A Lonely World of Wind

People I Never Knew

2012-01-06T04:36:00.001-08:00

One thing I find so apprehensive about reading friends' blogs is that the process often undermines the solid - or so I believed - foundation of my understanding of these particular persons. Reading what they write draws me closer to them and yet pushes me so far away at the same time; I realise just how little I knew about them, just how their usual mannerisms and words exchanged are not all that constitutes their mindscape. It's a strange discovery to be made when you've conditioned yourself to always look for meanings underneath the surface. I guess the only logical reason is that I knew, I did know that people had much more to them than what they show in an external stage called the "Society", but I was not prepared. I was never prepared.

It greatly depresses me whenever I encounter such things. Perhaps it reminds me of a form of intimacy that I've always desired for and thought I had attained, only to be shown over and over again that it was not yet time, that we had not yet arrived at that stage, that there was still a long, long way to go. What I'm talking about is a spiritual intimacy, where both sides trust each other enough for there to be a decent lack of secrecy. There's still privacy of course, because after all, secrecy is different from privacy. Privacy is something you are entitled to, something that cannot be shared with another party. Secrecy, however, is when you choose to make something private. It's a choice. It's a selection. It's a mental process. It is when two parties can skip this primal logical process that true trust can be considered forged between them, as there is no longer any reason for such defensive logic to be utilised in interacting.

When I read a friend's blog, often a time it would feel as if I had just lost a friend. I start feeling frightened. I start feeling insecure, because what is revealed to me is a stranger, someone I thought I knew and who had spent enough time by my side to justify my belief. The words they write make their images slip from my mind's eye like slithering sand, and I would watch as this new stranger walks out from the crumbling mess, his back facing me, a shadow I cannot comprehend. I am not worried that this friend would abandon me. I am worried that I would abandon him, as owing to my own foolish confidence in my understanding of him, it is not impossible that when the time comes, I would not recognise him for who he really is.

I love my friends and dearly so. I'm not sure for many cases if the feeling is mutual, but there are certain people for whose happiness I am convinced to do anything that is within my capability. It is a kind of love that I will never be able to foster for communities like my family - people I am born to be with, but whom I never chose to live with. To me, love only has meaning when you have undergone the whole process of choosing for yourself what degree of interaction suits both parties, when you realise that there is a sincere compulsion behind your actions that far exceed the obligatory undertones of societal expectations. In that case, you have chosen to love, not obliged to love. That's a world of difference.

If anything, I encountered these people personally on my own path of life, even if I may have known much less about them than I thought. They are people I chose to be with, and whether they are people I know or people I never knew, I have decided, regardless of the uncertainty, that I would love them all the same.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 8.36pm*~~~

Family

2011-12-19T21:31:00.001-08:00

I want to change my family. After two weeks of JENESYS Japan seeing what normal relationships should be like, I've finally gotten to the point where I realised that if nobody does anything, if everyone just chooses to forget (but not forgive) and let the situation at hand remain as it is, then what awaits is a merely bleak and grey future. Nothing more, nothing less.

  We had a go at it again today, my mom and I. I just couldn't take it anymore. The moment I woke up, I could hear her screaming away at my dad about not having rung up a professional painter and instead personally painting the whole house for 12 days, dragging her along for the work as well, subsequently making her lose all her precious holiday time which could have been spent on doing meaningful things like learning english and reading chinese literature.

  For some reason, that made me extremely furious. I couldn't understand why she could be so unreasonable. First things first, my dad spent 12 days painting the WHOLE house, which is nothing short of amazing, and by right he should be thanked for his efforts instead of being bombarded by the scalding complaints of an unappreciative wife. Secondly, if she is whining about her holidays, what about my dad? As much as my mom works as well, my dad is still undeniably the main economic support of the family. He toils just as much as my mom does, if not more. And when december comes, while my mom enjoys her school holiday, he doesn't even have a holiday to talk about. What gives her the right to scream at him for having asked for her help? What gives her the right to pity herself and trouble my dad when HE is the one who is taking days off, sacrificing precious time and rest, for a project the WHOLE family should have been spending time on together?

  So I stood up for my dad, and as much as it hurt me, I'm glad I did. It felt nice fighting for someone else. I do not particularly like my dad, but I like reason and that's all it takes for me to decide to defend him. My mom overstepped the line. I'm a grown girl now, I want to have my say. I want to let others have their say as well. I want to know that I have it in me to stand up for what's reasonable.

  I told my mom that instead of painting the whole house and giving it a brand new look, we might as well look into ourselves and renew the more intangible aspects of our family. Our relationship. Our love. Our bonds. You see, I've finally realised that all these years, my family has been working on a "fight and forget" basis. We fight, and then we let time numb the pain of the wounds and pretend that those things are in the past and can just be buried with the foundations of our house. We fight, we forget, but do not forgive. Nobody says things that goes into the others' hearts. Nobody does things because of sincere compulsion instead of obligatory motives. Everyone just wants to evade trouble, to leave things as they are in hope of a better tomorrow which would simply wash away the blackened remains of yesterday.

  When I stood up and attempted to reason with my mom today (with bad consequences, of course), my dad was quick to ask me to stop and go to my room. I pointed at him and told him that what he's doing all these years is running away. He's scared of facing my mom, scared of facing the conflict that would be sure to arise if he stood up for himself. I do not want to see my dad silently taking the abuse. I do not want to see anyone silently taking abuse! Not my dad, not myself, not anyone in the world. My mom is clearly in the wrong and if the rest of the family just remains silent as she rages, as we've always been doing, it would just give her more "reason" to believe that she is right and always right, that she holds the authority of the house, that things must be done the way she wants. Everything will just go downhill from there. It is foolish to believe that things will just get better if we leave them be, to fester in their stagnant state.

  What my family needs to do now is to learn how to forgive. One cannot forgive if he is not receptive to reason. That is my mom's main problem, something that she cannot see in herself.

  I told my mom today that I know she's a good person, that she tries her best in everything she does and has the capability to exceed (which she has in her workplace), that she wishes well for others and I appreciate her concerns for my future. She told me that she regretted having given birth to me and that I should leave the house and jump off the balcony right then and there. I didn't care much about that; it wasn't new anyway. I told her that even if she didn't love me as much as she believed she did (or was obliged to), even if I was not her child, even if I was to die right then and there, it doesn't change the fact that this family will collapse if nothing is changed in due time. This family, in this context, being her and my dad. Their non-stop arguing in my 2-week absence suggests that my presence in this family does not make their relationship any much better or worse. It's their own future as a couple I'm talking about. Someday, I'm going to leave this house, and in those someday-s, they will be the ones left to deal with each other. The amount of pleasure they can obtain in their retirement is largely decided by how well they can handle each other, and how well they can support each other through age and time.

  I have found my answer to the question I've been asking myself for many years...and the answer is that I do not love my family. And yet it does not depress me to say this. I'm just glad that I've sorted it out with myself, that I finally know that this empty feeling upon hearing the word "family", that this numbing apathy when I see my parents, is owing to the fact that there is no true and unchangeable bond running in our veins other than blood. However, I can still do things for them even without love. I can still defend them. I can still repay them. I can still live with them, laugh with them, try to make life better for them. I can still change them.

  I just do not love them, but that's no big deal. It's just a little different.

  So today's face-off ended with my dad shouting at my mom in an act of self-justification and me leaving the kitchen feeling absolutely drained and distressed. But that's okay. I've gotten it off my chest, I've reasoned it out with myself, and I know what I should do next.

