First off, congratulations to all the A-Level peeps!

So it seems everyone did really well, which proves that CHS people still rake in all the A’s!

I particularly recall Fui being very worried about her AS results, and here she ends up being one of the only four in her class who got all A’s!

Ahh I fear to think what I would get if I did A-Levels?

* * * * *

Aackkk. About my not updating. For a minute there I forgot I even had a blog.

Okay, no. I was just too lazy to write anything.

Again, not really. I actually wrote 4 long posts, but ended up not publishing them.

What I mean to say is, I’d actually written 4 posts, half of which were What-Happened-Lately Posts, and the remaining half were Emotionally-Charged Posts.

The What-Happened-Lately posts were too diary-esque for my liking (and I didn’t have photos to upload, which are obviously critical for posts of such kind, y’know, photo-comment-photo-comment- repeat till end of post).

The Emotionally-Charged posts would probably just get on your nerves, and seeing that of late my blog is for once relatively non-emo for a bit, I probably should leave well enough alone.

And hence, a postless week or two.

BUT! I will say that I am having anxiety attacks.

Suddenly, just when it is slightly beyond that Point where it is Too Late, I am douuubting my education decisions.

I mean, everyone I know is studying something respectful, like dentistry and psychology and pharmacy and business, at reputable universities like (insert name of Reputable University), and here I am, applying to schools close to no-one in Malaysia has heard of (or indeed, has any respect for) because half of them sound super primitive (or so my mom thinks), and when I am asked on applications what my intended major is, what do I choose? Undecided.

That’s ambition for you.

Sigh.

So yes, my mom thinks schools like Mount Holyoke and Macalester sound so primitive and sakai-ish, she doubts their credibility.

Frankly though, given the choice between Mac and a big-name school with a big-ass campus and big class sizes, I’d pick Macalester any day. I just prefer a smaller community, smaller class sizes and actual out-of-class interaction with my professors, that’s all.

But I have to say though, the one big-name school that really appealed to me was Princeton. But unfortunately it is an Ivy, it is ranked #2 toughest to get into by Princeton Review and hence immediately deemed an Unreachable for me.

I figured if I’m going to, err, “waste” my application on a university I have close to zilch chance of being accepted, I might as well waste it on an ultra-ly selective liberal arts college that is also ranked toughest to get into, and at least it would be the kind of school that I would very much love to attend.

From the beginning my mom has disagreed with my decision to apply to only liberal arts colleges, but then because I am defiant enough, and because I am better at arguing my point forward than my mother, and because I am just downright stubborn, I was allowed to stick to my own list of colleges.

Of course, liberal arts colleges are very attractive so that I actually really want to go there, but I feel like the very unambitious person.

The person who studies Undecided major at Primitive-Sounding College.

(Okay I hope no admissions officer sees this and strikes me off their list.)

Last year, when I only had a tentative list of colleges to apply to, my aunt asked me why I’m choosing to go to third-tier schools.

Third-tier WTF!

She thinks first tier means Ivy League schools plus MIT plus Stanford (though I think she thinks these two are Ivies, bless her);
second tier means better sounding schools, in other words schools that read as “University of XXX”, or basically schools that sound proper, regardless of whether or not she has actually heard of them before;
and then there are third-tier schools, schools whose names bear words like “Mount”, and in particular, one whose name sounds like a toothpaste brand (“Colgate”).

Aiyaiyai. I suddenly have the urge to give psychiatry a good think over, but then that would mean doing medicine first.

I have no idea where I got the crazy idea after SPM that medicine would be for me.

ME? Medicine?!

It is like Captain Jack Sparrow dressing up as Spongebob Squarepants for Halloween. Just wrong, doesn’t go together! Though I am in no way trying to associate myself with Cap. Jack’s super-coolness. Nor am I implying Spongebob is uncool.

Just what am I ranting on about, eh?

Still. I know my mom is disappointed I didn’t apply to a bigger school, and she is obviously very unhappy with my choice of major. (She says she still has about two years to change my mind.) (I say, go ahead and try.)

