worst trip ever.
written: 10:41 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005

The thing about globalisation is that everything is the same everywhere you go after a while. It may seem convenient at first, because you can get your favourite [insert object] anywhere in the world anytime you want it (condition: you have to be in the cities of first world countries), but all it does, really, is to encourage a disturbing homogenisation of culture. I love Esprit, as everyone knows, but god, every single mall I went to in KL and Malacca and I found myself looking at its bright red entrance. And it's not like the clothings differ from country to country, let alone store to store.

So I may be a self-proclaimed city girl, but I was actually more interested in the less-developed areas of KL. Public housing (I guessed) with the gloss taken off. Grease and dirt that mar the facade of flats after flats. Flats that are in pretty dire need of upgrading and reconstruction. I don't even remember where I was; maybe it was Chinatown and its surrounding areas. All the same, I was freaking glad to be away from the pretentiousness of globalisation and the Westernisation of Asian societies, clumsily disguised as "modern living", even if it was only for a while.

No, the irony and the inherent hypocrisy of what I just typed does not escape me. I can't live without what I just deplored, it's not fair to keep others in want while you have room to bitch and moan about not being able to afford that pair of Guess jeans just so you could have some kind of an escape, but fairness is a word that never really had a place in the world and what is to be done about that? What is to be done about anything to which you're not particularly enamoured? We are ultimately helpless in our insignificance.

To be quite honest, I don't feel like talking about the trip. It was supposed to be a brief getaway from the mundane reality that is supposedly my life, but it wasn't. Whenever I couldn't sleep at night, I started thinking about College Day and speaking in front of so many people and that stupid incompetent and badly-written speech and about school starting and about Cambridge and how a rejection is eminent and how a rejection also means the final turn of the key that locks me up here for good, all these truly wonderful and uplifting thoughts, I even cried one night and I've lost count how many times I've cried over the same fucking issue over the past few months.

It's getting old and the situation is looking more and more bleak and desolute and hopeless. The more I think about it, the more I don't want to continue with law school. But if I don't continue with it, what the hell am I going to do?

And yet. My heart isn't in this, I keep wanting to be somewhere else, it even shows in my grades. B B- C. SLS Legal Writing and Torts respectively. Seriously, if my worst grade is for a practical module what does that say about my future in the profession? And I'm honestly expecting an F for Contract.

Not that I give a damn either way. It's scary how little I care. I didn't even know when the results would be made known to students, where to go to check, I only knew that they were already released when I read about it in someone's blog.

This is the part where I say I could've studied more and cared more, or just "I could've actually studied, period", but you know what, I really couldn't have. I can't - not next semester, not a year later, not ever. I thought I could make myself like this course but I've never hated anything with as much vehement as I hate this, and I'm drowning in my own nonchalance and abhorrence and I really don't know what to do.

The valedictorian thing is not a big deal to me not because I'm arrogant, but because I don't deserve it, and because I've lived my future and I don't think I want to be a part of it anymore. You see, the valedictorian thing was only important to me last year because I wanted good results, which I thought meant something, which I thought would be the first step to an angst-free life; now that I've been proven horribly wrong, I'm dreading College Day and the speech thing and actually, to be more succinct, I'm dreading the rest of my life.

You know what the most overrated thing in the world is? Life.

What is so great about living?

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