  Something. Anything. As long as I don't stay silent and forget as I've always done, I'm sure I'll get somewhere.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 1.31pm*~~~

Macbook Pro

2011-11-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it, my dad was so freakin' generous he actually decided to buy me the 15-inch macbook pro with the best specs, even though I myself was squirming at the price and was suggesting some tone-downs just to alleviate the financial pressure. I mean really, I wasn't expecting that at all. He gave me the impression that he would not spend anything on electronic devices that cost more than $1500 tops, but apparently he worked things out in his head this time round and figured it was fine to spend a shitload of cash on something really useful and long-lasting.

A'yup, I plan to use this com for a super long time in return. Spent my first coupla days rummaging through online manuals and reviews to stock up on computer management information...especially battery-wise, I'm just so bothered by the battery management. Apparently mac notebooks use lithium batteries and these require a different method of usage. Instead of trying to avoid the charger as much as possible, we're actually supposed to stick it in most of the time when using the com, and just make sure we calibrate the battery at least once a month to keep the charges flowing. That's something new. I guess it's better this way, I wouldn't be taxing the battery, nor would I be worrying about the time left before I have to start charging the com again.

So, my thoughts on the com...I guess I have to say I'm in love with it. It's kind of amazing how I could crossover from disliking the mac interface to loving it in just one night. I guess this sort of thing happens once you gain more knowledge of the subject.

Not to mention, TF2ing is a hell lot better now on this new com. It has 2 graphics cards with dynamic switching, and the gaming experience is just awesome with all those high-def details! The only problem left is just the occasional fluctuation of the wireless connection, but that's something I can't really help, and it doesn't really bother me too much anyway. As long as I get into a decent server, I can still play a really good game. All in all, man, I'm pleased. Really pleased.

Love mah new macpro. I hope it will accompany me all the way till after uni or even longer, that would be so worth it. Imagine doing architecture or graphic design on this beaut'...hmm...

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 11.05pm*~~~

Kicking the Door

2011-11-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

I've been getting really frustrated with my parents again lately. After studying for months on end for EYAs and frikkin' HCL and Jap Os, now they're telling me, just one week after the final exam ended, that I have to start revising for JLPT and SAT and finish up that goddamn shit called e-learning, which apparently I'm supposed to review simply because they spent bucks on it and it's gonna end this december. Somehow, they just can't seem to leave me alone. I have to do be doing work. They like seeing me do work. That's perfectly understandable, considering how half-assed many KS China parents are, but that doesn't make it reasonable.

And yesterday my mom flew into a rage and ruined the night by scolding me for not flying back to China and being "filial" to my grandparents, all because I over-napped and she was pissed. I mean I can understand if she scolds me for over-napping, but not when she picks up some entirely irrelevant shit and shrieks around about it for hours on end just to let off steam. It's really pissing. Really pissing. Anyway, I'm already going Japan this December on the immersion trip, they seriously want me to fly to two countries in one holiday? It'd be wasting their money as well, and then when they're unhappy some other day, they'd scold me for it. What's the point, man?

I thought that my parents would at least be reasonable and I did think I could put up with 1h of Chinese everyday, even if HCL Os has just ended. But not this. Definitely not this, I'm NOT expecting them to suddenly throw me all sorts of shits and take away my hard-earned reprieve, simply because their asses are smoking when they see me being relaxed and enjoying myself. They can get their asses charred for all I care. I don't give a damn, really.

This is gonna be my last holiday. I mean it. My last holiday as a teenager, before JC hits next year with two years worth of studying like shit for As, and then afterwards it's just more education and work. I wanted to make the best out of it. I wanted to catch up on all the fun I've missed in all the previous four years: gaming, hanging out with friends, painting till god knows when, staying up late and talking goof on MSN...hell, even running in the rain or going to some spiritual meditation place or something. I want to do all these things before age makes it impossible to do them without being looked upon weirdly. Not that I'd care about others at this rate, since I'm starting to learn not to care about others' expectations of me, but I'd like to do these things when I am still naturally entitled to do them. I want my own space. I want my own time.

I want my freedom, my freedom, goddamnit! Just WHERE the hell is it?!

Fuck SAT. Fuck JLPT. Fuck As. Fuck JC. And most importantly, fuck Chinese.

...I do believe I see why my room needs to be painted orange now.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 9.01am*~~~

Headphones

2011-10-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

...So I spent around 50+ bucks buying a frikkin' headphone. I liked the design and figured that since every one of my earphones ended up dying a horrible death, I should probably get something bigger and more...stable, hopefully, and which would wrap me up in the world of music. Let's not care about the proverbial bloody car which could be heading towards me any time.

I guess I'm quite pleased with the quality, well, not entirely, but whatever, I can't possibly spend more on a frikkin' headphone. I'm using the $150 I got from my mom for the three 4.0s this year. The remaining 100 bucks or so will be going into the new bank account which I'm gonna get next saturday; I think it's time to start saving things up, the money would probably be less of a burden on my mind if it's safely locked up somewhere. If I manage to keep the saving thing going, maybe I'd be able to gather enough funds for a lightbox or a tablet next year, that'd be awesome. Well, we'll see.

Alright dead tired today...Chinese overload and too much hassle from the CCA CIP hours shit and LEAPS points records...I have to sort it out with so many teachers! Agh! I hope Ms Seah and Mr Raihan don't throttle me for all the inconvenience I'm causing them. I feel so bad but I really want my points as well. ._. I mean, I do deserve them, I think! I did attend the sessions faithfully in 2009! I can't just get 0 points because the records show 66% attendance, it just doesn't make sense, yanno, since my 2010 one shows 93% and technically I should have attended more sessions in the previous year since I didn't have SAP then. It doesn't make sense. I'm not gonna rest till I get a proper explanation and a proper outcome as well.

Fix. Mah. Records. Goddamnit.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 10.47pm*~~~

Okay This is Strange

2011-10-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Some random guy got my MSN address somehow and suddenly IMed me when I came home today, and, well, he said a whole bunch of weird stuff, really weird stuff. Firstly, he wouldn't tell me who he was though I friggin' prompted thrice, and then he sent me a link, which I didn't click, and claimed that it was a picture of him and he - AGH geez! Simply put, he was being horny and probably wanted to either show himself in some compromising manner or try to lure me.

As usual, I was trying my best to be polite until after a couple of sentences I realised where it was going and promptly rejected him. And yeah there was some tassle on his part, trying to appeal to my sense of sympathy or something with shit words like "don't break my heart", and I told him that there was no fuckin' way his heart could be broken because he obviously doesn't even know me. Anyway, I don't care if his heart is broken. It'd be better that way.

Just...what...the...hell?

Stupid idiot. I'm still feeling kind of creeped out because I have no idea who this idiot is and how he's got my MSN address (unless it's someone on DA or Facebook), and also where the hell he lives because if he's got my MSN address, who knows if he's got something more? Like maybe my home address or something? I know now's not the time to be paranoid but this sets you thinking yo. He even had the audacity to claim that he loves me even though he's never even seen me before - probably the greatest WTF thing that I'm sure none of the people I actually interact with for a decent amount of time ever does, even on the net. I hope that means he's nowhere remotely near Singapore.

I can never get the hang of queer shits poppin' up all around me. I can deal with bad results and lost competitions and familial disputes but this is just so out of the blue, and I don't like it one bit. I'm caught between being creeped out and being amused by just how idiotic this little shit is behaving.

Well, I just remembered the fantastic function of BLOCKING a person on MSN. I'll do that. I'll do that right away.

Jesus.