I can already imagine the next family reunion, if I may be so pretentious as to assume I’d be accepted into the following university -

Relatives: “Ah Kit just left for U.S? He study where ah?”
“Western Michigan University.”
“Study what?”
“He say civil engineering wor.”
“Oh not bad, not bad. CY also left hor?”
“Yeah.”
“Where she study?”
“Colgate.”
“What?! You bluff me ah! Where got such thing!”

My cousin is doing ADP by the way, and is guaranteed a place at WMU this fall.

But that is not the point.

Aiya. Actually. I sked l8er kenot find proper, respectable job. And den by then all my frens r doctors n dentists n business-people liao.

And me? My aunt (a different aunt, the one from my mom’s side) says I can only find jobs at National Geographic, should I choose to pursue my major. She kept trying to get me interested in fields like psychology and, horror of horrors, actuarial science.
(Nothing wrong with the latter, just that it is so so SO not me!)

Thank you Family&Relatives, for being so damn supportive. Love y’all eh! (Sarcasm intended.)

Siiiiiiiiiiigh tell me I didn’t make the wrong choice!

If worse comes to worst, I will just enrol in a local private university and do something like Mass Comm, maybe. Which will be a humongous let down, considering I’d been very excited over the very vast possible choices of study in U.S. colleges.

I dunno.

Okay byeeeee.

(Notice the time that I am writing this? Notice how I still haven’t gotten my very messed up biological clock straightened out?)

Byee.

Has anyone watched the Bee Movie?

Remember early in the movie, they showed text saying how men thought it was theoretically impossible for bees to fly (fat bodies, teeny wings), but bees don’t care what men think, they fly anyway?

I suspect there’s a lesson to be learnt there.

Lesson: Not caring what people think, doing what you want anyway.

Obviously this whole scenario has been playing out since long, long ago (i.e since we were kids).

Take for example, this thing that happened a few days ago.

Me, I was eating a piece of chocolate cake. Mmmm chocolate!

I finished mine, and was eyeing my sister’s.

“Eh, I eat your cake ah.”

“You better not I tell you!”

“If I eat?”

“Then I think you are the most sui person ever lived.”

“Cheh like that only?”

And I ate.

Who cares what she thinks.

Okay no la I didn’t. Thank goodness for the last bit of decency in me.

But then again there’s another lesson to be learnt from the Bee Movie.

Lesson: What people think is impossible isn’t necessarily truly impossible.
You just gotta do what you gotta do.

So I was watching A Beautiful Mind on TV3 a few days ago.

It is one of my most favourite movies (it’s slotted between LOTR and The Pianist), but watching it from TV3 was really sucky, it cuts to ads without warning, tak syok.

I love, love, LOVE the part where he’s told he’s been nominated for the Nobel Prize.

I mean, can you imagine?

Schizophrenic guy, whose nerdy ways of walking was mocked by Princeton kids, really pathetic looking, ends up becoming a Nobel Laureate.

How cool is that.

This is the part where we learn that nothing is impossible.

But then again, John Nash is a genius to begin with, so he has an unfair advantage.

I am not a genius when I Started, not a genius Now, just an average kid with average grades and everything.

But the world is my, and OUR, oyster. And clam, and abalone, and mussel, and scallop.

It’s so exciting to hear that my friends are starting to get / has already gotten university offers.

Makes me wish I applied to Australian unis when they were having an application fee waiver thing, just for the sake of seeing university acceptance offers coming in ’round this time of the year. Plus Australian university applications seem so much easier (when compared to US apps la).

Imagine, you know, that someone among us will someday be as influential as Oprah Winfrey, or wield as much power as George Bush, or be as Kick-ass-Rockstar as (insert name of rock star).

I’m in the middle of reading The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer, and of course it hit me that even someone as great as Gandhi used to have a very ho-hum, unglamorous past.

I mean, there you have this kid who is like every other young male kid – hungry for sex, lies to his parents, tries hard to impress.

