I am very tired and I need to edit my I&R and do a script for the oral presentation dry run no. 2.
I like Mr. Miles, he's nice and funny. Almost makes me wish I'd taken history! But then I would have to drop Maths, and that would be disastrous because while Maths is indeed the death of many a student's sanity, it is also extremely good at giving it back once you become good at it. That is the reason why my combi is KELM and not KELG, with of course the additional reason that Maths is muggable and almost a guaranteed A if you practise enough.
Mr. Miles also says that I need to project my voice more and relax my speaking style and not let my eyes wander so much and be less stressed etc. Mel said I looked very nervous when presenting. It annoys me greatly how my sucky presentation skills seem to resurface at whim. I know I am not incapable of giving a good presentation. I have to remind myself that PW, no matter how pointless and idiotic, is still an A Level subject -- and damnit I'm going to fucking do a confident presentation if it kills me.
Also I am a sucker for songs that people (whom I like) recommend me. They fall under the category of 'gifts', because the act of two people exchanging songs is an intimate, well-intentioned one full of goodwill and camaraderie. I end up liking the song much more than I would've if I'd discovered it by myself. Just like how hugs are only meaningful if other people give them to you. Hugging yourself is not cool.
Book-shopping at Bras Basah with annjie. AJ had 3-4 heavy bags and took a taxi home. I had 2 bags, and persevered till Bishan mrt where I gave up and called my dad to pick me up. We now have books on poetry and philosophy and will most certainly own your asses in KI and Lit next year. Okay, that is all.
Anyway it's been a three day weekend of slacking at a level I never thought possible until now. Have stuffed self with dozens of forum posts, including a debate of philosophy vs. science where people (teenagers?) from all over the world test their intellects against each other. I sit back, feeling slightly smug that I recognize about 1% of the terms being thrown around from studying KI. This is where people much more educated&intelligent than I am list out every single component of the scientific method and proceed to criticize and analyze it. It's debate we don't really get in class by sheer virtue of the fact that none of us are well-read enough to critique what gets fed down our throats. Sure we can question the bareboned logic, but we don't have enough content knowledge to refute some of the claims made... then again who am I to talk, since I never contribute in KI lessons :(
--edit--
'"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or
who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your
own reason and your own common sense." - Some awesome fucker.' --> something I got off the profile of one of the intelligent gay musically talented guys that frequents above-mentioned forum.
Quote kind of opens the door to dogmatism and close-mindedness, but essentially the message is learn to trust yourself.
In addition, I don't really like this thing they call 'connecting with old friends' because there's all that pointless arbitary bullshit smalltalk to get out of the way, before you realize that there's nothing left to talk about and you wonder why you even bothered. But sometimes it's really awesome.
to-do list (which degenerates eventually into a Random Things I Just Thought I'd Point Out kinda thing)
1. indulge myself in xkcd till my brain collapses in on itself. death by inferiority complex!! the guy's a cooler nerd than I am. -cries-
2. somehow obtain a lot of money, and go on a kino shopping spree.
3. amass reading material for ki independent study + possible h3 lit research paper. I'm really looking forward to this. I finally cleared my massive school library fine ($30 for three books over the span of 5 months is thankfully much less than I'd expected...) so now I can officially step into the library without that constant nagging feeling of irritation + guilt. WHICH MEANS. I can borrow books AT LAST.
4. me in a bookstore is like a kid in a toyshop. Good to know that the curiosity -- that of a child being confronted with an entirely new world that you can never finish exploring -- that characterizes my bookstore trippin' will never go away. Like who ever knew Chinese symbols could be so interesting?! I think I have been partly influenced by Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which has been lying around the classroom these past few days, and which I have taken the liberty to lose myself in. His novels are terribly formulaic and at times it seems he's just recycling the same plot structures over and over again, and that the main objective is to just show off his wealth of information about symbols and stuff. (I think mooty did a post on this. apologies if my description sounds similar to yours; I suspect I re-used some phrases) Nonetheless, I never pass up a thriller. Even if the thrills do eventually start to reek of cheapness and desperation. Okay maybe that's when I start putting it down.
5. I am possessed by the urge to take h3 econs, but I suspect I'm in love more with the idea rather than the reality of it. Game theory concepts fascinate me, but apparently there's a lot of Maths involved, and god knows I can't do maths to save my life. Plus even if I tried to apply for a university h3, I don't think my grades would qualify -- my B, while meeting the minimum requirement, is commonplace and hardly impressive. But I think I am going to submit an application anyway and try to ignore a possibly patronizing look on mr.Barnard's face as I hand it in to him. D:
6. I signed up for december's sat reasoning test! I am vaguely excited. It reminds me of those random new south wales things they bombarded us with in secondary school. Except this time it actually counts towards a potential university app. Fingers crossed.