***

~~~Waited for the Winds at 11.08pm*~~~

Sweet Sixteen (or not?)

2011-10-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

So, erm, yes, now I'm sixteen. No party poppers and catcalls and gay rainbow balloons please, I think sixteen is an age where people start to outgrow that instinctual excitement that children have at birthday celebrations. Somehow birthdays no longer seem like a very happy thing. Still special, maybe, but not happy, because they remind you of a year gained and many things lost.

They say "Sweet Sixteen", but personally I believe that there's a large word-bank of S-words that can replace the first in the pair.

Still, I think I have to say I had a pretty good, uh, sort of celebration yesterday. My mom dragged me out to the mall and we had lunch and she bought me a whole bunch of clothes, something I haven't done in over a year I think, watched a romance movie, and today morning she went out to buy this whole box of (expensive-looking) chocolate biscuits while I was asleep and wrote a small card of sorts to wish me happy birthday. Now that was touching. Yeah I'm touched, really, and at times like this I find myself confused as to whether my mom is a bitch or not. She's just so, you know, bipolar. It baffles me and I have no idea how I should deal with her.

I still appreciate everything she's done that definitely deserves appreciation, of course. It's just at times I get so mad at her, and at other times I feel either sorry or grateful and touched. I think all I really wish for is a stable relationship where one side doesn't have to constantly be in preparation for a full-blown mood swing from the other side. It just makes you live life on the tips of your toes and you know, there's a certain lack of...security.

Welp, whatever, I'm sixteen now, and that's probably all that matters for today. There're a lot of things to think about on your birthday. Whether you should be happy or sad is one of them.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 10.17am*~~~

The Shackles are Back

2011-10-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

Why yes, now that my mom has very kindly insisted (like a bitch) on "taking care" of my Chinese studies, in preparation for the upcoming Os, I'm finding the freedom I've regained for a short period of time after my Jap Os being extremely short-lived. The short period of time being one day. One day being a whole bunch of hours wasted because my parents dragged me out to some stupid park and some stupid Chinese civilization exhibition, while I was sick from the jeebs I got from the panic attack thanks to Jap Listening Compre the previous day.

And today was horrible, because I was frikkin' trying to focus on my Bio group presentation and my mom kept hollering at me about the Chinese O-level past-year papers she made me do during the June hols while she was freezing off her lazy ass in Russia. So I went to print all the docs out, and then she yelled at me for not having written them out instead because who knows what shit I might've done on the com. Well what the shit indeed. I was saving time, goddamnit, because there's not a lot of time to talk about when you have a damned SAP Coursework and long-assed Chinese papers to rush through every single day. And then the most outrageous thing was that the goddamn bitch actually thought I'd copied all the answers from the answer booklet. What the fuck? We didn't even receive the answer booklet until a good one month after the June hols! She wouldn't believe me! Well guess not, but still!

The only amusing thing was that she made me redo the first cloze passage to check if my current answers are the same as the ones I wrote in June, but turns out they were not only the same, I actually scored full marks whereas I got one wrong for the June set. That was kind of funny. In her face, man, I wish there were more in-her-face moments. They make me feel just a tad better, and that's enough.

Now, in most cases I would have appreciated help, but my mom is an absolute no-no. Sure, she's a Chinese teacher and I must admit that she's pretty darn good in the subject, but the ways in which she's trying to get me to improve are all WRONG. You don't try to get people to improve by making them do mindless penmanship. That shit is for kids - you know, kindergarteners who can't write their shit properly with a pencil in one hand, or even two? You also don't get people to improve by making them read the passages in textbooks which aren't even used.

I know my own problems, okay? If I had my way, I'll just be spending hours per day reading Chinese books. Well that's the way I always study for Japanese. Basically what I did was know the grammar structures through the years, which wasn't that difficult since I'd make it a point to remember during the lessons themselves, revise some kanji, and then the rest was just reading random books and articles to get the feel of the language, and watching anime to improve my listening as well as oral capabilities. And this way has gotten me pretty far, or as far as a 4.0. I know how I learn languages, I know how I should be learning languages. It's just a hell lot of reading...a hell lot of reading, to get the feel of things because the way I do things is by feeling. Simple as that.

Well, the only thing I agree with her albeit reluctantly is the practice part...shit's gonna get real, man, and it's gonna hit the fan as well. I can just sense all the diabolic plans going on in her head to make me relive those hellish PSLE days in the coming month.

Ugh. GEP, then P4 Streaming, then PSLE, then Os, then SAT, then As, then college exams, then this humongous shit called work where you may very well return home one day to find the dining table missing. Exams, exams, and more exams! We're never gonna be free, are we?

Okay, end of rant. Now I shall start thinking about African kids and demented China students and remind myself of just how good a fucking life I'm living.

Biting the Dirt

2011-10-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

Jap Os Listening Compre was the hardest shit I've ever done all these years. I suffered a panic attack as well as a dizzy spell right after because I've never, seriously, never encountered a passage in LC that I couldn't understand from start to finish. Well you see, I was panicking over the previous passage and trying to scribble whatever answers I could remember when the next reading began to play, and by the time I finished scribbling, I couldn't catch the start of the next reading, so I ended up not understanding it at all. It was so fucked up. I knew something was very fishy when the grammar paper on Wed was so uncannily easy; turns out that they really did plan on killing us with the next two parts of the Jap paper.

Man, of all the Jap exams, the only one I had to screw up is O levels. What the fuck is wrong with me and important exams?

I feel so tired now, and my head was swirling so badly after the exam that for a moment I seriously doubted I would make it for the MRT trip back home. Something is not right. It's probably the adrenaline, as well as the coffee, and the panic which hit right after I downed that caffeine drink...and a sort of hatred harboured against myself. I can already feel myself slipping back into depression. I must not lose my footing, must not let old shits happen again...because I know what can happen when I'm depressed and I'm trying my best to prevent its occurrence.

Heh, but speaking of which, I really think I'm such a goner. I can't do anything right somehow. Not my academics, not TAP, not even a game like TF2, not to mention my severely lacking people skills. Everything I do seems to garner an OTL moment. I'm no longer asking for people to have faith in me...I'm having trouble finding that faith in myself. I'm past that age of longing for people to "babysit" me. And yet with that longing gone, so is a whole layer of meaning in my life. Something feels...dismal. Not right. Shattered and unable to be pieced together again. I'd really like to know what it is, yet at the same time I think I shouldn't as well. Some things are probably best to be left alone to nature's course.

I'm tired. I can't type anymore. That's all for today.

***

~~~*Waited for the winds at 6.18pm*~~~

Retracing Paths

2011-09-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Was bored yesterday and without inspiration so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do this meme as well. I guess I'm pretty satisfied with my improvement over the past 2 years. If I didn't put these two side by side, I wouldn't have been able to feel at least somewhat confident about the pace of my progress. All I felt for the past few months was that I didn't entirely improve much from the immediate past...but I guess the big picture really shows things differently and more comprehensively.

I think I've managed to come to terms with the fact that not being selected for TAP isn't the end of my artistic journey. After all, different mentors suit different apprentices, and maybe my time just hasn't come yet. I don't think I'm too bad. Many people say I downplay myself too much, and yet to me it just felt like the right thing to do because, perhaps due to the manner of upbringing, being proud feels like a sin. I have no idea what to say about myself sometimes. I know I'm probably good in some things, and I know how far my passion can take me, but sometimes...sometimes I just can't see those things and the darker side overshadows everything.

Like what Awa told me, if they don't want me, well, I shall just self-study and get tips from people who're willing to give them. There's no restriction to who and where I can get knowledge from, as well as how I get it. As long as I don't stop believing in myself, I can and will try to amount to something in future.

