
5. The sky is always blue (Yea told you Im being a numbnut today)
6. Watched TV.
7. Knowing
   

   that this serves my moments of epiphany. Funny epiphany OOH HALF-RHYME

8. Knowing he has bigoted friends and he is rigtht
9. Knowing he is not in any way better er just shoot me

My life should be less of a drag, maybe thats what my JC friends have been complaining about and I can see myself in the same boat. AS MUCH AS I WANT THE A GRADES badly, I want to start life afresh. Again -.- Don’t you know the holidays spells fat lazy and unproductive?

With pocket money deficits, the lomocam, or dslr remains a dream

Amazing discovery

New record. Just yesterday.

Wow. 67 different views from different IP addresses, nice.

Not proud of it anyway. Surprised, yet not in a good way.

Fikri… you should be the proudest person in the universe because your MTL LC is on 23 July tentatively.

Hello World: I want to ask you if you have any other surprises up your sleeves. If so, kindly keep it up your sleeves.

Empty the cup

Hey-lo

The best movie that came about this December was the one I watch through pixels of my laptop HD screen and not from those low quality filmstrips that you can see black blotchs every few frames ( from Eng Wah). Amadeus, probably one of the longest films I watched and I can’t believe the history of classical music is very juicy…or as presented on movies. Haha. Did I mention I got this VCD cheap at Lazerflair’ Clearance sale for only 6.95 @ SSC?! Probably some of you are perplexed because
1)This time round, the stocks are in mint condition.
2)Yes, believe this, clearance sale at 6.95 is like a charitable act.
3) SSC is Sembawang Shopping Centre, which has just opened…and urrgh.., where I promised to take Goldie to Daiso because she’s growing into a proper housewife soon HAHA. Why is it that most of our friends who are attached are beggining to sound like aunties. She just squeeled at the mention of my “got sale going on”. (Speaking about housewife, I am going to blog something along that lines later)

Haha, I was abit skeptical when it opened early. Me and Jeffery went there after having dinner at Northpoint and his place yesterday. Was spontaneous and ultra random because my random schoolmate randomly popped out of nowhere saying, “Hey, you know SSC just opened yesterday?. Why Did Singaporeans inherit kiasuism anyway.

On the bus/mrt ride home just now (omg why is it that most of my blog entries are thought out in vehicles?!?!)