7. I should really get back to doing my I&R, which is due tomorrow morning and which I only started on today. I've heard people say it takes only about an hour to complete it. Doubtless it doesn't require brilliant brainwork, but I suspect I'll be up till midnight anyway because I am a stickler for impeccable wording and shizz. Which I think is partly why mel has named me the official Editor of our pw written report. There really should be a grammar nazi appreciation society of sorts x) /selfaggrandization
8. brookekao from moohoop.livejournal.com has a really cute boyfriend. I'm sorry, I just had to say it. In the one post that she finally posted a picture of him, all her commenters remarked on how nice the clothes were and how they liked the background of her photographs. It made me want to explode and die. Hello people, what is WRONG WITH YOU ALL; the cutest boyface on EARTH graces your unworthy computer screens and all you can talk about is... is... I give up. There is something wrong with fashion fanatics if their hormonal levels can get owned by that of a sexually retarded Asian teenage lit-geek. Tactful avoidance? get OUT
9. I desperately need maths tuition. Sanity is very important.
so far all our attempts at self-training have failed, I suspect due to a crippling inertia, lack of will to get off our lazy asses, and of course the permanent problem of conflicting schedules. It makes me wonder what will actually happen when we finally do manage to all get together and think of a motion. will we approach prep with reluctant, lackadaisical and skeptical attitudes (or is it just me) or will we be fresh faced and ready to churn out substantives and rebuttals, approaching them with the same attitude rabbits have towards mindless fucking? I'm sorry that wasn't a very good analogy. And I never really had much faith in teamwork, either... or at least I did for a while, but faith is hard to maintain, easy to forget.
sat in on team a + sec4 training today with annjie suyun and lewis. We bought food for the team a people. Gosh, debate training! <3 I will miss the J2 seniors (particularly those who coached us) when they graduate. I miss training in general, though I doubt my skillz at the moment.
-- promo results
oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god.
they're okay. ahhhhhh.
-- random
CIP meeting at A203 today. I went in late. No one really noticed or cared, so that was okay. The room had an unpleasantly raucous feel of stale energy. (I don't actually know if the words accurately describe the feeling I got, but these were the first words to come to mind) I think it was the lighting. Plus I don't know if the difference between the science stream and the arts stream is really that huge, or if we're just imagining it cuz we see what we (want to)/(think we) see... but I highly suspect that I'm the only arts student in there. *deer in headlights* O_O
CIP is annoying. I don't know if I want to go on another mad CIP rampage like I did last year. I want to do something more meaningful! More intelligent! More fun! (I guess you could argue for social intelligence, but I haven't developed any in the past year despite my one hundred and nine hours of CIP, so there. on a sidenote you could more accurately argue for Persistence/The Ability To Withstand Boredom & Bullshit, but ten years in the education system has pretty much already taken care of that)
okay no, ignore my pretentious generalizing faux cynicism.
Walked out to bus stop with Annjie after the training ended. Lewis and Qingyun followed us, lost in a world of their own as they argued back and forth in fluent Chinese. The two of them are really amusing and almost endearing in the way they can just forget the world around them and get totally engrossed with wtv they're doing. Annjie/me made various stops along the way -- to fill her water bottle, to go to the toilet -- and everytime we did, they made an almost unconscious decision to stop and wait for us, never stopping their conversation. well lewis was the more alert of the two. okay anyway.
Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it'll be told for a thousand years.
"But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none."
That's why people invent fights. That's why we're drawn to sports. That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.
We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.
-----------
I thought this was interesting, and also sad. I don't think it's wrong to want to make your life seem bigger than it really is... we're just human beings trying to feel as if we matter. It's not the noblest sentiment. Or is it? It's a rather naîve one. Nevertheless it shouldn't be dismissed easily.
Someone (oscar wilde?) once said that friends are like art -- not absolutely necessary, but nonetheless one of those things that add value to life. For this reason, these things are precious.
We're essentially just trying to value-add our lives here, attempting to give it meaning of some sort. If we didn't have this perpetual drive to keep adding drama/('a bigger meaning') to life, then there would be no art, no intensity of emotion, and possibly no religion.
People recognize, deep down inside, their own insignificance in relation to the enormity of the entire cosmos, the seemingly pointless mundanity of life, and they fear it. And in an attempt to convince themselves that there is a higher meaning, they start looking for it everywhere, creating meaning where there was previously none. Or possibly they reject the notion of meaninglessness because they know something bigger does exist, like God, or something. I don't know.
Either way, why do human beings (or philosophically-disposed ones, at least) question the existence of meaning? Descartes said that to doubt that we are perfect means that something perfect does exist, and he named that 'perfect something' as God. Going by his logic, would doubting the existence of meaning necessarily mean that somewhere out there, meaning must exist?