And look how he ended up. (Well, assassinated, but still revered all over the world.)

One day, you could watch TV and see this guy in power suit being interviewed on some Important Channel like CNN and the like, or you’d see a skinny-jeaned girl (or whatever is hot decades later) being interviewed by MTV VJs, and you’d think, “Familiar wei!”

Neh, that person who used to sit next to / in front of you back in high school loh.

Another lesson learnt: Be nice to everyone in your high school, who knows, he/she might zip right to the top of his/her game and squash the puny still-working-as-janitor/clerk/cashier-you like a cockroach.

Step, splatter, grind, grind, SQUASHED!

However. The saddest of all, undoubtedly, is when we squander off our Humongous Massive Gargantuan Big Big Potential.
Yes, if you collected all our Potential and lined them up next to each other, you’d have a Trip Around the World, Times Ten.

Can you believe next year we’ll all be off to university?

So I guess as 2007 comes to an end, and as people SAM people start deciding on which field to devote their entire-forever life to (ooh I made it sound so intimidating), let us not forget that we are, in fact, destined for great things.

Was that motivational enough?

We are destined for great things!

That?

And with this, I end this post of mine. Thank you.

P/S. Changed my font. In case you were wondering why suddenly chooiyen’s blog not so hard to read any more.

For anyone thinking of applying to do medicine, this might be a helpful link.

Thinking About Studying Medicine? Read This First. from Educate Deviate.

It’s initially an Ask MetaFilter thread, but someone answered particularly well, and here that answer is being highlighted.

Almost everyone I know has thought of doing Medicine at one time or another, so if you’re not sure if you’re cut out for it, this is helpful as heck.

I know of people (okay maybe just one or two) who initially decided to do medicine, because they genuinely want to help people, but then later they realize that you don’t have to be a doctor to help. There are many other ways.

Studying medicine sounds very glam, I mean your parents will actually be able to say, “My son/daughter doing medicine!”

But talking to a doctor person at an education fair earlier in the year, he said that a lot of people forget that it is very, very unglamorous behind the scenes.

So. Choose wisely, and good luck everyone deciding on their future paths!

(Here I am kind of thankful I don’t have to choose a major until I’m, what, 21?)

(SAM people are getting university offers / already accepting offers! Jeles!)

Back, blogging, and wondering why I am this free during weekdays.

Stark contrast to when I have to skip lunch and forgo sleep, just to get things done in time.

So what’ve I been up to?

For starters, finished my Investigative Study presentation today!

Lingghesh did his presentation (on whether hormonal contraceptive should be used on sex offenders), and he brought up points that got all the females in the room (grand total of four) rebutting him during the discussion part.

According to the guy -
Rapists should not be blamed.
Just give them hormonal contraceptive, lower their sex drive, that’ll solve the problem.
Being raped makes women more motivated to succeed.
Oprah Winfrey was raped, look how she bounced back.

For the record, methinks one-time rapists should serve time in jail, and serial rapists should just get the death sentence.

What, your dunno-how-many-gigabyte worth of porn, your Playboy mags stashed under your bed, your hours of self-pleasure, all not enough for you?

(I remember Andrew boasting about having 4 gigs worth of porn. I can hardly imagine filling an entire 4-gig Nano with nothing but movies of naked women who’ve not learned to respect themselves.)

Keep whatever sexual fantasies you have in your bedroom. Keep them to yourself, or share them with whichever obliging partner of yours.

Spare everyone else.

Anyway.

Having read up on defamation laws for my report, it occurred to me that there’s always a way of getting around the law.

If you defamed a person (for example, you publicly accuse him of being a potential rapist), and you damaged his reputation, and he takes court action against you, what are your defences?

Just say it was your honest opinion, that you really think he’s a potential rapist.

Or say that everyone thinks he’s a potential rapist, that it’s common conception. That’s your bullet right there.

That’s your claim to innocence.

See, as long as you’ve got a good lawyer, you can always spin webs of untruths (not exactly lies, but more like skewed truths) to get yourself free.

