by now you should've somehow realised what you gotta do.
written: 9:25 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2007

First, I was up till 2 a.m. doing my bit for our LCS (stupidasscrapwasteoftimeshit) client advice letter, not because I spent a lot of time on it, but because I laughed at One Tree Hill till 1 in the morning. I was extremely tired yesterday because of the whole Public Law fucked up D assignment debacle - namely, I gave up when I said I did and just wrote a few more paragraphs on NMPs and NCMPs and GRCs and whatever that sucked to high heavens, which ended at around 5.30 a.m. But because my word count was like, 4200-something, I spent the next forty-five minutes cutting it down to 3499. The four cups of coffee I had a couple of hours before was still buzzing in me at 6.15 a.m. when I decided my essay was finished (ooh, a pun - go figure) and so I laid in bed tossing and turning, and even picked up a phone call from my second aunt in Taiwan who wanted to wish my dad a happy birthday. Like, what the hell, right? I eventually fell asleep when it was nearly bright outside. And I woke up at 11 to go to school to meet the 12 noon deadline.

Effectively I had four hours of sleep and I'm so not used to sleeping so little. Therefore, yesterday was extremely tiring and I probably shouldn't have watched One Tree Hill but it was funny and I wanted to laugh so there. And yeah, the LCS thingy took an hour and then I went to bed, all zonked and completely shagged.

I usually wake up at most an hour before a class is due to start. Today's 10 a.m. lecture meant I could've slept until 9 a.m. But guess what? At 7.16 a-fucking-m I was rudely and shockingly jolted from my precious beauty sleep by none other than my dad. It was the usual bullshit drama: Brother wants to blow off school, dad gets super pissed off, dad starts yelling at brother, and a huge-ass fight ensues. How terribly fun and exciting, Not. That lasted for at least fifteen minutes and for the entire duration and then some, I couldn't go back to sleep even though I was super bloody tired.

When I finally fell asleep again, seconds later - I exaggerate of course but it felt like seconds later - my mom came in and attempted to wake me up. I say 'attempted' because 1% of my brain was telling me to get up and the rest still wanted to sleep, and I was also involved in this really weird-ass dream that intriguied me greatly which I didn't want to leave. My mom came in a few more times, each time getting more and more irritated with me because it was like, 9.25 already and oh my god I was still sleeping and like oh my god I was going to be late for lecture! What a horrendous crime against humanity!

So I finally got up and it was 9.30 and I took ten minutes to wash my face and brush my teeth, as per usual; another three minutes to pop in my eyes; and about ten minutes more to change and everything. By the time I got out of my room my mom had just left through the front door and was waiting for me outside, nevermind that I hadn't even got my socks on and shit.

When I was ready and out of the house she started nagging at me about whatever, and in my head I was all, "Okay, whatever, don't take your anger at your son out on me. Don't use me as a punching bag for the ridiculous shit that happened in the morning."

Then I had to get breakfast 'cause we didn't have bread at home and my mom went the wrong way and I had to resort to picking up something random from a petrol kiosk. By that time I was super bloody annoyed and there was this old dude in front of me who took ten fucking millenniums to pay for his gas and something or other that he had because he gave the cashier the wrong card and he didn't realise and when the cashier said that there was something wrong with the card he was all indignant and whatever, typical Singaporeanish, until he realised he gave the wrong card. Like, what the hell? All I wanted to buy was a $1.95 bag of Gardenia raisin buns. All that trouble could've been averted if we reduced our obsession with cards and becoming a cashless society or whatever retarded crap. I was this close to stepping up and snapping, "I'm running late for class so could you hurry up so that I could pay for my breakfast?"

In the end, I settled for exhaling really loudly and keeping my pissed off mug intact (which I've been told is really scary).

Okay, I don't feel like going through the other two instances during which my mom annoyed me 'cause they don't matter lah. Things have been tense (tensed?) around the house for the past couple of days because my brother is a total weirdo and yeah, whatever, I don't want to get into it.

I fell asleep for ten minutes during Trusts lecture, not because THW is boring (I actually think he's a good lecturer and tutor) but because I was really, REALLY sleepy. I diligently took down notes yesterday during Trusts lecture so it really was the sleepiness.

Anyway.

**

In other news, I haven't changed my mind about doing internships. How amazing.

I think the company you choose to keep is rather important in influencing your character growth, your outlook on life, your goals and ambitions. The difference between my brother and I is that I've had a relatively elitist education - SNGS and now law school. Brother, on the other hand, has always been stuck in the neighbourhood tract. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with going to a neighbourhood school, and I'm not saying this is true of all neighbourhood school students, but the kind of people I've met and interacted with and closely associated myself with over the course of my educational career is very, very different from the kind of people my brother has mixed with. His limited ambition (if ambition exists at all), his lack of confidence in his academic capabilities, his seeming contentment in settling for mediocrity, just his general attitude towards life and his future and his grades and his goals - everything, all of it, just screams Neighbourhood. And I find it completely incomprehensible and inexplicable because all my life I've wanted more than what my circumstances are able to offer; I've wanted to be more, to do better than other people, to fully realise my potential. The thought of being stuck in this country for the rest of my life is inherently suicidal, and when I was his age if you'd told me that I would be studying in NUS post-A Levels, I would probably slap you and say, "Don't bloody insult me."

But my brother, on the other hand, has absolutely zero desire to go overseas. But that's quite okay because there's nothing wrong with wanting to attend a local university. The problem is, he doesn't even seem to want to go to university badly enough to work for it. I honestly think that, all things considered, he's innately capable enough to get into a local university, but nowadays it's not enough to just make it to university; you have to get into a good course, get a good degree, all that real-world crap which he doesn't even realise.