While I have passion, I must have the confidence to pursue my passion as well. Maybe this is what this entire TAP mentorship failure is meant to teach me. :)

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 11.43am*~~~

In the Dust

2011-09-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

So I gave myself a good night's sleep and dreamt an extremely long and vivid dream as well. There were many scenes and all of them were random, but there was also a strange bittersweet twinge to all those events that occurred. There was an afro-american boy who was comforting me as I waited in vain for someone at a deserted airport, friends who looked anxiously upon me from above as i fell flat on my back while trying to climb the stairs, and someone sent huge bags of sweets and chocolates to my house and dumped them on the top bunk of my bed, despite it being strange because I don't actually have a double-bunker in real life. These friends...these strange people I met yesterday, they weren't any of my dream companions. I could tell from their energy that they weren't the same as my previous kin. However, wherever they came from was probably similar if not the same, because they had the same kind of energy...not entirely identical, but similar to large extents, and it was heartening to feel their love and protection once again after being deserted for so long alone in the cool air of a vast dreamscape.

Sometimes I wonder if Em and my other pals are still watching me somewhere as I journey through my dreamscape night and day. At times when I feel sad, I feel their presence, just a mild feeling, around in the room as if wondering if they should step up and communicate with me whichever way they can. And all those 11:11 escapades or sightings of repeated numbers...they do communicate with me through numbers, a lot more lately, and sometimes whenever I think of things I would unconsciously glance at the clock and find numbers which would give me simple indications of whether I'm on the right track, or I need to turn back and take another route altogether. Maybe they're still around, I just can't see them as much as I do last time, that's all. They're still here and that's all that matters.

After all these years, I've learnt to see that everything in my life at least happens for a reason. Whether good or bad, they all seem to fit into the bigger picture like puzzle pieces and seem to be facets of a gigantic system. Sometimes when I don't manage to get what I want, such as this mentorship programme, I'd realise later on, with great relief, that if I had managed to get that particular thing at that time I wouldn't have been able to fulfill another much greater desire or received much more helpful benefits. Some things are meant to be gotten, and some things are not. These happen of their own accord either to let me learn important lessons, or to clear the way for better things in future...and for all the past 15 years of my life, I've begun to see this trend which almost never falters.

Everything happens for a reason. That's what gives me comfort and confidence to continue even if the times are dark and unpromising.

You know, I was wondering lately if I should ever mother a child when I grow up. I find myself thinking a lot like Hedda Gabler at times. Not that cold, of course, but the line of thought is approximately the same and we both have the same concerns. If I mother a child, my freedom will be gone. I will not be able to retain the freedom to die whenever I wish, nor can I pursue whatever I desire, because I'll have another life to take care of and which depends upon me to survive. By then, I will be a slave to both the child's life as well as my own conscience and societal obligations. I do not want that. I want to live free and die free. If I die and the child's alive, I'm not free either, because I'll be taking another life with me whether at present or in future when he dies without my help. Neither do I want him to waste his life because of my absence. Things like that are bound to happen.

I do not want to die killing someone, because that will be gaining freedom by taking another's, and I do not want that. That is not considered being truly free.

I will see how my life turns out. If by age 30 everything sucks worse than now, I will probably decide not to marry and take my own life before I destroy another's. I do not want to wait until I'm old and sick of life and yet unable to kill myself because by then I'd have already been bound to new obligations and new people depending on me. Everything will be worse when I, perhaps due to sickness or old age, have no choice but to depend on others.

One of the greatest wishes of my life...is perhaps to die freely while I can.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.09pm*~~~

Smoulder

2011-09-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I didn't manage to get in to the mentorship programme after all. I must really...really suck. Something nags at the back of my head that I should not be so depressed over a small setback (which isn't exactly a setback to begin with), but strange enough, I've suddenly lost whatever confidence I used to retain in my artistic pursuits as well as progress over the past few years. Was I too arrogant? Was I feeling too certain of my skill that I believed I would definitely be able to at least enter the artistic industry when I grow up?

Or was I just too insecure, and locked my eyes on whatever achievement I had up my sleeve so far just so I could grasp unto some form of reassurance? I'd never know which it is, and I'm too tired now to think as well. But it's an important question. After all, Art is a juncture with branch roads in many different directions and my purpose of pursuit will affect the path I choose eventually. I cannot afford to make wrong choices. I cannot afford to lose my chances. If I lose my footing for just one second, I may very well find myself losing everything I owned in the next. The world is that dangerous...and I've grown to accept that fact.

This is giving me some serious qualms about my perception of my own artistic pursuits all the way up till now. I'm still feeling harrowed by the fact that I, a noob whom mentors could not bring themselves to bother mentoring, actually blindly thought I had the power to carry my Art to the next level with sheer passion and courage.

Passion and courage, so to speak, are probably the only two things I have with me on this journey. I walk upon the very watershed of reality and the idealistic world every single second of my life. When I endeavour, I believe that the spiritual will spill over easily like a wave ashore and push me forward just as well...and sometimes it has worked, sometimes it hasn't, but I was always well enough to continue trying in a few days or weeks. Yet for some reason, not being short-listed as a mentee this time round really struck a chord somewhere. Somehow I think I had some kind of preconceived notion that teachers would not be too hard to find. After all, everyone is a teacher in a way, and it only seems right that seniors should be at least willing to disclose some experiential information to eager yet clueless juniors. Being rejected an apprenticeship...really made me feel rotten to the core. It brought up a lot of confidence issues and doubts I had about Art all this while but which I suppressed in my enthusiasm to keep pursuing what I feel passionate towards, and having them all resurfacing at once, and in such a nasty manner too, was rather unsettling.

I've tried to calm myself down and make myself think it's not a big deal, that teachers can make their choices and these aren't the only (and also probably not the best) teachers I will be meeting. But I failed. I really tried hard but I failed. Whenever I think about this mentorship programme...I feel hurt, I feel jealous, I feel painful, insecure, frustrated, worried, anguished, doubtful and depressed all at the same time. It's like a dark mass of negativity I haven't encountered in a while. And here I thought that post-EYAs would be cheerful, though it turns out that things will just keep happening and the bad replaces the good whenever possible.

For now, since I can't give myself answers, and neither can I reassure myself in any way, I shall log off and go to sleep. I hope that after a good night's rest as well as emotional release, I can get back on track and think clearer and more logically tomorrow.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.23am*~~~

Hole in the Window

2011-09-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

I'm slipping back into depression so fast I can't believe myself. I probably have an affinity for sadness and negative emotions or something, because I can't hold myself upright for more than a month, and the weight of life just comes crashing down before I know it. In those two months where I've been able to remain healthily positive, I was aware of the brighter sides of things and berated my old self for being such a dick and not being able to peer past the corner and see what splendour awaits. And yet, now I can't see that splendour anymore. Not a glance, not a peek...just pure blackness, deep, dark, unrelenting blackness. It's gone.

...or maybe I've just closed my eyes again.

Az and Stef both got short-listed for the TAP interview. I shall be downright honest and I won't say I'm happy, not at all. It's not jealousy though, just a dark hatred towards myself again for not being good enough and not being the ideal I try so hard to reach. I'm not angry with them nor am I jealous of their achievement. But I can't bring myself to feel happy. Obligation or not, whether or not I am their friend, I can't feel happy...not now.

I don't really know what to say. I've still got a chance, probably, but it's so slim that I probably can't make it at all anyway. I need to pull myself up but I can't. Every time I fail, there's just this constriction of the lungs that makes it had to breathe for a long while, and I can't walk away, neither can I think properly. It's not sadness, and it's not anger either. I just don't know what to feel. Perhaps it's just the calm before the storm, where the timeless moment encases me and I let myself come to terms with what has really happened before the gravity of the situation crashes down.

