my turning point.
written: 8:22 p.m. on Friday, Jul. 02, 2004

I could do the same but I know I would be lying through my teeth. Just because you can string a few pretty sentences together does not mean that you are writing poetry.

And what makes everything worse is equally-dumb people, their cheerleaders, dancing like bimboes and prancing around with fucking pom-poms by the sidelines, ra-ra-ing the misguided person along, making him/her feel like he/she is achieving something when in fact, he/she is never going to get anywhere.

And I know for a fact that I am right. I know for a fact that I am right because I have been there, I have heard the cheers, saw the dances and they were all for me and only me and look where I am now.

Jurong Junior College. Grade for Literature: D. Grade for the most recent GP test: A mere B3, C6 for essay.

And ever since I started JC I haven't written a short story of which I am proud. The last piece of shit I wrote was that... thingy for the Commonwealth Essay Competition and I know I blew it.

Yes, I am truly good.

Sometimes I can't help but be defeated by my circumstances because I don't think it could get any worse than JJC. I hate it there. I honestly hate it. When I thought I hated SNGS, I didn't know what was install for me when I eventually graduated, received my appalling O Level results and had no choice but to go back to JJC.

I didn't mind, of course. Liked the place when I was there in Term One, last year. Liked Mr. Nerd, liked Mel, liked my Lit classes, liked my GP tutor who is the coolest teacher I have ever had the honour of having in my whole entire life, I even liked the canteen food, but how was I to know how absolutely decadent the place would turn out to be? How was I to know that I would be uttering these words: "My Lit sucks/I am almost failing Lit/I don't want to go for Prac Crit/I think I could actually hate Literature" only a few more months down the road?

I had aspirations for myself when I entered junior college. I wanted a scholarship, even wanted to do 'S' paper Lit, but of course, these preposterous dreams were fuelled by a bunch of people back in secondary school who told me that I was good and I genuinely believed in them.

Now I know they were nothing but lies. Or maybe they thought they were right, but they are wrong. Tubby told me I have potential. Who the fuck wants potential when I'm into my seventh month of my final year in junior college and I haven't even got anywhere close to an A for Lit? I hate GP but I am extremely perturbed by the fact that the highest I've got was a 74.5% for it, not quite an A1. (And I don't want a borderline A1 because it is too risky. If I had it my way, I would hit an 80% everytime, if I bothered taking the tests really, really seriously and stop writing with my tongue partially in my cheek, something he didn't really quite get yesterday when he was marking my essay.)

If a teacher tells me one more time that I have the "potential" to get very good grades, I think I will throw in the towel for sure. To me, it is suicide when one has the potential but does not live up to it. I would rather be stupid than to fall into that cruel trap, one which I could never get myself out of.

Honestly, self, what is the point of having all these skills and intelligence if you're not gonna apply any of it? You're not a fucking genius, so fucking wake up. If you were, you would be in HCJC by now; you wouldn't even need to study to get you a single digit aggregate for the O Levels.

Mr. Nerd said this to me the last time we met (a long time ago, actually) and I couldn't agree more: "If you're average in JJ, you suck."

Oh, how true. And I refuse to suck, take it however you please. I don't think I'm a failure. I don't think I am capable of being a failure. I know what I can do and I don't think I'm over-estimating my own abilities.

This is the only thing I can tell myself right now. Things are bad. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. The thing dragging me down most is myself, my inherent laziness, which everyone knows is impossible to rid of because it is bleeding inherent so how can you change it? I don't know how to go about doing this. Throughout my life I have never properly sat down and studied till 3 a.m. in the morning or whatever along those lines. I did the bare minimum and I got what I deserved.

This time round, I want a perfect A Level certificate. No more 'what if's. The grammar of tragedy is one that I would not apply or utter come March next year, when I get my results. JJC is the lowest I can ever sink, I have insulted my folks, I'm going to make things right.

It's the only way I can redeem myself and salvage my pride. Failure is not an option. I will cease to be stupid. I will cease to fail to live up to what I'm truly capable of.

The past year and a half has been a mere dress fucking rehearsal. From now on, things are going to change.

And this entry would be proof that I said all of this, and if I fail in my quest to redeem myself, you can show this to me and laugh in my face.

But you know what? I won't give you the chance. Period.

Just a little comment: My favourite punctuation has got to be the dear little 'comma' that always comes in so handy. My usage of it is grammatically incorrect sometimes but who cares? Margaret Atwood does it, Virginia Woolf did it, and yes, I realise that they are published writers and geniuses but sometimes I feel like being a poseur and I think that is okay.

I don't really care about scholarships and university admission criteria or whatever. I'm doing this for myself and for my folks. I don't give a shit at all about the fucking school; in fact, if it burns down, I would throw a goddamn party. The school has done nothing for me but degrade whatever literary skills I might have possessed and killed whatever creativity I might have enjoyed, however transient. I am virtually drowning in the incompetency of most of the people around me, such that lessons are slow, I sit through basic grammar and spelling classes in Literature, and a cool person just told me yesterday to write "thesis statements".

I like you a lot and I am very infatuated with you but I'm sorry, that is something I would never do. First of all, I don't know what they are, and second of all, I could not begin to make myself care. I've never done it before, not consciously and deliberately anyway, and I've got along fine. I think the reason you told me that was because GP is so braindead that the golden rule of writing, "show and not tell", cannot apply.

That was something I didn't know. Thank you for pointing it out.

And I'm not sure if I was being sarcastic or not.

But I really hated the way you looked up at me halfway through my essay in the middle of my conversation with Mel and told me, with that look in your eyes like you're sympathetic, "So far your essay is irrelevant."

Seriously, no one in my life has criticised me as much as you have. Not even my secondary 2 English teacher who lambasted me in front of my entire class once for fucking up some speech I was doing, because she eventually awarded me a memorable mark of a 36/40 for my Sec. 4 English prelim and she believed in me.

But you, I don't think you give a shit at all.

And I'm still wondering why it seems to matter to me.

Time to annihilate all those bloody annoying History essays.

I completed my Bismarck (Prussian chancellor? German prime minister? Guy responsible for German unification but I think it was more Prussian expansion instead?) essay this morning though and I really dug my last paragraph. I had quite a good time writing it, truth be told. My essay was very one-sided but ah, who cares. Teacher's not gonna mark it anyway.

One down, twelve more to go. Wahoo. I can't wait.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010