FEVER 103

Sick today. Absolutely sick. Feel awful. According to aunt, who just came to drop by tub of chocolate ice-cream which I'm forbidden to eat, look awful too. Been lying in bed reading Bridget Jones' Diary. Complete Works of William Shakepeare lying on chair by bedside taunting me. Oh God. Lit S exam tomorrow. Oh God. With all the humanities people who are sure to score more than an ungraded. Oh God Oh God Oh God. Not that I mind being ungraded. In fact it's expected. I just don't like the vision I have of my lit teachers poring over my script and shaking their heads saying "We should never have let this girl take Lit S. What will the Cambridge Examiners think?" Oh God. What will my examiners think? Screwed up normal Lit paper one last week all except for Rossetti question. Do not like Shakespeare. Do not like Shakespeare. Do not like Shakespeare. Shakespeare is brilliant. Why do we have to ruin that fine opinion by studying him??!! Getting back GP prelim right before Lit S. Just what I need. Forty minutes in between both for me to freak out, recover, and freak out. Screwed up GP and I mean really really badly. Cat has been drinking defiantly from tabletop fountain. Won't be stopped. Must change water. Maybe water bowl has algae. Must scrub algae. Want chocolate ice cream. Want chocolate. Waistline has been expanding to previously unconceived proportions, inversely related to size of brain. Can't think properly any more. Arrgh.

Just read a passage in the foreword to "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams:

In fact, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them.

...If there exists any area in which a man can rise above his moral condition, imposed upon him at birth, and long before birth, by the nature of his breed, then I think it is only a willingness to know it, to face its existence in him, and I think that, at least below the conscious level, we all face it.

Talked to Mi'er for a really long time today and part of it was about all the things I'm scared of, particularly other people. Now I wonder if... instead of training to be thick-skinned or always trying to improve myself and trying to measure up in the eyes of other people... perhaps the answer lies simply in the word ACCEPT.

There has to be a certain improvement of things, in every matter... but sometimes, I think, there is a time to be content with the mere "willingness to know [one's own flaws], to face its existence". More importantly, it is due to flaws that I can try for something much more important to me: UNDERSTANDING. It lends me to something that I prize equally highly: my ability to write and do literature, to connect with people and emotions.

If this is the exchange needed, then I am, in retrospect, perfectly happy with all these flaws already in existence. All what I would require would be an awareness of them.

what warning label are you?

(Cool... I like that)

Walked into a Kodak shop today to laminate a photo of Miaka ^_^ which I'm keeping in my purse. Yes, the cat-obsessed me. Anyway, I caught sight of a really enthusiastic-sounding ad for photo frames:

"Be nice and frame everybody. Someday they might frame you too!"

That would look really good hanging from some lawyer's office wall...

Yes... and while I was being served there was another girl behind me who kept sighing, tapping her feet, and otherwise fidgeting. I considered telling her off for a while, but managed to keep my tongue in check. Then, just as the photo emerged from the laminating machine, she stared at it and went "Wow. That's a beautiful cat. Are his eyes really gold?"

... And I decided that I quite liked her after all. =p

1.10 am, and surviving on coffee and Rossetti in preparation for the Lit paper 1 exam. Rant warning: reading through my Rossetti file has not put me in a good mood. No one should EVER go through too much Rossetti at one go; I used to like her before this. Now I think her poetry is so darn optimistic, I can hardly breathe.

I mean I have nothing against Rossetti as a poet. As a poet, if I sidestep for a moment all her more religious poetry, she actually does fine—I have quite a few favourites in “A Pause of Thought”, “Mirage”, “The Heart Knoweth Its Own Bitterness” etc. What I really dislike (in a mild sense) is the woman herself, the person, who seems to me not to be aware that she is a person. Renounce, renounce, renounce… I think Rossetti is one darn heck of a repressed woman, and having to plough my way through pages and pages of renunciation and restrained emotions is making me feel seriously repressed myself. Everything is God this and God that which I (excuse me here) absolutely cannot connect to and, even if I am in no position to criticize, her own brother and critic commented that she ceased to be able to think for herself… nothing was “wrong” or “right” in her own terms, all was left to whether or not it conformed to Anglican beliefs. I absolutely cannot see why she is so well admired, and yet for the convenience of getting a good grade I have to grit my teeth and lie through them, and do it terribly well into the bargain.