The half-finished Naruto Copic piece is still on my tabletop. I'm not going to finish it today anymore. Any thought of art now makes me feel sick somehow...because if I'm not good enough, what am I thinking, happily drawing away and believing that I can really amount to anything? If I can't even be short-listed for a mentorship programme, if no mentors even deem me fit to mentor, what am I basing my hopes on? These dreams, these childish aspirations...aren't they just gonna die off? Aren't they just gonna leave me, just like so many others did?

I've lost my first dream at age 15. I haven't lost my second dream, but my ability to dream is starting to slip through my fingers like sand. What's everything gonna be like in the end?

Who am I gonna be?

What am I gonna do?

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 9.13pm*~~~

Head in the Bottle

2011-09-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

It's the first week of options and I'm already finding myself looking forward to the ''end'' which is a good seven weeks away. I can't believe just how boring these options are! Not to mention I've lost two of my options, so now I'm stuck with three options which had never really been my "choice" to start with, and the first two are already starting to make me feel really, really horrible.

This doesn't mean I don't like Art & Philo, of course...I think it's just the way the whole thing is taught. I hate COI sessions because I hate speaking up and with three teachers in the room to top it off. Yet this whole thing is just like COI, and the only mild deviation from a normal tiresome Philosophy lesson is that the topic is Art, which is supposed to be something which keeps my interest, but sadly failed to do so. To me, this whole options hoolabaloo is some pathetic shit pulled off by the school in a desperate attempt to keep us occupied. Now we're dismissed even later than usual everyday and that means sardine-packing during peak hours on buses with drivers who just choose to ignore you. Great, isn't it? What a drag.

So that aside today was extremely hectic as my whole morning was spent running about for the Jap Immersion programme healthcheck.The most outrageous thing was that after having queued for 1.5 hours until they lazily opened those dainty glass doors, I was sent back home to retrieve my passport and travel document. Why does a health-check need my passport?! I've already given them my BC number, my IC as well as my Student Card, can't they at least take the time and effort to, you know, check it out? If their systems aren't able to turn up the background information of specific persons, then their technology just sucks real bad. Oh well. At least the nurses were relatively nice and I got through the stages rather quickly after I returned with my documents. That leaves me with ample time to go to school, though not enough time to have lunch, so I just gobbled a cheese sausage and a cup of Pink Guava Juice and slept my way on the MRT to Orchard.

What a tiring day, I feel like I could slump on my bed and fall right asleep. Maybe I should. I don't think I can keep my eyes open anymore...yeah, these few days it's always been difficult to keep my eyes open somehow. As if energy is draining out of me slowly but surely. I don't seem to be able to get up and about like I used to, I just don't have the energy anymore. I'm not worried, though. If I die, well, that's alright, it's gonna do some people a favour and that "some people" includes me of course.

Speaking of which, my parents have finally decided not to buy the Condo flat after all. In some way it was a great relief for me, because if they did purchase it, I'd have to pay for them when I grow up. I don't mind paying for them of course. What bothers me is the fact that such responsibilities will end the freedom I have now...the freedom to die, the freedom to choose when to die. Such responsibilities will prevent me from leaving the world whenever I wish or need to. You see, for a sensitive idealist like me, sentiments are a tricky thing, and I'm persuaded to do things more often than being coerced into doing them simply because I have no other choice. If such monetary binds were to accompany me into my post-graduation work-life, I'll be obliged to keep living, to keep surviving because I feel bad if my old parents were to be left with the daunting burden of paying everything by themselves. This is not what I want. I want freedom.

And the freedom I want can only be achieved if I do not hold myself liable over anyone else's life. In other words, I cannot rely on people, neither can I allow people to rely on me. It's for their own good as well. If I were to vanish from the world suddenly one day, those who rely on me will have nothing to depend on. I do not want that to happen. I want to die without obligations, to die without attachments. I want to come and go as I please; no mess, no ruckus, no noise and attention, just pure peace and oblivion in a timeless state where the unseeing world just leaves me be. That is the way I want to die. A free death.

Alright, that's all for tonight. I'm dead tired and should really be getting to bed no matter how early it is.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 8.48pm*~~~

Hesitation before the Run

2011-09-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Today the EYAs officially ended, the main bulk that is, we're still left with Math about 2 weeks later. I went home and sat inspiration-less, and decided to practise semi-realistic portraiture. I drew Naruto or at least a semblance of him. I'm still failing really badly. I know I probably shouldn't expect too much of myself but really, somehow it's as if I'm a failure if I can't be exceptional in art. I want to be good in something. If I'm not good in everything, at least be good in something, that's the least I can do.

Naruto turned out so screwed. I put in so much effort into this piece...I referred to artists' works, flipped the canvas from left-to-right for proportion checks over and over and over, and I skipped dinner for it as well. Now I'm dead tired. And then someone suddenly pointed out to me that the eyes were positioned too far apart and as grateful as I am to him for his constructive criticism, I was so irked by the anatomical issue that I went back to edit it more than 3 times. The first was to pull the eyes closer together and blend everything out. The second was to Change the jawline a little because it looked too effeminate. The third was to edit the chin as well as a last-ditch attempt to not make him look too girly. I think it still failed in the end. I can't seem to do anything right, can I?

I know it's the end of the EYAs and I should be enjoying, not pressurizing myself more. But I've already lost so much this year because I didn't practise art as much as I did for the last few years. I can't let myself slack now. I do love art anyway, it won't be too much of a pain as long as I can take it. I can't lag behind, not now.

And yet sometimes I wonder, just who do I think I'm lagging behind? A lot of people out there, of course, but why must I bother about them? Why can't I go at my own pace?

I have no idea myself. I try to persuade myself, but at the end of the day I just get depressed and wonder just who is trying to persuade who, for both parts are me and both talk to the other as defiantly as possible to get their points across. I'm confused. I want to take a break, but I won't allow myself to...?

By the way, I'm addicted to "Shattered" by Trading Yesterday. It's such a sad song. It fits my mood nowadays.

I'm tired. So tired. I'm going to log off now, hopefully this depression over my art can go away soon so I can do something constructive about it.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.59am*~~~

This Dismal Thing Called Love

2011-09-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

What does one do when the person she used to love is now in love? And with an unknown person, a strange, mysterious figure who now stands like a shadow between the two of them, and all he sees is her, not the other girl behind her who has turned transparent and melded into the obscure backdrop. What is one to do at times like this?

I'm not lovesick, no, just a little confused with my emotions. I didn't quite know what to feel when I first knew all of this. I guess it's what you call "Bittersweet", because four years has done enough to fade my memories along with emotions I used to carry for him, and while I am honestly glad that he is getting on with life, that he has found new purposes and new things to cherish...there is this small, inexplicable ache somewhere inside. A kind of yearning. A kind of dull throb which isn't painful but reminds you of pain as if hearing the sound of a baby crying through a translucent film. I know - I've known all along - that I'm unable to get what he is able to give, but that's okay. I won't hesitate to say that I did feel happy for him. I really did, in all honesty, just like anyone would be pleasantly surprised to find that a friend has discovered something as beautiful as romance.

I'm glad he's discovered that he's now able to give something entirely new, and to an entirely new person. I've got no problem with that. I'm not sad, not in that way.

Haha well, I think what they say about First Love and stuff like that is really true in some ways. No matter how faded the memories become, how diminished the emotions are, it is impossible to forget that small, precious piece of life which remains untouched like a perfect, isolated world encased in a snow globe. Occasionally you'd gaze at it on your desk, and watch the snowflakes flutter down from the transparent skies of that carefully preserved world...and you would feel this wave of something, nostalgia and something else perhaps, which I can't quite explain. It's a strange thing really. So forlorn, so distant, and yet eerily beautiful, and I love watching it as everything swirls to a windy rhythm in that perfect, small world.

