2nd F-up

This is actually comical because I don't really care about the subject. For economics, I picked 2 questions that I was confident of answering, and ended up doing another two instead. Why? Simple - it was a mistake and I didn't even realize it till I was half through the wrong two questions. In the end, I wrote that I couldn't complete the paper because of a hangover and caricatured my school logo, making it into a merlion with the tag line "our morbid nationalism". Then I proceeded to ramble about the modern condition, about Marx - yes the Red one - and Prozac. I drew a connection between these two, dropping in a few socio/philo book titles along the way.

History was better, but the time I spent canceling sentences could have been better spent writing about... 3 paragraphs! Enough to complete my source critiques. My answer for nationalism strayed a little, my answer for the Japanese occupation was pretty good (for someone who hasn't sat for a paper in 1 1/2 years) and the one on maximum government was a little... fragmented. I was hoping for a question on national unity. Oh yes, and if a question doesn't ask about proving/disproving a certain quote or phrase, I'd be totally disoriented.

E.g. comment on the role of ethnicity in post-WW2 SEA = huh!?!? Too friggin broad!

By the end of the day, after spending hours "bent double", I recalled Wilfred Owen's Deuce et Decorum Est and how it rhymed with Study is a Pain in the Ass - the latter being a poem I shall soon compose. Speaking of poetry, I'm able to identify many literary techniques but the "literary effect" is a more elusive substance.

Chinese paper tomorrow, all because Lee Kuan Yew had a fit of conservatism (as revealed in his memoirs) that made a pass in mother tongue necessary for entering a local university. Fuck these conservatives who force their views on others.

Fucked up the first paper

Self-explanatory title. I knew what I wanted to say for poetry comparison an Othello, but I had problems saying it. In the former section, I meticulously combed for technical details and got quite a few - but missed one and jumbled the rest till I can't even remember what I wrote. For Othello, I believe I came up with good points but lacked sufficient detail. It was more of a reflective essay rather than an argumentative one.

I have low expectations for Great Expectations. I jumped into the question without looking and will probably get marks hardly worth looking at. In fact, I started the concluding paragraph with "To sum up this disappointing essay..." Fucked up ain't it?

That was rhetorical.

Pathetic

"I love you", what a stupid line to say. What sort of response could the utterer hope to illicit? It's a pathetic statement that earns more hate than love.

Statements of this nature are what I call the wounded puppy syndrome, much like Pip in Great Expectations, trailing her hoping for affection and becoming beggared in the process. I have seen her, an Estella-like person who keeps her heart beyond all reach. You won't see her soul past those eyes, those beautiful sparkling eyes full of gentleness and elegant strength.

But I kid myself - I am pathetic. I watched her all through secondary school, noting how many members of my sex craved for her attention and, despite their strength of character, crumbled at the lack of it. I swore to myself I wouldn't be like them, to yield what hurts me and enriches no one, but I've almost failed. I yielded up so much to her because she keeps it locked in her heart , where my frailties are safely hidden from the word.

She is alluring, captivating, so beyond my powers of description. Yet I love her not as a lover - I love her for reasons unknown, possibly because she loves me. That love was, is, so precious to me. I will crumble if bereft of it, and I will crumble with it.

"Drown cats and blind puppies"

Honest

I have a new bone the size of a dollar growing out of my foot as a result of "calcific tendonitis" (think OUCH). It hurts, I can't walk much, and karate is out :'(((

I looked over some of my old verses for ms. cricket. Guess what? I'm actually quite surprised I wrote them. For once, I can confidently call them poems! Not the sophisticated sort the murky modern variety, but poems nonetheless. There's some meter, a rhyme scheme and most of all, there's that indescribable aesthetic poignance about it.

I'd like couzzie's take on them someday. I doubt I shall ever send them to 'her', nor openly name 'her'. Give me some license to abuse language, and I'll say those poems capture my 'zeitgeist' during that long and lonely period, where her warmth was to me like a blanket is to a winter-beaten beggar.

Yes, for once this blog isn't used for despondent thoughts. I write these here because I've put up a verse on my other blog. This is a black hole, the other is a meadow: entries are sorted accordingly.

Sudden Depression

It happened just as my KI teacher left. I love the way he teaches. He will give me readings to analyse, keep on asking me questions, consistently pushing me higher and higher. When he left my place today, I suddenly fell - into a shallow but dark depression.

Perhaps I missed a pill last night, or perhaps it's because I didn't finish revising what I wanted to. It was sudden, shockingly sudden, and I'm disoriented by the sudden turn, the sudden change, as these convoluted lines reveal.