Has she ever thought that if the sole purpose of life was to long and pray for the day she could “renunciate” everything and be reunited with her precious God again… then what was she given life in the first place for?

...Though I suppose I should have better things to do with my time, than get irritated with people who died like, oh, just a couple of centuries ago.

Been feeling utterly restless all day; curbed it for the time being by buying a colourful Happyhouse pin for my bag. Buying things when I’m in a state of bad spirits has been a habit since I was young. It doesn’t solve anything, but looking at pretty things make me happy. And it’s a whole lot better than binge eating, which I’m starting to do again. I must watch it.

My sister left for Leeds University, UK on an exchange program just days ago. I don’t miss her – this may be blunt, but at least it’s honest – I mean it would be nice if she’s here, but I never talk to her much anyway. Still, I suspect it’s the reason for this restlessness – this awful itch that won’t go away – settling like a deep sand into my bones. My mom has become increasingly busy with her work these days, and this being the eighth month (an auspicious number) she’s out about two or three times every week for wedding dinners. She’s worried how I’m taking it. What can I say? I’m not a stranger to eating by myself – but eating dinner at home, alone, with only the television and the hi-fi blasting away at the same time – it simply smacks too much of that time before.

I’ve been left behind, somehow. Overlooked.

Of course this isn’t the reality of things. Of course my mom feels guilty too; she’s my mother. My sister probably isn’t feeling too good herself in a new country full of strangers. But that’s a reality ascribed by the intellect, and if there’s something I’ve learned in life, it’s that what I feel is what I feel… no amount of reason can affect it. I can’t help feeling left out. I can’t help feeling all over again that there’s something jarringly wrong that I either can’t or simply won’t do anything about. When I’m say I’m ok, do you think I’m really ok? Think again.

Yet what else would I say?

I could say I minded. My mom’d cancel dinner arrangements if I just said the word. And then what then? And then I’d lock myself up in my room reading or studying – I’ve exhausted my entire supply of books, I should start on my Shakespeare soon – and my mom would stay downstairs watching VCDs and singing to herself, popping in from time to time to ask if I need a drink or a cookie or something. Nice and kind, but ineffectual. Does it make a difference?

Nothing seems to work any longer.

This is not a home, and school doesn’t give much reason for one to feel optimistic either. I’m starting to have that feeling again – that pining, hopeless, intense wanting for something that I can’t even name. And all I can do now is buy things that look pretty.

Somehow I've a feeling Mi'er will like this... *grin*

You Don't Love Me Anymore
By Weird Al Yankovic

We've been together for so very long
But now things are changing, oh I wonder what's wrong
Seems you don't want me around
The passion is gone and the flame's died down

I guess I lost a little bit of self-esteem
That time that you made it with the whole hockey team
You used to think I was nice
Now you tell all your friends that I'm the Antichrist

Oh, why did you disconnect the breaks in my car?
That kind of thing is hard to ignore
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore

I knew that we were having problems when
You put those piranhas in my bathtub again
You're still the light of my life
Oh darling, I'm beggin', won't you put down that knife?

You know, I even think it's kinda cute the way
You poison my coffee just a little each day
I still remember the way that you laughed
When you pushed me down that elevator shaft

Oh, if you don't mind me asking, what's this poisonous cobra
Doing in my underwear drawer?
Sometime I get to thinking you don't love me any more

You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill
Now my scars are all healing, but my heart never will
You set my house on fire
You pulled out my chest hairs with an old pair of pliers

Oh, you think that I'm ugly and you say that I'm cheap
You shaved off my eyebrows while I was asleep
You drilled a hole in my head
Then you dumped me in a drainage ditch and left me for dead

Oh, you know this really isn't like you at all
You never acted this way before
Honey, something tells me you don't love me any more, oh no no
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore

Did this poem in the Prac Crit exam today - loved it! ^_^

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town
by E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few)
and down they forgot as up they grew
(autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

free enneagram test

Profile Summary for the Enneagram Type Four

Healthy: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate. / Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong. At Their Best: Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.