I'm glad I confessed to him four years ago. After all, if I didn't, my feelings for him would have gone silenced and concealed and probably became a burden that I'd have to shoulder over the years. In many ways it's a relief, a great relief. I'm glad that I was foolish. I'm glad that I had the courage. Well, really, should I not be glad?

I used to love him. And maybe even now, to some minute degree, I still do love him. Maybe I always will.

After all, this dismal thing called love is also a sweet thing. I won't regret it.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.04am*~~~

Looking for a New Beginning

2011-09-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

Where to start? I've been in a pretty good mood lately, very likely due to a new element of faith I've added to my established set of belief system, and sudden curious readings in philosophy as well as spiritual messages which resonate more keenly with my personal values. I've realised the need to be grounded and spiritual at the same time. What I lacked most for the past few weeks, and which caused major turmoils in my practical life and spiritual well-being, was a balance between the two; I was so anchored to earthly affairs that I turned down chances to cleanse myself of negative frequencies and keep myself spiritually attuned. And even though I was indeed aware of a small nagging at the back of my head, where idealism sits crowning the whole purpose of my life, I was too tired to pay much attention.

So yes, I still have my down times but life is reasonably much better in terms of perception. I have learnt to tune out some things and look to higher planes for comfort. This was an amazingly efficient way of keeping my emotions in check, because it reminds me that if I have not the tolerance for idealistic carrion, I could always choose not to deal with them at all.

Speaking of idealism, I have been reading an E-book titled "The Problems of Philosophy" and this has been my time-killer for the past few days. There were several pertinent dwellings with regards to the nature of existence and knowledge, typically debating the essence of matter, and knowledge acquired through acquaintance or knowledge through description. It was thought-provoking, and thought-provocation is good, as it woke me up from being a lifeless, apathetic drudge to an active individual who would seek to perceive realms beyond what has been revealed. Basically, it wakes me up to being who I used to be before the weight of life came crashing down. I want to live again, to truly live life as it is and not what it could have been.

I find myself thinking so much lately. It's a non-stop cognitive shroud over my head, in the bus, in the car, in-between lessons, in the darkness beneath my blanket...I just can't stop thinking. Something feels like it is coming to an end, something big and probably one of the major pillars of my current reality all this while. Sometimes I feel mildly disoriented, as if I'm ceasing to exist in this plane and stirring to wakefulness in some other. Sometimes I feel cross-eyed and can't quite walk steadily. And yet at other times I'm tired and feel as if time is warping or passing too fast. Strange feelings intrigue me in the scarce minutes before I fall asleep, fuzzy noises of randomness such as pots banging and static jumps, muddled voices speaking in different pitches and tones and a stranger language but which I understand, not due to the comprehension of the language itself, but due to the energies those utterances carry. The alpha state before sleep seems to have opened up a kind of doorway somehow.And whilst I most certainly did experience alpha states before, now these feelings and strange mild experiences have become more pertinent and longer-lasting.

It's interesting. I'm not afraid, not really, perhaps a little apprehensive but not fearful. Change is coming. I can feel the shifts, but not quite sure what for or where everything is headed. But change is definitely coming. And it's not the change Obama promised, nor the change Ghandi has so wisely explained in his famous quote, but something that we will ride upon as an undercurrent which will carry us into the new world.

Ascension.

So many things have yet to be explained. I'm but a passive idealist, currently attuning myself more to my spiritual connections so that I may get some guidance on how to proceed. Things are going to get interesting from here.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 10.52pm*~~~

また無意味なポースト

2011-08-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

ええと、今は朝だがちょっと何もしたくないからここに帰っちゃった。今日はするべき事が多い。。。日本語のテストの勉強とか、学校の宿題とか、沢山だよね。まだやり始めないけど思うばかりでもう疲れたわ。

で、まずは漢字を覚えること。その後は数学と化学の宿題をすること。これは今日大体の計画だね。

何か大変なのよ、大変。

ところで、昨日は怪しい夢を見た。夢には何か喉がずっと痛くて、一人のおじさんに「重い病気だから早く治したほうがいい」ってアドバイスされて、長い時間医者を捜してみたが結局見つけられなかった。その旅には、変なところへ沢山行ったが、起きた後は多分八十パーセント忘れちゃった。確か誰かと一緒にいったと覚えているけどね。親友かも。

こう書いたら、この夢は何か意味があると思う。病気だった私は何を治すべきだ？誰を捜せばいい？それともどう治せられる？こういう質問が出ているね、生活とは直接な’関係がある見たいから。

とは言え、夢は夢だ、読みすぎれば駄目だよね。

まあ行くっか。もう勉強の時間だよ。。。今始めなければならないね。

じゃっ。

***

～～～*Waited for the Winds at 10.59am*～～～

意味がないポースト

2011-08-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

火影になるつもりだったナルト！どうでしょうかなあ。先に描いたラインアートに色をしたら、上の絵のようになったって、どこか少し不満足だけどこれで十分だと思う。１０ランカイ様の絵とは大変違うんだが、少しずつ進めばきっと追えるんだよね。その為にがんばれがんばれがんばれ～！

んで、また急に日本語で日記を書くの理由は自分も分からなくて質問させないで。多分最近日本のことを沢山触れたからけどねえ。。。というわけで、三日前せっかくキノクニヤへ＜ナルト：鬼灯城＞という小説を買いに行ったのに、中々見つけなかったので、代わりにデュラララのライットノベルを買った。たく、そのナルトの小説を本当に読みたいんだけど！日本には四月にも出されたのに、いったいなんでここにはねえーーーーーー？！

それとも大ヒットなんて。１０ランカイ様はもう三度もブラッドプリズンの映画を見に行ったが、ここに住んでいる私は映画も小説も触られなくて。。。こう思えば本気で苦しい、苦しいよね！このまま来年の四月DVDの出せることを待つしかできねえなあ。本当に苦しい。

まあいっか、最近喜ばせたことも沢山あってよかったから。例えばアザレアと久しぶりに（まあ二週間ぐらいだけだったけど、凄く長い間のようだった）一緒にアホウ見たいな事をして時間を過ごした事とか、チェルとうちでメープルをした事とか。。。そして一番重要のはヘラー君のお父さんがやっと治せられた事、よかったよね！ヘラーはもう二週間心配させたけど、今は全てが以前のように戻って嬉しい見たいから、私はね、もう心配する必要はないだろう？よかったわ、本当によかったわ。

でも試験はまた来るぜ。ちょっと　－　いいえ、ずっとだよ！　－早いと思うがそれはやはり生活を出ない真実だなあ。一つまた一つ、一個また一個。。。もう慣れたはずだがやっぱ嫌い。もう散歩できねえ私達は代わりに走る、走る、いつでもどこでも走る、走る、走る。。。何も止められない足は、永遠に走っているかなあ、ってこう考えは怖いね。

まあ、もう遅いよ、今日はここまで。明日も日本語で書くかもしれないね。楽しくて日本語の練習に役に立つから。：）

***

～～～*Waited for the Winds at 11.13pm*～～～

Opening the Window

2011-08-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

It's been two days and no news from Heller's side. He hasn't even been online at all, so I can't reach out to him, neither can I know if everything's going on fine and nothing drastic has happened as of yet. Apparently, he did leave me an offline message yesterday that his dad can't even remember him anymore. It sounded so final when he said it...that tone, that pretense of nonchalance but under which you can sense a kind of desperation, a kind of hopelessness, as if he's losing what motivation he had before and sinking back into his depression. I'm worried, really. I can't do anything in physical reality for him because we're in two different places, but there's got to be a way...some way, any way, by which I can help him?