To any of you taking up law, make sure you represent the right people, okay?

Whatever money you earn is not worth the risk of setting a criminal out in the streets again, unsupervised.

Do the right thing.

I’m in a bit of a lecture-mode here. Sorry!

* * * * *

Unrelated to the above – actually, kind of related to my presentation attire.

This volunteer for a kidney foundation that approached me while I was coming out of the bank thought I was a 20-something working adult!

For once, I actually look Old Enough!

*This is especially for Li-Ann, whom, like me, is always being subjected to the “Hah? You’re 18 already?!” and the “I thought you were younger!” from people with no tact.*

*I hope she’s got enough break from her hostel full of similar scholars like her to read this.*

A far cry from when girls as young as my sister refused to believed we were older than them. Sad-nya.

It’s funny. If SAM people see you dressed up like this, they’d all ask the same thing – “Presenting today ah?”

And the A-level counterparts would ask – “Why you wear like that?”

* * * * *

Must. NOT. Let. Blog. Die.

Come to think of it, optimism and that funky/melancholic feeling go almost hand-in-hand, no?

‘Gloomily optimistic’ looks like an oxymoron at first sight, but naww, they’re actually pretty good friends.

It’s utterly possible because if you’re optimistic, you imagine (expect, even) great things, you think of Things That Dreams Are Made Of, you wonder what goes beyond the boundaries.

Right out the door, cross the street, a little further than state lines, into the next country, all the way to the farthest continent, past that line where the sky meets the ocean, whither then?

Who knows. Who can imagine.

And what happens when you don’t get there?

Or worse still, what happens if you’re told there’s no such place, it doesn’t exist?

“Sorry lass, this is as far as you can go. Why dontcha make do with what you have?“

What then?

You become Gloomily Optimistic, is what. *Triumphant look*

Hah, told you it was possible.

You still think of what lies beyond the Realm of Reality, and you want to prove (PROVE!) that it DOES exist, I WILL find it!, but this time without that reckless abandon, and with a lot more vigilance.

Sometimes you know, know, KNOW of great and utterly wonderful things that can happen, but you also know that it’s not happening yet, or you don’t know how to make it happen.

Then you get a bit gloomy.

But of course, it’s the kind of gloom that drives you.

Makes you sit in an place (no interruptions, please), far from distractions, far from what you think are your responsibilities, makes you Think.

In other words, make you go on that Isolation Scheme!

Ling told me I was weird when I said I find inspiration from All Things Melancholic.

(Beautiful word, isn’t it? MelanCHOlic. Brings to mind a silver bell, softly tingling in the wind.)

Don’t worry if you don’t understand my Incomprehensible Theory on optimism.

I’m writing this as the words come to my mind, so I’m not spending a lot of time on this.

I haven’t done that in a pretty long time. Maybe that’s why blogging was getting very blah for me.

I gotta say, ’twas very enjoyable!

And what is the point of all the above words that make up this very redundant, very ‘extra’ post?

Nothing. No point.

Other than me trying to say that I’m feeling very Gloomily Optimistic these days.

(Now, I could’ve said all that in one line!)

sanc·tu·ar·y (săngk‘chū-ĕr‘ē)
- A place of refuge or asylum.

You remember in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, when the Baudelaire kids’s parents died in a fire, and they were thrown to live with Count Olaf?
Klaus asked, “Do you think anything will ever feel like home again?”

Then they build a small sanctuary from curtains (or were they sheets)?

And the narrator (Lemony Snicket?) went, “Sanctuary… is a word which here means a small, safe place in a troubling world. Like an oasis in a vast desert or an island in a stormy sea. “

It reminded me of when we were young.

We used to tie our blankets to the bed poles, and we’d have a cosy tent, and we’d sometimes spend the night under it.

Just my brother, my sister, and I.

Our little sanctuary, you know?

Sometimes my brother would hide our soft toys in obscure corners, then we’d turn off the lights and “Go a-hunting” in the dark.

