suicide is painless

Who was I kidding. There's no way I can keep away from this blog. It exists as a mirror of my troubles and as long as those troubles continue to exist, so will this blog.

I don't want to do this anymore. It was never my fault, so why should I continue trying to right the wrongs I wrongly suffer. I can't sleep well, I can't write well, and some of my teachers are making things worse. Why should I keep fighting? Why should I keep trying? In the end, what does this all get me?

No, I don't want t- to what? Go on? Give up? Try to catch the precious broken shards of yesterday's dreams? I don't want to fight. What's there for me at the finishing line? There's no degree for the grades I'm scoring now and without it, life ends... so why wait?

Why why WHY?? Why was I put through this? Why was it all taken from me to begin with?

I want to put all my papers into a single pit and watch the flames dance happily on its blackening pages. Then I can say its truly over... Poor Ben Low, cracked all over, shards held together only by... what?

Mediocrity is a sin,

Ben Low has gone drinking.

Ous!

I shall boycott this blog for 2 weeks.

There is no gain in sorrow

(he robs himself that spends a bootless grief)

A strong smile with a fisted heart

I'm so going to move up and move on.

OUS!

I think its the fear of an appalling outcome that turns one away from putting in effort. Its made worse when one feels that no effort will make up for the putrid combination of problems and personal shortcomings.

Effort.

There. The point I'm trying to press eludes me. Don't think too much.

Questions

What is sleep? Why do I seem to be awake when I sleep? To be conscious of the this, am I really sleeping?

What is self-study? Notes, notes and more endless notes? Writing, thinking, searching for answers to get that prize. Am I going the right way?

Hiding, am I? When I decide on mornings that follow restless nights, am I hiding from school in timid withdrawal or am I bravely taking the more rational and productive option?

Are late nights excuses for not studying or are they simply a time to relax?

Can I really trust my history/KI teachers?

Am I on the right track?

Pressure

Boyle's Law states that volume and pressure share an inverse relation and I'm beginning to understand what that means. I remember that my O level physics textbook had a diagram demonstrating this principle with a bubble under water.

Well, my bubble is closing in alright, thanks to history. As the volume of SEA I need to swim through and make sense of increases, so does the anxiety. The pressure of JC life is truly horrifying but it wouldn't be so bad if my teachers' notes were factual enough. No, his notes contradict themselves, are extremely vague, and lack an overall sense of coherence which makes my study of the subject an up-hill endeavor. But I can't complain. He's my form teacher, and I will need his favor every now and then. Perhaps I should learn from the Afghan war - the USA supplied the Mujahideen with arms to battle the Soviets, making it a proxy war that incurred minimal cost for the Americans.

I'm lagging behind on my literature, on all fronts, although the anthology study is the most neglected. KI - my thesis has been sacrificed for history. The only subject I'm way ahead of is economics, thanks to their well-collated and comprehensive notes.

I want to run away, but I know I should stay. The very anxieties repel me also compel me to stay. I hate my teacher, but I don't have the power to do anything about it. It all comes down to that in the end doesn't it? Power. It determines your rights. I better get back to to work.

JUST ONE SONG

JUST ONE FUCKING SONG!!! IS THAT TOO FUCKING MUCH TO ASK!?

Your concern can go to fucking hell you bitch - that's what i wanted to tell my senile bitchy mother. So long i've tried to live through this whole bloody time and i finally found some peace and progress with the black and white keys on the piano

and just when i was about to complete a song that i've made a lot of progress in, she had to wave and wave and fucking distract me till the song got fucking screwed and cut off! and she still had toe fucking gall to be pissed with ME!  FUCK IT ALL

I KICKED THINGS AND SHOUTED AND PUNCHED AND RAGED ON AND ON AND ON TILL THAT FUCKING BITCH CAME OUT AND PRETENDED TO BE ALL CONCERNED. WELL FUCK YOU BITCH! CRY! DO SO! THAT'S ALL YOU'RE FUCKING GOOD FOR ANYWAY.

PUT YOURSELF BETWEEN ME AND THE PUNCHING BAG AGAIN AND I SWEAR I'LL PUNCH RIGHT THROUGH YOUR HIDEOUS FACE!

I really wanted to slap her until she said sorry and begged for her miserable little life.

Now my mood's spoilt, I won't sleep, and i've therefore missed another day at school. 

FUCK YOU BITCH!

For many hours I hovered between sleep and reality, flipping left and right with each ache of the shoulders and back. I haven't been sleeping well at all, and my studies suffer accordingly. I don't want to do literature because of its highly frustrating nature, even though its the subject that I'm lagging behind on.

I can't do history because the banks on the lecture notes haven't been filled in - I haven't been for the lectures - so I settle for economics and KI, the subjects I have closest to cold science.