Sigh. That aside, today was kind of like a new start in some ways. I drifted through lessons half-alive as usual, but some events were pretty uplifting I guess. I bumped into Mr Wong at the cafe during recess today, and he was with this other guy (I didn't quite catch his name) who was tall and white and slightly rosy, with specs I think, and pretty forthcoming. Apparently he's a pro in Oil Painting and I'm roped into attending his Oil Painting portraiture workshop next Monday even though it's technically a school holiday. Mr Wong asked him to guide me in editing my coursework. Ahem...I'm not particularly inclined towards touching that canvas anymore after seven months of toil, and considering how I've managed to screw it up so badly, I think any more work would just overdo it and make it worse.

Well, I guess I don't mind. Anything for a good teacher. I hope that when I grow up and somehow manage to succeed in some kind of artistic career, I can have many worthy teachers to thank. It's always good to have gratitude behind your success. Then you'll be reminded of just how hard the success was to achieve, how much had to be learnt, and how much human kindness there was in those who were willing to guide you; it makes the whole thing a lot more meaningful.

The best thing today was still meeting up with Az after two weeks. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm still a little sore about the award thing, but I've pretty much gotten over it. She did do more than I did and it was something she deserved so I have no reason to mope about something that's utterly justified. I am glad for her. After the initial pang of jealousy and depression, I realised, with relief, that I am able to be happy for her after all. That makes me feel a lot better about myself; I wouldn't like to think of myself as some scheming envious fool who does no good herself but wishes for what others obtained by their own hard work.

I must be open-minded...not everything I don't achieve is a failure. Probably half of the pressure I'm feeling now is non-existent to start with - most likely self-imposed and added upon the expectations of others.

Speaking of expectations, I've realised just how the lonesome experience with 305 and 405 for the past one and a half year has actually did me some good in a certain way. This isolation, while initially seeming like a curse of sorts, actually enabled me to distance myself from the immediate influence of the "masses" and extricate myself from the snares of others' expectations. While I used to be helplessly incapable of venturing beyond the norms and always doing what others did, now I find myself feeling slightly apathetic at times, and this enables me to have my own thoughts, make my own decisions and take my own line of action. It gives me a form of courage that I didn't use to possess. In a way, because I believed that others didn't quite care, I was freed from some kind of former restriction and this freedom is vital towards increasing my capacity for self-expression; in other words, it is rather helpful towards my artistic pursuits as well.

I still have a long way to go of course, as an idealistic introvert who can't quite bring herself to interact actively with the living masses. But I'm improving, step by step, moving on on my own. That's all that matters. Maybe I don't need a guide in life after all, because life, as Heller and I discussed the other day, is a teacher who would guide me on its own.

So yes, where was I? Ah, meeting-up with Azalea. Yeah I was originally planning to take a trip to Art Friend and waste some time there to decide what to do with my 50 bucks, which I didn't want but which my mom insisted on giving me as reward for my Physics and Chem SPA, and probably buy myself some new art materials. I'm wondering if I should start saving up money for a Light Box. Actually I really wonder if a Light Box is of much use, especially since I've started to get the hang of digital lineart and can technically produce more convenient lineart directly in the com. It's not like I do a lot of manga art with traditional media like Copics...I do have to practise them once in a while, but that's, well, once in a while, no point buying a 180-buck machine for it right?

It would make sense to save up for an Intuos tablet instead, but the last time I checked an Intuos4 was around 490+ bucks. Ouch. Cintiq is worse, 1900+ I think. Damn. I really want an Intuos...apparently they said that Bamboo kinda sucks when it comes to proper digital painting, since it's meant for more casual stuff like doodling and things like that. Then again my Bamboo is still serving me quite well (uh possibly because I'm not quite acquainted with the wonders of better tablets o_0), so yes, I'm being stingy and wondering if there really is the need for an upgraded tablet.

Definitely a luxury, but...a need?

Ah well. So we were on our way to Art Friend but we somehow agreed to miss the Far East stop and ended up in some not quite ulu but pretty confusing place near Plaza Singapura, was it? Erm we had lunch at KFC at...4pm. Not the healthiest but I had been surviving on one flimsy roti prata since early morning so I was pretty much flat with hunger, and that was the nearest outlet so we dug in. Well we did some crazy talk, namely History and Mr Mizar's amusing NS Reservice stories. And then after that we scooted off to various shops, like this uber cool Sword shop beside the OtakuHouse - it's amazing, the kind of swords they have that is, I bet Ms Leow got hers from some place like that. Then there was ComicsConnection...as well as some time at Times Bookstore, and we went home by MRT since we were lost and couldn't find the bus stop.

I dunno, it felt like ages since I've walked around a shopping mall without any kind of obligation and intention, with a friend too. It was good meeting up with Az today. It reminded me I still have a life.

Well, I'd better log off now. I haven't written a relatively light-hearted post in a long time, this is probably my first of the month...hopefully it continues. I like melancholic and bittersweet things but not particularly when they pertain to my life.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 11.41pm*~~~

Looking Back

2011-08-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

In some kind of strange whim, I went to scour through some of the oldest posts I've written on this blog...say, around the mid-year months in 2008. I'm not quite sure what to feel. I know I've changed a lot, in both good and bad ways, and yet instead of feeling nostalgic or melancholic, I'm actually feeling...nothing at all.

I find it inexplicably strange. For an oversensitive person like me who clings to every sentimental nuance, reviewing my past in words just didn't seem to affect me very much. I read those words I typed, and I could just hear myself two and a half years ago, saying them with an air of ignorance of what is to come and a self-centered foolishness because I thought I could control life. There was over-confidence. Stupidity. Enthusiasm and eagerness. All those yellowing posts in the depths of my archive, reeking of the stench of childishness and contempt...it sickens me to read them, it sickens me to think that I had once been this person, this arrogant individual who asserts herself so bossily and meanwhile claims to be modest. And yet, who I am now sickens me too - in a different way of course, but it averts me away from, well, myself, and I can't help but feel utterly wretched.

Sigh. I dunno, after I calmed down a little yesterday I stopped hurting myself and just...slipped into some kind of momentary reprieve. It's like a lull, a state of limbo. I felt sorry for the Me inside too. In a world where no one believes in me, who will I be if I don't believe in myself either? If I do not have faith in myself, how will I expect others not to betray me too? I may not like Me very much, but it hurts to see Me wasted too, like a mother feeling sorry after having punished her child in a fit of fury and depression. I don't think, and I don't have a heart when I hurt myself. All I wanted then was to let Me know how I hated myself, let Me know how much I have disappointed myself, and that was all I wanted.

I'm not happy of course. I never will be with this Me inside me, because I will never be good enough. But I can't hate myself continually either. Someday, sooner than later, I have to come to terms with not being perfect, with being far from perfect. That's the way things are, and since I'm not allowed to die, I have to live with it.

That's why I felt guilty. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I hope Me will forgive me.

...Fuck. How off, how insanely off, all these ridiculous things sound!

I'm feeling sorry for the girl inside me. I'm feeling sorry for that girl who would be me in my dreamscape, four years younger than the the Me in real life, too withdrawn to speak healthily and always in a state of melancholy as she wanders alone, seeking an elusive something in a vast, dynamic world. She's almost always alone, quiet, slightly frail, and without a notion of family or friend, neither of a foe, for she is isolated...just isolated and detached from the rest of the ever-changing dimension around her. She observes but does not participate. She listens but does not speak.She knows but does not teach. Just another soul drifting through time and space, with no attachments nor motivations, no meaning nor implications, drifting through an indefinite gray space to the end of time.