Our cousins came over once and played with us. My brother was the “wild animal”, and all of us were holding some sort of weapon to “protect ourselves”.

My sister ended up crying because the head of her favourite Barbie doll flew off, from when my cousin brother was “killing” my bro with it (which involved repeatedly hitting my brother on the head with the Barbie, accompanied by a very effeminate scream).

Or we’d pretend to be mountaineers, and we’d climb all over the beds, telling each other to “be careful, don’t fall off!”

Another game we had, which my sister and I didn’t like very much, was “Armour Man”. It was where my brother would roll himself up with the mattress (the very light, thin kind) and charge at us. We’d have to run out of his way, or he’d sit on us. We could hardly breathe under him and his mattress.
It was one of those games that gave me a near heart-attack, it was that scary.

We also played baseball in my parents’ room with my baby bolster, and ended up breaking the glass lights. And football, where the ball ended up going right through the ceiling.

Anyway. After spending approx. 200 nights in my sister’s room, I’ve finally moved back to my own place!

My sanctuaryyyyyyyyy!

I’ve completely forgotten how wonderful it feels to sleep in one’s own bed, to send SMSes in the middle of the night without having to worry about disturbing my sister, to sing along softly to the tunes in my iPod before going off to sleep, and best of all, to be able to sleep at 3 a.m. without someone going, “Eh, can sleep or not?!”

So nice la!

(Speaking of “sanctuary”. You know that scene when Quasimodo lifted that gypsy-what’s-her-name-girl at the top of the bell tower, and he was yelling “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”.

I always thought he was saying “century, century”.

It used to puzzle me so much.

“Sanctuary” always reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

(Esmeralda. Her name was Esmeralda.)

* * * * *

Everybody’s going off to the JPA interviews!

My friend who got 9A1′s, one B3, was rejected for the interview. (No, she didn’t apply for medicine.)

This person who got four B’s, had a slot for tomorrow.

As BlackAdder says, “But you know Baldrick, the world isn’t fair. If it was, things like this wouldn’t happen, would they?” *hits Baldrick at the back of the head*

I always thought you needed straight A1′s for them to consider your application. I’ve another friend who didn’t apply because she had A2′s, and now she’s kicking herself because she could’ve had a chance.

Well good luck to all of you then!

(Hundreds of thousands you’re saving, fui-yoh!)

There’s a lesson to learn from this, I’m telling you.

If there’s a huge group project that has to be done, and the entire group has gotten together to discuss who does what, and should you start daydreaming and let your mind wander off too far away just about then, you’d probably snap out of your reverie and realize OMGWTFBBQsauce you have just been given the worst job ever!

That was what happened during LAN.

I was staring at a girl in oversized shirt who talked in an unusually high-pitched voice, and whose sentence is liberally peppered with words like “like”, and before I knew it, someone was the source finder for our group essay, another the presenter, and another the “printer”. The rest, have their weekends free.

And I? The “editor”. Which sounds nice, but really, what actually happens is the two people would email me whole articles, and from there I would have to write 3000 words on the strengths of Malaysia’s multiracial society. (3000 words!)

Then I would send the thing over to the printing person, and she’d “sacrifice her printing quota” and print the thing out. Only she would then forget her student card, not be allowed into the library or the Web, and I would have to print the thing myself.

And the rest of the group, have their weekends free.

So while I did the work, I got accused during LAN presentation for not helping out the Presenter with the presentation. This other group started asking us “why you let her present the whole thing, you guys also present mah, how can lidat!”
They even asked if she’d want to join their group, ’cause they honestly thought we were being unfair to her.

And the rest of the group? Cite stage fright as an excuse. Turned out I was the only one who actually offered to do half of the presentation. (But the girl said she could handle it. And she did good!)

I’m fine with doing a lot of work on group projects, but I’m not at all fine with having to do almost the entire thing myself.

I’m also not fine with you saying “I do not have internet at home, I cannot do anything”.

You could’ve stayed at the library and looked for books there, or you could’ve used the library computer. That’s what I did.