I'm happy that she was online. I was happy we talked. Some of you will know that I affectionately refer to her as Ms. Cricket. I gave her the name because I liked the crickets' song at night, a dark time that blurs the lines between tranquility and loneliness. I was... so alone last year. I felt trapped - imprisoned - by fate, by my home, by my own mind. Bereft of the rest sleep provides, I just haunted the world drifting from place to place...

That's why I loved her, thats why I still love her. I don't know if that love is merely the natural return for the love she gave me, or something of a different nature. I cannot handle romance now. I am not fit to hold someone's heart in my hands, hence I hope that no one has put theirs to my name. But I wish for love. I'm so screwed.

She will take bioscience or chemistry at NUS:

"i can picture u in a lab coat

a white 'gown' in a white room

filled with the queerest colours

with smoke like a misty rainbow"

Recurrence

Another bout of doubt, anxiety over the sheer size of my task. The question of futility and delusion comes back again after I was stunned by some KI prelim papers.

I shouldn't be thinking about this.

Mr. Sim

Mr. Sim is my KI teacher. He is a very diligent man who doesn't limit his efforts to our weekly sessions but actively seeks out new journal articles and readings for my perusal and our discussion. Honestly, I feel more confident under his tutelage then I did with my previous tutor - who expected students to come to his far-off house and yet charged the same price as Mr. Sim, who is willing to meet me half-way.

But its still not enough. I see the good sense in having KI class discussions, but have hitherto underestimated its importance. It is not just a matter of exchanging ideas. It involves active discourse, it makes you think on your feet, it works your linguistic faculties to give quick and cogent expression to issues that can be very mangled. Mr. Sim makes up for this by engaging me on a variety of topics and ideas during our lessons, but I feel left out in the cold once the lesson's over. Sure, his book is very instructive, but it's a basic 'springboard' text. Most of my KI is founded upon 4 pillars: Wikipedia, Bryan Magee's "The Story of Philosophy", the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (an online philosophy article database) and Mr. Sim's book.

As you can see, its a one-way flow of information. I've lost touch with a number of former KI students while those I remain in contact with aren't in the mood to relive their 'A' levels. Well, at least Mr. Sim passes me an article or two to dissect. It helps me think about things, and avoid thinking about other darker issues.

Guilt

Despite all the 'healthier' bingeing on wheat & muesli cereals, instead of Mcdonalds and instant noodles, despite all the exercise, I'm actually getting undeniably fat. For the 1st time, I don't feel good about all this. I struggle to do 50 push-ups, and even my ridiculously over-powered legs feel the added weight when it comes to stairs. I sweat more when I walk.

Then again, my studies seem to be coming on well. I'm done with the problems of the global economy, with James Joyce (about as far as I'll probably get) too. I'm pretty much done with fundamentalism as well. Now there's just...

SEA nationalism, WW2, independence, political structures, economy (maybe i'll skip this) and the last ASEAN lecture...

The causes, progression, expansion [Korea & Cuba] and conclusion of the Cold War. The origins of the international economy (skip), revision of the Arab-Israeli & Indo-Pakistani conflicts...

The whole of Great Expectations, key scenes of Othello... and of course my IS. Should I be glad that my 'loving' college isn't examining me for KI?

I'm obsessed with my grades, so sue me. My apathetic history teacher says my essays are about a 'B' grade [aside: YES FINALLY, AGAIN, AFTER SO MANY FRICKKIN TRIES], my latest literature grade is a high 'C', and the skills for poetry/unseen analysis are coming back. I've never managed to pass proper for econs, but this year I got a 'C' as well.

Should I be feeling guilty?

Understanding The Mist

I understand why I binge at night, sleep late, watch TV or online shows in the twilight parenthesis between today and tomorrow. I understand why I don't want tomorrow to come. 

I am scared of its horrors, uncertainties, demands.

Courage lad!

Take the fight to the morrow!

I like waking up late because it seems like the comforting night is coming again, a time when I can rest without guilt, and there aren't too many hours left for studying till then.

What monsters lie within The Mist that shrouds tomorrow?

Courage lad!

Don't stay cowered in that glass prison, entrenched behind shelves of food!

I understand why the references for my thesis are almost entirely made up of online sources or books in my small little library, everything nicely in my room.

I don't want to mix with the world in all its filth, noise and smog. I don't want to see other's sighing shoulders, despondent eyes or vexed jawbones.

I don't want to see myself reflected in a thousand mirror shards, so sharp that it cuts on sight. Beholding mediocrity, weakness, angst and uncertainty is a painful thing to do.

Courage... lad?

Its hard to fight yourself...

I look back, down the trails of yesteryear, all erased by time and pain. But I slipped.

Yesterday's paper dated 2-0-0-7, black numbers whiter than the abyss it names.

I stared at it, it stared back. There goes my grip...