Average: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination. / To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings. / Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.

Unhealthy: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function. / Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them. / Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer".

Examples: Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Joseph Fiennes, Bob Dylan, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel Proust, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, "Blanche DuBois" (Streetcar Named Desire).

Addictions: Over-indulgence in rich foods, sweets, alcohol to alter mood, to socialize, and for emotional consolation. Lack of physical activity. Bulimia. Depressants. Tobacco, prescription drugs, or heroin for social anxiety. Cosmetic surgery to erase rejected features.

My next closest type: Type 2 (The Helper)
Addictions: Abusing food and over-the-counter medications. Bingeing, especially on sweets and carbohydrates. Over-eating from feeling "love-starved." Hypochondria to look for sympathy.

Just came back from five hours fifteen minutes of pushing a pen across the paper, trying to see what divine inspiration might guide me to reveal... it's not automatic writing, it's called the Prelim Exams.

Maths and Econs paper 3 on the same day... wanted to begin the exams with a Big Bang, did we?? The timetable planners are either Really Sadistic, or they happen to think people don't actually need to study for Math. Well, sorry folks. Thank you for the touching amount of faith in me. I happen to have a reason to be in "Maths Special Class", and it's not S paper, yes? At least I hear from Shu that the RJ timetable is not much better... in fact, they seem to be almost identical.

Listening to Jay Chou now... what is best translated as "Clear Day" is a really good song. Really good. Quite surprising, coming from the King of Mumblers *ducks from Jay-Chou fan assaults* Well, at least I have a break tomorrow before the Lit papers start, which is a relief really. And I actually look forward to Lit, which is at least something that I can actually have expectations about, from myself. Still as I told Hanjie, after the Math paper this morning, I've reached a state of "enlightened detachment" ^_^; which I doubt was what the Buddhists were talking about, but well.

Good luck, good luck all those who are having exams... and if you are... *WHACK* *WHACK* What are you doing surfing blogs?? Get back to studying!

Word of the Day for Monday September 8, 2003

defenestrate \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\, transitive verb:
To throw out of a window.

Alright, so this "of the day" is one day late, but then I've never had much of a notion of time (just like my sense of direction... wait a minute WHAT sense of direction... hmm)

Some of his apparent chums . . . would still happily defenestrate him if they caught him near a window.
--Andrew Marr, "No option bar the radical one," [1]Independent, July 5, 1994

I defenestrated a clock to see if time flies!
--Lane Smith, quoted in "Who's News," [2]Time for Kids, September 25, 1998

Ling would, owing to a day of hopeless non-directional studying punctuated by fretful fits of Oreo cookies, dearly love to defenestrate all her Econs and Math books out of the nearest window.
--Ling, quoted in blog "*~Constellation v 3.0~*," [3] September 9, 2003

I've been spending my happy time reading people's blogs instead of studying, owing to a persistent inability to concentrate, owing to my cat's disappearance over the last 24 hours and 47 minutes. Somehow I can't shake the feeling that this is a punishment I deserve for being too attached to something, and then my "intellect, re-awakening" points out the futility and wrongness of this statement, and then I mope around the house and eat cookies on the stairs thinking of how my cat used to sleep there in the afternoons, and then over and over again, on my "sterile round".

Qinying's blog has been quite interesting - yeah I think "My Papa's Waltz" is talking about child abuse and let me guess, the person "C" was Chee Keong right? I was pretty amused over your

...nearly chose "Can a weblog ever replace a personal diary" question for essay, but passed it over cause I know I'll be rambling about intruding of privacy by sneaky surfers who type in your name and BONKERS! Found it your private and public diary, or you might encounter the frightful possibilities of having your life story being made into a movie.

Heh. Hey I wouldn't mind that happening... if that was the worst that could happen. =p You and Mi'er have the disadvantage of being found easily through your nicknames... but type "Ling" into any search engine and a million and one irrelevant searches spring up (I haven't found myself yet, Ailin how did you manage?) including someone known as "Samantha Ling the Merciless" who is an artist... not bad eh? ^_^

Alright. Guess I better get back to Lit (which I chose to study today, seeing it's the only subject I can still absorb with interest in a semi-conscious state).