And you don’t need internet access to use Microsoft Word, now do you?

3000 words isn’t easy. I ended up writing about 2000, and would any of them know how much time I spent on it?

They’d go, “nice essay”, and as long as they have their marks, they’re happy.

My classmates are fun to be with by the way. Things like going to the movies, going for lunch, are nice if they’re with you. You have no idea how hilarious some of them can be!

It’s pretty much just one person I’m griping about, sorry. That one person sho’s getting on everyone’s nerves. That one person whom everyone is trying to “one day” tell her she has gotta change.

* * * * *

I miss high school.

If anything like the above happened, I would’ve told them off, and I would’ve made them do their share of the work.

If you’re asking me why I hadn’t confronted them, well it’d feel weird, and besides, we’ve got another movie date coming up this thursday, what if they suddenly abandon me? Hmmmm?

Back in Form 3, I did so badly in one of my Geography exams, the teacher had to call out my name (along with a few others) to tell us to “work harder”.

I felt very stupid then.

In Form 4, I failed my add maths exam, with a 37/100.

I felt even more stupid then.

Maybe it’s just my class in college, maybe I’m just not prepared yet, but I’ve never, never felt so stupid in my entire life.

I could sit in class, and feel like if I were to start answering questions, everyone would know how completely stupid I am.

I’d take 5 mins just to comprehend the problem – they’d take 5 minutes to solve it.

It’s hard not to feel inferior to them. And it’s only the first week.

Now, if I were to opt out of this course, it’d mean only one thing – that I’m recognizing myself as a failure, that I know excelling is beyond my capabilities.

But if I soldier on with it, I’d die worrying how I’d do in the final exam.

Regarding how it’s 100% exam-based, as a friend put it, “As Malaysians, we’re groomed for that.”

But my problem is, I’d die if I don’t get enough A’s. (Very Malaysian kiasu thinking, very sad, I know.)

Everyone knows it’s that hard to get good grades in A Levels.

I was so afraid of not getting 8A’s for PMR, I actually wrote myself a letter a night before the results were out, just in case I’d get so deppressed over unsatisfactory results.

Half an hour before the announcement, I bought myself two packets of tissues, just in case.

I’ve already started having sleepless nights worrying over my SPM results ever since last month.

Occasionally I’d bring it up and say ,”Eh SPM results really scared la” and someone would ask me to shut up or else.

Point is, I’d like to think this isn’t for me, because I cannot cope with the pressure of having your future determined within that few hours of examination.

Did you know I felt so sick and was on the verge of puking during the first day of SPM?

I cannot stand the whole “DO GOOD NOW OR DIE LATER” thing.

It’s a very stupid thing to be going through, all the worrying and all, because everyone knows exam results aren’t everything, but the sad thing is, I’m not good in sports, I don’t publish books, nobody reads what I write, people laugh when I try to draw, so what else do I have left?

Get A’s.

Aim for medicine, because eventhough you know it’s never what you wanted before, at least it’d make you seem that much smarter, ’cause stupid people don’t do medicine.

Aim for medicine because everyone in your class has aspirations of being a doctor, and you’d sound stupid if you stood up and said, “I want to be a journalist” during self-introductions.

Don’t do journalism or interior designing, because everyone can do all that, but not everyone can do pharmacy or physiotherapy.

I’m aiming high, I’m aiming medicine.

But then there’re people like my own mother, who tells me point blank that I’m not cut out for it.

She tells me to drop my sciences, and take up economics and law and sociology.

She says she “can tell” I’m “arts-inclined, completely not the science person”.

Which is almost true, but I’m aiming high.

This, is what happens when you have low self esteem. You feel you need to do things to boost it, improve the way you see yourself.

Being in the same class with Very Clever People isn’t one of those things.

But really, if anyone were to ask me how do I see myself in the far future, I’d say I see myself changing the world.

I don’t mind being a teacher, if I get to educate the poor.

I don’t mind being a doctor, if I get to heal those who can’t afford to go anywhere else for treatment.

