i hate myself.
written: 6:31 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004

Yes. I will. Not would, but will.

Okay. I hate Maths. I hate Maths a lot. The reason for my profound hatred for Mathematics does not lie as much in the fact that it is a thoroughly stupid subject as it does in my infallible stupidity when it comes to doing it. The November 2003 Paper 2 made me want to die.

No, then again, that's hugely incorrect: I was completely raped by that stupid paper such that my arse is hurting like mad now. I don't, for the life of me, understand how (1+x)^2 can conceivably, magically morph into 1+x^2 in the next line; how I can forget to add the constant c to the end of my stupid equations when I'm doing non-limits integration as it's something so fundamental that it should be ingrained forever in my memory ten million years after I've given up Maths; how I can shift a positive variable to the other side of the equation and still get a positive variable; and other stupid, retarded and utterly depressing mistakes along the same lines which I've forgotten.

It's not that I can't do the questions. I can definitely differentiate (1+x)^2, and even do integration by parts ten thousand times and still get it right. It's the lack of... I don't know, the noun form of 'meticulous' that really kills me.

If this goes on any longer, that's it. I'm not going to get above a C for the stupid subject and that would be totally unjust considering the fact that I actually know how to do the questions and I would get them right if I weren't so damn stupid in transporting numbers and letters from one line to the next.

In conclusion, therefore, Yelen is stupid. Period.

The next thing I want to completely rip myself apart about is: My infamously shitty and disgusting handwriting.

Now, I love my handwriting because I think it reflects pretty well upon my erratic personality. But who the hell cares about that when you're taking an extremely important exam, such that your handwriting might very well be your bloody downfall? Tubby complained lengthily about my handwriting before; even wrote, "Your handwriting is increasingly going to the dogs", quote unquote, on my prelim script. And I thought there was something wrong with the phrase "the Acheh secession movement" when it was underlined in my HCJC AQ but NO; it's a perfectly legitimate expression (well, duh, since I'm the one that's using it) that was underlined solely because the marker couldn't make out the word 'Acheh'.

By the way, anyone knows if it's spelled 'Acheh' or 'Aceh'? I've seen the latter version in the papers but my History teacher spells it 'Acheh' in the Indonesia notes.

I mean, how goddamn stupid is that? Imagine kissing goodbye to that well-deserved A/A1 simply because your handwriting is impossible to make out.

Like, WHAT THE HELL? And I can't possibly write more legibly if I'm completely strapped for time and rushing to get everything -- indeed, a goddamn 7-page essay -- out in a whopping grand total of forty-five minutes. Yes, that's a lot of time.

Screw the A Levels. Everyone who's doing the A Levels is stupid. And that includes yours truly. And I don't know why I just said that.

Today's been an awful day. I wasted my time in school. Had to wait ten million years for my mom to arrive so that I can go home. I refuse to take public transport because I believe that it is a primitive way of transportation and that I deserve to travel in comfort for simply being me, and for suffering through JJC for almost two years. But my point is, I hardly did anything in school. And I have seriously lost all touch with market structure. I don't know how in the world am I supposed to go about cramming everything in; I don't know what I don't know, save for the thing about me not being able to explain allocative and productive effiency in details; and I have certainly forgotten, like completely forgotten, how to write market structure essays.

Now, I think Miss Chin rocks and all but I get so frustrated when she writes things like, "(give egs)" in her notes next to things for which I don't know any examples. I mean, I don't even understand the whole thing about how there must be complete separability of markets in order for third degree price discrimination to take place, and I'm supposed to provide examples? Like, hello? Since you're already spoon-feeding you might as well remove the spoon from my mouth too, you know?

Hopefully I'd be able to do three macro questions but knowing how down on luck I've been my whole worthless life, I better find a way to memorise the market structure stuff or that A in Econs is gone for sure.

GP is next Thursday.

Have I ever mentioned how absolutely petrified I am at that thought? Well, I am, just in case you didn't get it the first 10343258934832175823457423 times round.

Oh. I just remembered that today is Joaquin Phoenix's birthday. Oh my GOD he's a fossil. He's THIRTY. I can't believe it. It feels like only yesterday that he was like... 26!

Wow. Four years have passed so quickly and I've barely realised it. I mean, it was exactly four years and a week ago that I fell head over heels in love with Joaquin and I was fourteen. It's just really odd. You kind of forget sometimes that celebrities age with you too.

Okay, I'm not sufficiently intellectually-equipped to deal with this topic so I'll shut up about it and just marvel over the fact that my favourite living actor is turning thirty today, Singapore time. It's very strange, indeed.

Ladder 49 also opens today.

Fucking hell.

I watched Nicholas Nickleby on Star Movies on Sunday night. Was so classically Dickens. Well, duh, since he wrote the novel and I assume that the film was pretty loyal to the book in its adaptation, although I wouldn't know for sure since I've never read the book. But the social criticisms were damn obvious in the film as well. What really stood out and made an impression was this coffin shop that had infant-sized coffins, hence shedding light on the squalid living conditions of the workers during the early industrial times.

And the caricatures. God, I bloody hated the stupid schoolmaster bastard asshole and his stupid bitch wife. They were so Bounderby-ish, except that I think Bounderby a little bit less annoying because he doesn't go around beating cripples with a stick and shoving them to the floor. That asshole schoolmaster? I can't remember the last time I wanted to clobber a fictitious character so badly.

Felt really sorry for the uncle in the end though. He's a bit like Thomas Gradgrind in that sense, although not to the same degree; Gradgrind is a lot more human than Uncle Nickleby can ever be. But that last scene was so poignant and tragic that I kind of wanted to cry.

Whoever told me that Nicholas Nickleby was a feel-good film is... seriously weird. I felt damn depressed after it ended.

Oh, and another classic Dickensian element: the theatre folks, paralleled in Hard Times with Sleary's circus.

To be honest, I kind of like Dickens. He's awfully funny and his sardonic wit is unparalleled by most writers. Compared to George Eliot whose authorial intrusions far exceed Dickens's, I'd rather read Dickens any time, any day, anywhere. Hard Times is disappointing in the sense that he never provides a real, tangible and realistic solution to the whole oppression of the proletariats thingy and as a result, his criticism became little more than hot air in the end. Still, one has gotta take the good with the bad, and I think the good outweighs the bad, however marginally. I really like the whole Gradgrind thing. My sympathies go to Thomas G. for being so misguided in his genuinely sincere intentions, and Louisa is a surprisingly three-dimensional character with whom I sympathise as well.

Contrast this to Silas Marner, a book which I'm only giving a shit about because I have to, a book with characters I do not care about in the slightest bit. Nobody intrigues me in the novel and everyone pisses me off. Even Silas Marner doesn't stir that much interest in me and he's the bleeding title character. And Eppie? Pisses me off majorly. She's just so damn goody-goody that it makes me want to puke. Dolly Winthrop annoys me too, and Godfrey? Such a bastard like him? Goes without saying.

I do acknowledge the fact that Eliot's writing is very, very rich and thus very analyse-able, which is why I'm probably doing a text-based during the exam (also because I'm too lazy to study the novel in detail as I don't even like it). But it doesn't really stop me from feeling irritated when I read, or attempt to read, or attempted to read, the book.

After I'm done with my Paper 1, I'm never touching another George Eliot novel for as long as I shall live.

Okay, that's it.

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