I mean, I didn't realise any of these things when I was 17, but when I was 17, I wanted to go to New York. I wanted to pursue something, I had an ambition, I had a goal. I had a dream. Even if it didn't pan out, I still had a dream. I wanted something. And the reason I wanted to ace the A Levels was partly because I was under the arrogant but self-preserving belief that I was better than what being in Jurong Junior implied. My brother is most probably going to end up in Jurong, and I honestly cannot say that the same applies to him. Where he came from, making it to Jurong is probably already an achievement; where I came from, ending up in Jurong was a complete and utter embarrassment.

(Disclaimer: I'm now extremely proud that I went to Jurong Junior, but for entirely egoistic reasons.)

I know that a person's education institution isn't the sole determining factor in influencing his goals and ambitions, his outlook on life, his attitude towards the whole concept of Achievement. A lot of it also has to do with his character, the way he's been brought up, et cetera. But maybe he'd be vastly different today if he'd had the chance to go to a branded (let's just call a spade a spade, okay?) school, to mix with people who are so driven that they work like hell for what they want. Because, you know, I'll never tell him this but I love my brother and I wish he wanted things for himself. I wish he were more driven...or rather, I wish he were driven, period. He's so lackadaisical and for some reason he doesn't think that he's capable of achieving more. I've been around people who can only dream of, say, making it to law school, or even getting one A for their A Levels and it worries me quite a bit that he's obviously smarter than them but his level of confidence unnervingly mirrors theirs.

I think it's all in the mind, you know? Once you start thinking you're not good enough, you're never going to be good enough. I call my JC arrogance 'self-preserving' because it was that unabashed, blatant and shameless arrogance that made me believe, fiercely, that I could do what I wanted to do. Contrast this to my attitude in SNGS and my attitude in law school and I think my point is fairly obvious.

It's all up to him. I saw the folly of my ways last week and I'm sticking to my epiphany, and to be honest half of it had to do with seeing my friends and classmates doing all these internship thing which made me wonder what the fuck I was doing and why I seemed to be content getting lousy-ass grades that embarrass me more than anything and squandering my holidays away doing absolutely jack. I suppose there's hope for him yet 'cause it took me 20 years and 7 months to grow up, but by virtue of the fact that I'm in law school, I could kind of afford to be in denial for a while. And that's exactly it: You have to get to high places first before you can have the prerogative to blow things off. Because then, no matter how hard you fall, you're already ahead of most people by default, and ultimately, things would still be okay at the very least.

On a more selfish and less serious note, my brother should really be more of a go-getter to take the pressure off me. Seriously. It ain't easy being the eldest, a GIRL, and the person in whom your parents' hopes and wishes are vested because you were idiotic enough to go to law school. Like...ugh. I can already imagine the kind of disappointment I'd inflict on my dad if I told him, "Uh, I don't want to be a lawyer. I'm going to New York and bum around and try to get something published."

Which is what I would do in my personal near-perfect utopia (ignore the contradiction which is actually fully intended but too lazy to explain) but to him, it'd scream, "Quitter!" Even when I was jokingly going off about entering the Taiwanese entertainment industry because it'd make me lots of money, he wasn't very amused and ranted something about what a waste of talent that'd be and whatever. Imagine having a law degree and struggling as a starving writer.

Right. That is so gonna happen. As it stands my dad doesn't believe in my writing, which is understandable since I don't write in Chinese and yeah, he's never read any of my stuff, so well.

Okay, I've exhausted this subject. Moving on to something else now.

**

So I had my first auto car lesson today and I don't know what to think.

On the one hand, the left leg was completely relaxed and happy letting the right leg to all the work. My left knee didn't feel like it was being forcefully pulled apart and ripped, for once, and I didn't have to be all panicky over the clutch and whatever else.

On the other hand, I didn't have to be all panicky over the clutch and whatever else. Stopping the car was an extremely weird experience and half the time my left leg subconsciously poked around for the non-existent clutch pedal. And everytime I heard the ascending rev of the engine as I gunned the accelerator, I half-expected my left hand to reach for the gear stick and change up to second gear.

The weirdest part, however, was definitely this: The vehicle was surprisingly and relatively hard to control; I felt like the car was driving me instead. I can't explain it and I'm probably in no position to speak because I suck at driving, period, no matter the method of transmission of the vehicle; but it was just weird all around. Especially when I was doing the courses and parallel parking. Like, the whole low speed control thing. How to low speed control a bloody auto car lah. Even at my slowest I was still faster than low-speeding a manual.

(Sidenote: My first crank course was fucking horrid; I had to reverse and shit. My second crank course, however, was "beautiful". Bwahahaha.)

I guess after you've got used to the clutch thing, driving an auto car feels like cheating.

And yet, it's oh-so-relaxing!

So yeah. The jury's still out on this one.

**

I intended to get started on my Trusts assignment tonight but I ended up spending all my time on this entry. Here I go being dumb again.

I wore a bandeau (sp?) today and bloody hell did I look absolutely breasts-less or what. Proper bras for me unless I'm wearing a strapless top. And I tend to avoid strapless tops because I look weird in them so all's good and everything.

I was going to start working a short story sometime around March and it's nearly March and I still have absolutely no idea what I want to say.

It sucks having all these desire and skills to write but not having a single damn thing to say.

LCS tomorrow. Joy and balloon animals.

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