I don’t mind just being there, helping out whatever way I can.

I don’t care, really.

I just want to help.

But first I gotta know what first steps to take.

And this is where the problem comes in.

So, like, it was Ms. Synth’s birthday, right, so a bunch of us had a celebration after school, and CL got her this mocha cake, which was nice, with lovely chocolate bits in the middle.

Of course, I couldn’t just write that and leave it as it is, so I’mma go ahead and say how absolutely fun it was.

I feel a bit guilty, because it wasn’t a grand celebration, and so ngam her birthday had to be on a day when everyone had all these other stuff they must attend to.

That being said, we were left with the basics – the core group of friends, who have been going out for recess together every day since Form 2 (and in Hui Lu and my case, since Form 1).

It was probably the most simple, but the most awesome birthday celebration so far. I think, it is because it was just the few of us, everybody knew everyone else’s secrets, everybody knew what was going on in everyone else’s lives.

‘Cause you know, when you get a huge bunch of people, there are bound to be things you cannot say, and things that even if you did say, some people are not going to understand.

And the most wonderful thing I’ve realized, is that among the conversations I’ve had with different groups of people, our conversations within this particular group had always been the most wholesome (being not-perverted, obviously there are references to a bit of dirty stuff occasionally, but nothing extreme), the most clean (being not-gossipy, we’ve been long over all that ‘who likes who’, ‘what who did’ kind of talk, because it’s no longer interesting to talk about this person and that person, sole exception being “that Special Person”).

Haha, occasionally you come accross people who seem just so interested in who other people like, it can get very irksome.

I do admit, yeah, that my conversations in class can get a bit weird (not in a good way), and sometimes bit perverted, and conversations with other friends can get a bit gossipy, which later makes you feel slightly dirty.

Which is why I totally enjoy time with Ms. Synth. and friends, because we spend more time talking about ourselves and each other, than about other people.

Wasn’t a conscious decision, just something that happened, I mean, we used to be gossipy all the time back in Form 2.

Of course, weird things have happened within the group, some things that put us in weird (and sometimes a bit uncomfortable) situations, with some of the things being pretty extreme, but I’m totally glad we’ve soldiered on and stuck through it together.

I mean, we’ve been friends since Form 1, then I later got to know a different bunch of really good friends, and Hui Lu and others got to know another bunch of really good friends, it still amazes me how we didn’t just stop hanging out together. And it wasn’t like we were ever classmates after that.

When you see some people spending all their time hanging out with different classmates every year, you become thankful that you don’t do that whole “flavour of the year” thing.

It works with favourite television shows, and favourite bands, but not with friends. (By ‘friends’ I obviously mean ‘real good, bestest friends’.)

So, we’re in Form 5 now, but it was just like in Form 2, and Form 3, and Form 4, the four of us sitted around the table, only difference is when we talk about “That Special Person”, it’s a different person altogether.

Lovely. Couldn’t ask for anything more. ‘Cept maybe more marks for my Biology paper. =’(

P/s. Happy Birthday Ms. Synth! “Dream of Californicatioooooooon Mr. Beaaaaaaan Julius!”

Toodles everyone.

[Advertisement guy with '70s-era accent]

Feeling exhausted?

Tired, worn out, and utterly drained?

Wish you could just disappear?

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* * * * *

What with spending so much time with my head buried in books last week, I told myself that I’d totally be completely lazy this first week of holidays and not do anything at all.

You know, not think about school, or classmates, or homework, not chat on MSN Messenger, not SMS anyone, not reply SMSes so much , not read blogs, not blog… you know, disconnect myself from the world, just completely drop off the radar, just have a whole lot of ‘me’ time, and none of ‘other-people’ time.

Okay, so, I haven’t been completely disconnected. I try to not reply SMSes, but you get that occassional message that you cannot just ignore without feeling guilty. But on a few accounts, it took me 3 days to reply a message. I dunno, I just got lazy.