Mad Hatter Day

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


Today is officially Mad Hatter Day. For me, that is. I got that term from (surprise!) Alice In Wonderland, where Alice visits the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. (And then there's the Dormouse, of course, but seeing that he's hardly conscious...) These guys are sitting around a table full of tea-things, and every few minutes they pop up like a couple of cuckoos to change chairs. That's what I'm doing today.

I'm sitting at my dining room table, which is round with six seats. At one chair I have: a huge file of Econs notes and a scroll of brown paper to draw graphs on... next chair I have E.M. Forster's A Passage To India... turn around and you see a bright Pink Econs tys... next chair there's my Maths tys... and rounding up, taking two seats, there's my stack of Math prelim papers, of which I have only done one. (And very badly too.)

And right in the middle of this temple of study is-! *drumroll* A packet of Oreo cookies, which acts as a stimulant. Why only one? Because right before I'd even started... I devoured two out of sheer panic at the sight of so much paper.

Yes. I think I better get back to it now. Just looking at my table is enough to drive me into a frenzy (and it's not the Oreo cookies, unfortunately).


"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

~ William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride"


Ah, yes. The whole Clive business. I came to school feeling all bright and chirpy and, as Wanyu and Joyce told me, positively radiant. I gathered Hanjie and Kah Yin - Joanna and Mi'er were late for school - and filled my file with GP notes to make my file twice as heavy. Then I set off towards the S7 class bench.

It was really, really funny cos' I was behind him at first. (There was only one friend beside him, pity there weren't more, but I hated to be kept waiting) So I thought, as I towered over him like a malevolent spirit, that "perhaps I shouldn't attack him from behind" - not a very gentlemanly, whoops, gentlewomanly thing to do. (Not that anything I intended to do was going to be very gentle, but then.) So out loud I said, rather prosaically,

"You had better turn around now."

He turned.

WHAM!

Lovely lovely effect it had... Hanjie and Kah Yin, who were both watching from a safe few metres behind, told me there was an echo. AN ECHO!!! ^_- (I didn't hit him on the head after all because Mi'er and my aunt convinced me I might get into trouble for assault... instead I settled for somewhere between his back and his arm.) Furthermore they both said they'd never seen me move so fast, or hit anything so hard. I don't even give it my all like that when playing tennis! Then I told him everything I'd prepared myself to say, namely, that he was a fucked up miserable piece of shit and if he dared tell any more people who I was, I would make the rest of his life look as ugly as his face.

Mmm. I feel good. I feel really really good!

The state of euphoria wore off somewhat during the course of the day. Sure it was fun, but calming down, I had to acknowledge that I created this whole mess. I began it in childishness - I ended it in childishness ("Let's-Play-Payback-Time"). Sure, he did do something wrong... but if I hadn't started it in the first place, I wouldn't have done all this to myself. By the time I knew what he was doing - telling every idiot friend of his how to recognize me - I couldn't possibly have taken it lying down.

Yeah. So that's the end of the story for you. Next time, please God, I will NEVER. EVER. LIKE ANYONE AGAIN. Maybe I should turn lesbian *looks around* Any takers?

The End

Happy Prelims, everybody.

My General Paper starts tomorrow. Still, I'm rather anticipating the day, looking forward to the moment I can MARCH UP AND WHACK CLIVE ON HIS (hairless, unprotected) HEAD. Half of me is hoping I'll ruin his GP for the day, but the other half of me (namely, the little fluttering thing on my right shoulder called Conscience) hopes that it won't affect him... too badly.

If you're wondering about the sudden outburst - I was walking to the LT on Thursday afternoon when I passed by a group of guys and one of them exclaimed so loudly, "HEY ISN'T THAT THE GIRL WHO LIKES CLIVE"... sure, I'm the one who started all this nonsense and sure, I did know all this was going on before, but THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

I am going to slam my file on his head and issue him a warning, right in front of all his friends. So there.