Anyway, I don't think I particularly care. As far as I'm concerned, something is meaningful as long as we think it to be meaningful, and it doesn't really matter whether this opinion is validated by an external truth or not. I.e. life is what we make of it. I would write/edit more but I'm lazy and want to get back to watching House xp
Just a small town girl Livin' in a lonely world She took the midnight train going anywhere Just a city boy Born and raised in south Detroit He took the midnight train going anywhere
A singer in a smoky room The smell of wine and cheap perfume For a smile they can share the night It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting Up and down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Streetlight people Living just to find emotion Hiding somewhere in the night
Working hard to get my fill Everybody wants a thrill Payin' anything to roll the dice Just one more time
Some will win, some will lose Some are born to sing the blues Oh, the movie never ends It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting Up and down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Streetlight people Living just to find emotion Hiding somewhere in the night
Don't stop believin' Hold on to that feelin' Streetlight people
Don't stop believin' Hold on Streetlight people
Don't stop believin' Hold on to that feelin' Streetlight people
Today... insane shit. Walked into the classroom this morning to hear
snippets of conversation floating around, centering around the rumour
(later to be confirmed) that Barnard had taken a 3 day MC. Meaning no
econs today! Which left maths lecture and wuthering heights.
Understandably, several people started to regret coming to school.
Walked
to the A10 classbench and saw annjie and tracy sitting there. Annjie
grinned suggestively. Tracy attempted to slide her hand up my blouse.
Interpret that however you may.
*is awesome at context jumping*
I
had half a mind to skip lit but eventually decided against it. And...
oh man. Lessons are taking such a downturn this week. Was expecting an
hour of brain stimulating~ context analysis. What we did get, however,
was a handout on Emily Bronte Conspiracy Theories. (Burge
self-deprecatingly described it as 'four sides of utter rubbish') It
was terribly interesting (if completely irrelevant to promos revision!
><) and the alarming implications of what it suggested were...
tragic. It made me cry inwardly. But as with conspiracy theories, it
was hard not to feel incredulous. Yet the melodramatist in me would
dearly love to get carried away in speculation.
One line I vaguely remember: 'it is likely that this is what happened, seeing as I have not found evidence that suggests otherwise'. NO NO NO THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PROVE CASES DAMNIT! -_- There is no such thing as guilty until proven innocent!!
Plus we got to watch videos, like Wuthering Heights Feat. shiveringgoatt. Awesome cakes.
Wandered
around school trying to find places to study. Consultation area outside
the teacher's staffroom. Classbench. Reading room. Only the latter
offered a conducive study environment, predictably. But I got bored and
headed back to the classbench where the A10 dudes were. Lame attempts
at wordplay! Plus strange, strange incidents of mishearing.
Hofai plays a song on his laptop. me: Oh what song is that? hofai: innocence by avril lavigne. me: ...inner sex by avril lavigne?
Have
been studying at robyn's house on and off for the past few days. And
that's where I'll be headed again this evening! :D It's impossible to
study on my own nowadays, I have no idea why. So if you're looking for
a study partner, here's a decent-looking 16 year old chinese girl on
offer -- okay I must stop, this is getting out of haaaand. Greg calls
me a mamasan. If this goes on any longer I'm afraid he won't be too far
from the truth.
I can't stand this shit. I wish I could fill my days with tuition lessons 24/7. My greatest enemy is myself, etc. All calm and rationality for a whole day but once night comes everything falls apart. How the fuck am I supposed to study this way? I have one week. I can't waste it. Memory work memory work memory work memory work memory work. The most annoying thing about sgbookexchange is when they don't do meetups. Mango milk tea from coro was too sweet. Cringing with every sip, endeavouring to persevere but eventually giving up. Into the bin it goes, forlorn and dilute with melted ice. Another wasted day. This has got to stop. Stacy ooi hui quan you are such a pig wallowing in the mud of your self-pity and resentment and bitterness and insecurity. In fact, you are an insult to pigs.
'the most important trip you'll take in life is that of meeting people halfway'
Have been reading certain things that have made me realize... I don't know.
There are certain familiar notions that have been drilled into us since forever. Things like 'there will always be someone better than you', 'there is always more to learn', etc.
I've been scouring the literary quotes community for beautiful quotes, saving all the nice ones in a microsoft word document. But it was while reading the blog of someone I've known for quite a while but have never really talked to... it completely hit me. It's amazing isn't it, the depth people have behind their exteriors? How they hide it so well? Beside that person I feel ashamed, brought to my knees.
I don't think I've ever been mature at all.
Anyway now is not the time to indulge in introspection.
°‘¨b e v ¤ be wise, be brave, be tricky says: (8:22:31 PM) and also alcohol is overrated stacy says: (8:22:36 PM) omg is it? °‘¨b e v ¤ be wise, be brave, be tricky says: (8:22:47 PM) well my exact words were "oh my god this tastes like air freshner"
*
°‘¨b e v ¤ be wise, be brave, be tricky says: (8:25:28 PM) and my grandfather let me have some air freshner once stacy says: (8:25:32 PM) ... °‘¨b e v ¤ be wise, be brave, be tricky says: (8:25:38 PM) against anyones better judgement
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stacy says: (8:23:38 PM) oh man i am going around Like-ing everything on facebook! people are going to doubt the sincerity of my Likes °‘¨b e v ¤ be wise, be brave, be tricky says: (8:24:37 PM) contrary to popular belief, people liking things is actually necessary to fuel egos so sincerity can never be diluted!