So this brings on the whole ‘lazy to communicate, lazy to interact’ thing that I’m in for the past few months. Yes I get lazy when it comes to SMS-ing people. There are so many times when I just completely ignore a message, because I was too lazy to reply. I don’t even sign into MSN during the day anymore. I bet you haven’t seen me online for the past 2 months (until today la). Utter laziness.

That’s one thing. Another thing I’ve realized is how much time us teens spend on stupid stuff, you know, like Friendster, or chatting on MSN, or typing on the cellphone, or MySpace or whatever is the rage right now.

Tech junkies my ass. Teens just think it’s an indication of teen-coolness, of being In, not Out.

Yeah okay, lemme explain how I got to conclusions like that.

I did say I didn’t spend a whole lot of time ‘communicating with people’. And because of that, I had a lot more time doing what should be the real pleasures of life.

Like baking a cake with my sister, then celebrating mom’s birthday at night, like watching The Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD (yes I finally found it!) with my family, like spending my nights cozied up in bed, reading about the mysteries of the universe and how it came to be, and stopping only when people are almost ready to get up, like spending hours sitting on the floor, just listening to amazing music (it’s funny how few people actually listen to music as a sole activity), like reading your notebook journal from years ago, and adding new entries to it. It obviously is very different from writing in a blog.

Oh, and also lying on my bed, thinking. They sometimes come all at once, but the important ones come one at a time, and I do a bit of reflecting on the Chooiyen as of May 2006.

But that’s not important. What’s important is, I’ve realized that I can live without MSN, without the internet, without my cellphone, without being a busybody and reading other people’s blogs.

After days of being detached to things like that, I come online again. And someone tells me about a photo someone else uploads onto Friendster. And I actually think, ‘how sad for her’.

It is pretty sad, you know, on one hand there are people who have totally gotten over the Friendster craze, deleted their accounts even, and on the other hand there are some other people, still spending hours surfing other people’s profiles, going through their photos and testimonials. (It’s also very sad how some poeple think the testimonial count is a measure of their popularity. How sad to keep asking for testimoials.)

I signed into MSN today, my first time in months, and already I had someone talk to me about how XX did something for the sake of beauty, and how YY and ZZ wants to be doing the same, too.
I think it’s perfectly fine for one person to do something, you know, to make herself look better, but problems arise when a whole bunch of people want to start doing it to look beautiful, too. And when I say ‘do it’, I mean taking away what is natural and turning it into man-made beauty. That is probably not going to last long.

You know, we are chest-deep in this now, it’s prety hard to get out. You read about the teenagers who spend hours and hours SMS-ing on the cellphone, but you don’t think “cool dude” or “Ms. Popularity”, instead you go, “how sad, how pathetic, what a waste of time”.

You read about them in the papers, but don’t think people like these don’t live among us. These are the people who spend a whole lotta RM’s on phone bills, these are the people who leave their MSN status on “Away” for hours instead of just switching the computer off, these are the people who goes through people’s Friendster profiles and photos all the time, these are the people who look at other people’s ‘This’ and ‘That’ and compare those with their own, these are the people who think all of this is just a measure of popularity.

And I think, at some point or other, we have all been one of ‘these people’. So, I urge you, take up the ‘Isolation Scheme’, see that life really isn’t about how up-to-date you are with your friends.
Spend time with yourself and do some serious thinking about where you’re heading, and if it’s some place you don’t fancy, you better stop right there.
I sure as heck wouldn’t want to remember my teenage years as time spent in front of an MSN chat window.

P.S. Thank you LOADS for sticking with me till the end of the post. I know this post is pretty boring, but it’s kind of a reality-check, you know. Look how much time we’ve spent doing the usual ‘teen stuff’ that really is stupid when you think about it. A small dose is okay la, of course, but big portions would be stupid.

P.P.S. I know the whole Isolation Scheme 02062006 advertisemet is pretty (okay, very) lame, but it just came to me, you know? And when something like this comes, you just don’t stop it.

Thanks for reading, and if I offended you in anyway, well, I really didn’t mean to, you see?

Have a very special day. Ciao!