I don't want to live like this anymore, really. Without the ability to chase my dreams - which have since long rotted - I am nothing. Can't study, can't do anything... can't even rest. What am I supposed to do?

I really should just die. Don't tell me how fortunate I am. I know how fortunate I am, as spelled out above. I just don't want to do this anymore.

There's no point blogging.

Are we ever happy?

So she asked, my fellow sufferer and comrade against the vagaries of life. I came home to find another exam paper on my desk, asking questions that I'd rather not because my ignorance will break the dams of memory and drown me in the alphabet soup: a-n-x-i-e-t-y. Prozac, Remeron, odd names to match our odd histories and minds. How apt, another of life's ironies.

Were we happy today, the two cousins who came out to watch a play? Though I laughed, I was fraught with anxiety deep down inside wondering it the time and money was well spent. I have so much to do, more than I let myself be aware of - but that doesn't make sense, only as much as my essays.

I've always felt out of place since this Condition kicked in. Titles are attached to names, although I find more of myself in the title than the name. Being without it - a hollow 'student' - weighs heavily. I'm not sure what I'm writing anymore.

James Joyce, Boey Kim Cheng... I hate these bastards. They're too dense, too cryptic in their art, till the reader is no longer enthralled by their work. Art is to be enjoyed, not deciphered, unless the deciphering is enjoyable. Sieving through their writings bring me no joy, both as a student and as a reader. Is this 'high art'? Ridiculous.

Shit... I still haven't got the latest history lecture covered. This whole week has been a huge waste. My mind and body is weary from the severe lack of sleep and unable to sustain study... nor am I inclined to. The fact is that every sleepless day brings back bitter memories - the whole flood - and God has given me a little boat to bear it out. No ark, nothing so secure.

I feel like the school has let me down. Lousy history teacher, one lousy literature teacher, another bitchy one, and absolutely no one for KI. I believe the institution is supposed to serve my interests, not leave me out in the cold.

I'm too tired to swear, to rant, to rage. I sigh lightly, for that is all the weight I seem to be worth these days.

For the first time in months, I actually feel like dying again.

Freeze

Despite the warm, indifferent sun that lights the world with the filaments of leaves and the clear sapphire of a swimming pool. A storm approaches with its drums of doom, and all the accompanying colours - or lack of it - loom on the horizon.

But still, I'm here - trapped! On days like these, days that follow on more days on isolation and ill rest, the home becomes a hovel though nothing has changed. I am bogged down by the anxiety of missing lessons, yet it would be greater still had I been in school, sitting in with drowsy incomprehension. I am bogged down with an inner turmoil craving release, a tumultuous depravity that nothing but the sigh of shoulders can express. I want to turn to someone for help, but then the request - the plea - would not condescend to fit the confines of language.

I would stay home and study, pretending that time and tide and people have frozen, that the sounds of traffic and passing of Apollo's chariot is nothing more than a myth. Perhaps it would've been easier if my subjects did not touch the very core of humanity, did not require the exploration of sentiment. Perhaps I wouldn't have to break the dam that holds back my troubles if I had taken something colder - like physics, or mathematics - at put a calculator in place of my heart, then I need not fear my studies... as much.

Each time life takes a turn reminiscent of the recent past, all the turmoil and pain of the previous year comes back in all its vivid horror. I pour these feelings out here as a record, as an expression, as a mode of release

as a plea

A veteran of my own war, still fighting to escape the ghosts of its experiences.

Momentum

Or more precisely, inertia. Things had been going well last week, due in great part to the sudden efficacy of my medication. The general state of affairs and bears a strong correlation with these drugs, with all the entailing effects on my mood. Last week was a lovely case of industrious joy - studying hard, studying well, and making up the next day with the blessings of the previous.

Not so this week. I couldn't sleep on Sunday night, nor on Monday, but a little on Tuesday. I've found that it's most productive to study at home when I've had a less-than-perfect slumber, hence my absence for the greater part of the week. Tomorrow, I should be returning to school... yet the inertia weighs heavily on my will and I shy away - timidly - from the prospect.

I can study economics at home, but history and literature require my physical presence. The blanks in the history notes need to be filled during lecture, and this method has yielded positive results which I wouldn't want to compromise. As for literature, we're taught face-to-face with minimal notes per se, and what you have is what you get from each lesson - and not all the tutors are competent. For a perennial absentee like me, such an approach is disastrous... yet I struggle to find a better way.

My KI has been sorely neglected - I have no idea what to study and even if I did, I have no idea where to get the relevant material. A single 2-hour session thrice a month isn't getting me very far, but that's the best I can apparently get. I can't even handle GP essays now.

I hate my college for letting me down this way.

I hate it so much I want to run away from it, from everything. I cannot see far into my future, I cannot see that shining beacon of hope in this fog-clouded ocean where the corpses of murdered dreams rot, filling the air with a thick, nauseating miasma.

I don't want to sink.