it was easy when you were younger.
written: 10:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 03, 2007

Wait, I know the answer: The incessant, unrelenting hunger pangs I keep getting past 8 p.m. nowadays. I accompanied my mom to my brother's junior college's parents' conference thing and it was boring as hell and throughout the whole thing all I could think about was Starbucks' espresso brownie, the deliciousness (word? Who cares) of which cannot be humanly and adequately summed up in words. The event ended at 9.30 p.m. (it started at 7.15) and by then it was way too late so I decided to pass.

But then I came home and broke off a piece of dark Toblerone - I can't spell - chocolate and greedily devoured it.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME! I actually miss the days where I had no appetite, I couldn't finish half my food, and eating was an obligation, nothing more. I'm so disgusted with myself. I need to swim more. I swam 40 consecutive laps in my pool today and my tummy is still so damn big. Why, why, why? Why must this happen to me? What did I ever do to deserve such a fate?

I so wanna stop eating altogether, but that's impossible because I get hungry so easily nowadays and I'm craving chocolate. WTF?

At least the new clothes still fit. And I still need new clothes.

I cleaned out half my closet this afternoon - first time in years. I threw away a bunch of yellowing, dirty SNGS PE shirts, some pyjamas I wore in lower sec. and have stopped wearing, a hell lot of old panties and bras, and some other random stuff. Halfway through the cleaning I started sneezing - continuously. In fact, many hours later, my nose still feels irritated.

I hate cleaning. Here's a tip: If you want to get me something for my birthday or whatever, please stick to something...I don't know, useful, or small, or impermanent. A shirt, a bracelet, a meal. Don't get me things that you know I have no purpose for, which will just end up lying around in my room, collecting dust, and that layer of dust will get so damn thick that a few months later it will start to piss me off and me being me, when my things get dirty, instead of cleaning them, my solution is to throw them away. I threw away some shirts today that can be worn at home but are so damn dirty and gross that I didn't even bother to fathom the thought of washing them. Like, ew.

I always take the easy way out.

My room disgusts me. It'd reach a stage where everything is so dirty that I'd sit my parents down for a 'hey folks, it's time for a new apartment!' chat.

I need a maid.

And I realised that I like empty spaces. My closet - the half I cleaned out - is now rather empty and I like it that way. I think everything should be minimalistic, you know? It makes life easier. And it gives you a lot more space for new stuff, which is always awesome.

I wanted to weed out the too-big stuff amongst my wearable clothes and sell them on SGST but cleaning the closet took up much more time than expected so I didn't get anything done. My Guess jeans is officially unwearable; it makes me look like I have a penis and that's completely unacceptable. Needless to say I'm very upset by this since it used to be my favourite pair of jeans before I started losing weight in every place except the stupid-ass tummy so yeah, this sucks.

I want to go shopping.

So is it just me or is this entire week excruciatingly crawling by really, really, fucking slowly? It's only Wednesday. I can't remember the last time I wanted a fast-forward button so badly so that a particular week can just end. And I'm not even freaking looking forward to school.

I met Tingren, Wenhui and Yuenmei for lunch on Tuesday at West Mall, which is always enjoyable. On the way home I bought a baguette/baquette from Delifrance. I decided to walk home from West Mall because I was crazy, and the baguette/baquette was a very good companion. My parents met me when I was about 200 metres away from the slope of my hill (they were coming home from Chinatown), and when I got into the car, I'd devoured about a third of the baguette/baquette. It's just SO YUMMY! Is bread fattening? I sure hope not, 'cause I had quite a heavy meal with TR, YM and WH before that.

Okay, I'm a fucking pig. Just die, Yelen.

The new JC cirriculum sounds a lot more interesting and worthwhile than the mundane shit syllabus I took. I don't care about that though. Sitting through the parents' conference at my brother's JC (it's near our house and it's not Jurong) made me miss JC life all over again. Because at the end of everything, after all the bitchings have been done, after the mocking laughter and condescending quips, the two years in JC were the best two years of my twelve years of mainsteam education. It was real there, you know? Being in law now makes me see how different things can turn out for you if you weren't born a certain way, to a certain family, with a certain net worth; but that doesn't make you less worthy of an individual. The whole elite bullshit - it is what it is, contrived bullshit that shouldn't mean jack, and to be honest, I remain utterly unimpressed.

More than ever I'm so incredibly thankful to myself for fucking up the O Levels, hence landing me in Jurong, because I don't think I would be the same person if I'd gone through twelve years of breathing in a tiny-ass glass box. Apart from how painfully boring that idea is, Jurong made me see a different side of the education system: how easily people can be left behind, how hard work doesn't always lead to success, how heart-breaking it is when you've worked your ass off for a goal and you end up not achieving it. I wasn't very close to most people in my class, I knew about 0.0001% of the Science stream population, but since hindsight is always 20/20 and viewed through rose-tinted glasses, let me just say that Jurong was a reprieve from the pretentious posturings and saccharine smiles of SNGS and even law school.

Jurong was real.

Of course, the irony doesn't escape me: I became a full-fledged snob while I was there. But I think one has to be a snob in order not to be a snob. I'm still a snob in some ways, but compared to the arrogance I displayed two years ago, I'd say I'm a lot better now. I still laugh at people's English, I'm still an anal grammar nazi, but I don't think that stupid people should die anymore, or that stupid people don't deserve to succeed. Suffice it to say that I have seen the error of my ways and I got started on the rectification quite a long time ago.

Ah, Jurong. How I miss you at times like these. Friends, we should go back one day.

**

I watched the first two Season 1 episodes of Veronica Mars this afternoon, possibly for the 9th time, and this stuck out in my mind:

Weevil (to Veronica): You think you're this big outsider, but when push comes to shove, you're still one of them. You still think like one of them.

While writing what I wrote in the segment before this, it occurred to me that what Weevil said to V was, in some ways, applicable to me.

I guess the good news is, Weevil was eventually wrong about her.

**

I need ideas for stories. I'm letting this inchoate talent go to waste and it's pissing me off because I have NOTHING to say. There're some writing contests that I wanna join but I have nothing to submit because I have no subject matter and I've forgotten how to dramatise, and I need to join these contests because I'm dead broke and I need money. Trying to win something, despite the default futility, gives you a better chance at upping that embarrassingly-low bank account balance than not trying at all.

I guess the spark in the otherwise pitch-black darkness is that I haven't forgotten how to write.

I was going to enter the SLR writing competition until I remembered that I have nothing to say with regard to the law because I simply don't give a fuck. And the thought of doing research? Inherently suicidal.

Screw it.

I need to write. I really, really do.

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