on days like these.
written: 6:33 p.m. on Tuesday, Mar. 21, 2006

I'm so screwed. I have no idea what I'm doing. I know I have to do all these things and I want to do them and I care about doing them and I don't want shitty grades but I can't get over this inertia in me when it comes to truly doing things. Day after day after day it's the same old bullshit: I tell myself to do some work and then I sit in front of my laptop thinking that I'd get going after surfing this site or playing this game and before I know it, it's time for dinner/TV/shower/bed.

What is wrong with me? Teachers who knew me in Jurong Junior would positively balk at the person I've reverted to. It's disgusting.

Maybe I can cop out again by blaming it on the course and how it's not even what I want to do. But you have to start cleaning up your own mess, take responsibility for your own actions and mistakes; once you're past a certain age, you're no longer allowed to shirk responsibility from yourself.

Especially if you had the chance to recant, but ultimately passed it up.

England or Singapore?

How many of us die getting all the things that we want?

And what is the point of being born in the first place if we're not going to get half the things we've hoped for all our lives? (Maybe abortion is humane after all.)

I've said this many times before but I have to say it again. There's only one thing I want to do, one thing I'm absolutely sure of, this one thing I'm halfway good at. I tend towards it the same way Joaquin Phoenix immerses himself in a role; it's the intensity of the passion you feel for what you do that sustains you, that makes the real world this much more mundane. Maybe I'm instinctively rebelling, the same way I did in SNGS (a part of me still sees law school as SNGS Take Two), but it bothers me when I'm using it as a distraction and an excuse not to even try to do well in a course which is wasting my dad's CPF money.

Writing isn't an excuse. It's not a cop-out, it's not a back-up, it's not the next-best alternative. It is, quite simply, the reason I'm still here.

**

I used to be mildly suicidal.

That, now, is a little suspect. When you're 14 and impressionable and disillusioned with the mundane preoccupations of the people around you, you latch on to the nearest alternative train to take you away from all of this shit. It was Daniel Johns and silverchair and his depressing music, his music that was his emotional outlet, those words that dripped with honesty and cut the heart, haunting melodies that made you feel.

I didn't know how to reconcile that reality with my reality. I look back at SNGS now and I'm surprised that I managed to get through it. I don't know what it was about that place that effectively shaped the person I eventually turned out to be. It really wasn't all that bad, I could've done so much worse, I even made some good friends who are still my good friends today (Rui, Mag, Yun, Pearl, Carine).

But the sense of disconnect. The alienation. The feeling that no one truly got you. And how you needed to be understood.

How mundane everything was. I saw life beyond the O Levels, didn't give a fuck about the O Levels, eventually screwed up the O Levels, but things turned out for the better, didn't they? I can't mix with that kind of people, the over-achievers that got everything they wanted and somehow, just weren't serious enough for me to be sufficiently interested. I don't know, really; at that time, the people around me just seemed trivial and...lacking in something. Seriousness, I think. Or just something mind-blowing, an element that makes life more than mere existence.

It was largely teenage angst, which made me think that I was suicidal so that I could be serious and not trivial like the people I didn't care for, but when push came to shove: 1) I was a coward and would never have dared to kill myself; and 2) By faking seriousness all I was doing was undermining the core of my rebellion.

You know why people study history? To make sense of the past in order to make sense of the now, and eventually moulding the future to make it fit as closely as possible to the ideal they have in their minds.

I'm still trying to make sense of my past.

**

The alienation sticks and no one truly gets you still and you see glimmers of potential in people like Joaquin Phoenix and fall head over heels in love with them because such people are so rare and you've never really come across anyone quite like that in real life anyway, but it doesn't seem as important anymore. Sure, it'd be nice to feel completely at ease with another person (preferably a beautiful older man) but if you keep chasing a ghost you'll end up falling flat on your face.

And, well. Suffice to say that I'm tired of falling and I don't want to through it all over again. I'm not settling; I'll never, ever settle because I'd rather die than to admit defeat. I'm just sitting back, languidly, hands behind my head, feet propped up on the table, basking in the non-Singaporean, non-humid sun with a book on my lap and story ideas swimming around in my head, waiting for the person whom Joaquin Phoenix represents to come crashing into my world.

And he has to crash or else it's not worth it.

And if he never comes crashing then I haven't lost anything, for you can't possibly lose something of which you never had possession anyway.

No more looking for lust-love in all the wrong places, projecting qualities onto people that do not remotely have them. In fact, no more looking for love at all.

Sometimes I don't even believe in it. And it doesn't bother me because I don't need it anyway. It's one of those things that are nice to have but not absolutely necessary to have so that you'll absolutely, like, die without it.

I never had it and I'm still alive, aren't I?

**

On another note, random online people should stop asking me for my number. Don't even bother because I don't bother with people who don't deserve it.

On a completely different note, I'm going to pretend that I didn't notice the wrongly-copied secondary sub-heading of my memorial's content page and hope like hell that my tutor doesn't penalise me for it. I'm too damn lazy to correct it lah.

I felt like griping about the comma thing all over again and how deluded some Singaporeans are when they seem convinced that they are "writers" just because they have a "blog" when in fact they can't even use the fucking comma correctly WHICH ANNOYS ME LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE but it's dinner time and why should I waste my time on such losers anyway?

And writing for The New Paper? In-credible. As in not credible. As in totally laughable.

Man, do I need to get out of this country or what.

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