the great leap forward.
written: 5:54 p.m. on Tuesday, Mar. 13, 2007

(Fuck. I just lost my entire entry. I hate it when this happens. Whatever; I'll try to reproduce it.)

For the first time since breaking up - actually, for the first time ever, I sent Ex #2 a happy birthday SMS. He, on the other hand, has been sending me birthday greetings every single year since we knew of each other's existence in JC four years ago, even belated ones with an explanation attached when he was stuck in camp and only got out a day after my birthday or something. And me?

Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The emotionally dysfunctional train wreck me. Firstly, I don't believe I ever remembered, but secondly, even if I had remembered, I wouldn't have done anything about it anyway, because I was stubborn and thought I had something to prove, and apparently 'having something to prove' invovled not sending such SMSes. And trust me, I don't understand this one bit either.

I've always known who the better person was between the two of us. The better person is the one who still sends birthday messages every single year, even when the other person was absolutely horrible, bitchy and mean to you, without any basis or justification whatsoever. I guess the one sure, good thing I take away from this - from all the guys who walked into my life whom I eventually pushed away - is that I'm not that person anymore. I don't understand any of the inclinations I leaned towards, the values I subscribed to, the supposed truisms I took as a given; and thinking back to everything that happened in the past is a rather confusing activity because I feel like a completely different person now.

It's not all about me. It's never been all about me, it can't ever be all about me. I can't be selfish and self-absorbed anymore, such that I'm completely blinded to other people's feelings and the magnitude and significance of their actions, even their points of view. Especially their points of view. Maybe this is the fundamental flaw I need to correct within myself, this disgusting and utterly abhorrent tendency towards being blindingly self-absorbed, before I can actually have a real, meaningful relationship.

It has to start somewhere, right? The correction, that is. And so I feel like I need to call up all my ex-boyfriends and start making amends. Because, you know, I'm sorry you weren't the one, I'm sorry if I made you feel like the one, I'm sorry I hurt you. Above all else I'm glad you stopped caring eventually and moved on and found in someone else what you tried to find in me, something I couldn't have given you back then because I was horrible and selfish and unkind. I beautify myself in my imagination and it's only when I muster up enough guts to yank the blindfold off my eyes that I see the truth clearly, in all its grotesque hideousness, full of epiphanies and concern, signifying...everything.

I'm not the person I used to be two, three years ago. Hell, I'm not even the same person I was a month ago. I used to find this complete abandonment of my cynicism towards love and whatever else disorienting and weird, and I used to think that I didn't know who I was anymore without it, and worse, that I wasn't myself; but now, it's obvious to me that it's a much-needed and long-awaited start of some kind of character growth. I don't know what it is yet, I don't know where the hell I go from here, but I know, for sure, that whatever it is, it's good.

**

Sunday night was spent having dinner with Mag and Rui at NYDC Holland V, thereby causing ourselves to stink terribly of food, then watching Tris' hall production. Dinner was mighty fun, as expected, and the production itself was...not bad. As a whole it was entertaining but there were parts that dragged and dragged, especially towards the end, and the play itself wasn't terribly good. But I really liked the set though, and how they made use of it, coupled with the nifty lighting. And I thought the actors were pretty much spot-on.

I do agree with Rui though, that it would've ended perfectly if all three women had fallen out of the window together. Haha! We're sadistic and evil. Anyway, kudos to Tris for his directorial debut and making something out of the material he got (who chose the play anyway?). Now you can finally breathe and uh, go back to studying for Public Law and Equity. How exciting.

Speaking of Public Law and Equity, I'd just like to say that Equity is immensely more stimulating than Public Law is. In fact, I hate Public Law. I find it incredibly pointless and meaningless and at this point I genuinely don't give a shit about my grade anymore. It's just damn stupid lah. And that's all I'm going to say.

Oh, and that I was completely falling asleep in Pub tutorial. Boringness. Bleah. At least I got worked up over whether or not a purpose trust for which the settlor appointed an enforcer can be valid. And I actually read a couple of full judgments for my Equity assignment. And I think I'm actually going to read cases for Equity now, seeing as Pearce and Stevens is still not bloody available and I have less than two months before the exam and Hayton is useless and I have NO NOTES so I really ought to just use primary sources and run with them. (Primary sources = cases, unfortunately.) And I found out that Lord Wilberforce writes quite well so all's not lost.

Seriously, reading Schmidt v Rosewood, Re Hay's Settlement Trust, Re Baden whatever (No. 2) etc is so much preferable to reading, say, Colin Chan v Public Prosecutor. The latter is one hell of a depressing activity that I'd rather avoid, thank you very much. Or at least prolong the torture for as long as I possibly can before forcing myself to face it. I've always been a major procrastinator.

Also, I was attempting to read my Equality readings yesterday and all the convention stuff in front was completely off-putting. You know, useless tripe like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Pretentious and chest-thumping declarations on this or that, on this and that, all these wasted paper that end up achieving nothing really. I'm becoming quite jaded because when I was in secondary school, I thought the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was this super important document that's, like, so totally universally-binding. I'm either really jaded now, or I was really stupid then.

I don't know. The predominant question that pops up along the way is, What's the point? You declare all these "universal rights" and draft conventions to "eliminate all forms of racial discrimination" but what really gets done? Most of the time it's really just a case of the West imposing its values on the rest of the world. And that pisses me off. Purporting something to be "universal" when you're declaring so from your own biased and prejudiced position without considering the same point from another socio-economic perspective is quite retarded, if you want my honest opinion.

Okay, I'm so contradictory in thought because I think the four-walls doctrine is shit and just an excuse for the courts not to be progressive in their decisions and to bend to the whims of the Executive which is horribly pathetic and wrong, and yet I just went off about how "universal" means "Western" and how irritating I find it to be. But yeah. I don't know. But ultimately talking about this is quite useless because nothing's gonna get done anyway. What's the point?

Anyway, I cut my fringe yesterday and now it's damn short and I think I look like a village idiot but I don't give a damn because: 1) the hair grows out quite fast anyway; and 2) even while looking like a village idiot I still look good so fucked if I cared.

I think I might perm my hair one of these days. If I ever get round to doing it. I'm too lazy to make the effort, not just to perm my hair, but to improve my overall appearance. For whose benefit would I be doing it? Very good question. Because as of right now, I don't give a damn.

**

Just watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy where the interns tried apologising to Bailey for last season's (contrived and ridiculous) snafu with that Denny dude. Bailey went, "You don't get to apologise to me. You don't get to feel better about yourselves." Or something like that.

I found it odd that saying sorry was seen as a way to make the person saying it feel better about herself. The way I see it? Apologising for something means admitting to a mistake. It means swallowing your pride enough to admit to a mistake. And if your pride is as central and definitive a tenet of your character as it is for me, then swallowing your pride to admit to a mistake and then apologising makes you feel worse. If I wanted to feel better about something, I'd skip the apology, wouldn't even consider it, and head straight for the accusations. Push everything away from myself and to the other person, insist that I'm right, be blissful in the ignorance that I'm wrong.

So when I actually do apologise for something, let it be known first that I don't feel any better about myself for it.

Just hypothetically speaking.

**

Right, time to do some work. Hayton, here I come.

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