And that girl is in me. That girl is my inner self, and I am her when I sleep, when I close my eyes and fall into the realm of dreams and astral reality.

I punished her yesterday. For nothing. For what Me in real life did, for what she didn't do. I punished her for nothing.

You know, it's like living in two worlds. One in this solid reality, and another when I sleep, where she takes over my negative life. I am both her and not her at the same time. Sometimes I wonder what she does when I'm awake. Does she sleep in some dark recesses of my mind, like I would when she takes over in dreamscape, or does she stay perpetually awake, wandering, searching, hoping to find that something she does not know but needs to be found?

Sometimes I wonder, too, if I'm alive so I can buy her time to continue searching for that elusive thing. Maybe she lives through multiple lifetimes, infinitely, in a never-ending search for a thing she doesn't even know. Maybe she is a shadow of something that had occurred before, but which I am living to remember. I'm confused, but I'm still seeking an answer. I'm supposed to help her. I'm here to help her, and she to help me, and we're both supposed to find that something together.

I cannot abandon her, because if I look back, she who doesn't have parents, she who doesn't have friends, she who has no home to return to...I am her mother, and she is my child. My child. She is Me, and it will stay that way.

We'll pull through together, we will.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 8.17pm*~~~

Bleakness

2011-08-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

I swear I shall never be curious about Inet announcements ever again.

...Fuck. I'm not gonna recount what I stumbled upon because I'm so torn between the obligation to feel happy for her as well as the hatred of myself for not being good enough. The latter is an established fact, but the former reinforces it so much that I found myself staring dumbfounded at the screen for ten seconds straight.In such cases, should I be a friend, or should I just be me? I did expect it, of course. I did prepare myself mentally for it. I did know that someday, my friends will all surpass me and I will be left alone and watching their backs because everyone's moving on while I'm stuck, and that is an inevitable fact considering how much I'm screwing up this year. Yet...yet, why do I feel so immensely...off?

It's as if someone has literally punched me in the gut, and it's a strange lingering feeling, because I'm not about to cry, maybe because I'm hating myself so much I can't cry anymore. I think I must admit that I was jealous. Goddamnit I was! What kind of friend am I to feel jealous of her achievement? It's her achievement, damn it, I should be happy for her because she worked for it and she deserved it! Why am I such a wretched idiot? Why can't I be happy for her???

Why can't I just DO the things I have to do??!!!

I suck! Kendra, I fucking hate you! Just die already!!! I'm using the rubber bands. I don't care whatever shit I said before, I'm using it now!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!! You fucked up piece of shit! You shouldn't have been born, you shouldn't, it was a goddamn mistake!! It was a mistake your parents made! A mistake MY parents made!!!

Fuck. I haven't felt so pathetic in a long while. Fuck.

Art doesn't want me. I've worked so hard in it and it's gotten me nowhere. I've realised that art doesn't want me, and actually, since when did anything want me? Why must I be wanted? And yet that's all the society's about! Being wanted, because if you're not, you're fucking alone, and nobody's gonna care a shit about you and -

Oh, the rubber band just broke. I found another one, but this doesn't hurt as much. Fuck it.

I wish I could continue doing on and on and on without fearing the pain. What a coward I am. Stupid body, stupid mind, stupid me. K is braver than me. At least she can use it until she sees blood and even move on to glass shards. I should do more so I can easily catch cancer when I grow up and die earlier by a natural cause, that would do the world a favour, it would. There would be one less fucked up and depressed person and the world will be a slightly, slightly happier place.

I fucking know the world will move on even if I die. It's actually good that it will move on, then I will be forgotten and I can be freed from all these attachments that confine me to a physical reality. I won't be obliged to live. I won't be obliged not to die. Because nobody gives a fucking damn and I don't need to live for any goddamn person, and that's the way I want it, fuck it!

Who dies because he wants attention? Who dies because he wants the world to stop for him and hold him in remembrance? People want to die precisely because they don't want to be given attention! All this farce, all this fucking farce! They want to die so they can leave it all behind! They want to die so they can be free from the epically lousy drama called life!

Yes, I see Hedda's death as a form of triumph. She triumphed because for all her fear of scandals, for all her fear of expectations, she was able to put them all aside and pull the trigger to end it all for herself. She was courageous because for someone who was raised to live vicariously, she was finally able to decide for herself. Death is not cowardice, no, contrary to popular belief it is not. To choose death is to have the courage to choose a path away from the masses. Living isn't necessarily courage. It may be, but not always.

I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired of life, so tired of living in this never-ending community of farce and hypocrisy. I'm pausing with the rubber bands now because I'm tired. Has anyone hurt himself until he's tired? I have no idea, but there's always a first for every person. I don't even know what I'm hurting myself for anymore. To punish myself? To inflict physical pain so it can keep me off the mental? Is it a natural instinct you acquire while being depressed? Or is it just pure hatred for myself?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I don't have the courage to live, I don't have the courage to die. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I'm sorry to everyone, to life, to death, to you, to myself.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.36pm*~~~

Numb

2011-08-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

I missed 4.0 for Art by 2 marks. I died for my English paper however supposedly decent it is.

I scored 20/20 for Physics SPA skill 4, but that's nothing; it was sheer memorization of the experiment plan which Ms Poh just so happened to cover in tuition, nothing much on my part, so it doesn't prove anything all the same.

I'm so fucked up this year. I have no idea what to say about my Art. I know 3.6 is a pretty decent grade, but decent is...decent is,,,just not enough! Do you understand just how much art means to me?! Do you understand that it's not just the grades, but that it hurts me, mentally and physically, to know that I'm not good enough as always, even in art?! Do you understand?!!! 2 marks. 2 marks, determining a 3.6 and a 4.0, so near yet so far!

I love art, damn it! I love it so much I can't possibly love any more! I hate it that I have to screw up in all I do whatever it is. And yet at the same time I wonder just what has happened to me over the past few years...why am I now unhappy with a fucking decent grade, why am I unhappy with FULL marks? I hate the way I am now! I hate cowering under expectations, and I hate it that I can't get rid of this shit!

Fuck! Fuck it all!

And on a not so light side-note, I'm so damn worried about Heller. He seems to be going through a really tough time. Whatever it is, it's got to be worse than me, I've got to help him! Somehow! I can't watch him fade off just like that, it's not fair...I'm his devsis damn it, whatever it is I can at least try to help him. Oh man Heller please be alright please be alright D:

You're my best buddy online and a damn good listener, I'm just regretting that I haven't listened enough. Why won't you rant? Why won't you tell me?

Why won't you ask for help?

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 12.18am*~~~

Losing Sight

2011-08-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, they no longer seem to matter to me anymore. The colours of the world are lost to eyes which cannot perceive them, and the sounds of joy and misery are inaudible to ears which fail to listen. Why am I then, living in this incorporeal, deceptive self-absorbed realm of illusions? I see no reason to my actions, and see no meaning to life when I know not my motives and my directions, but merely obey an impulse to keep moving because that's just the way things are.

How am I to explain why I suck so much? What is there to explain? Maybe I was born this way, or maybe I screwed up majorly in the years that ensued and which I did not treasure in more ways than one. Maybe I'm just dumb in the way that I dream too much and realise too little, even if I can't help it, even if I've tried and failed day after day after day. What is the world to me? What am I to the world?

Would it matter if one day I were to succumb to one of those nagging voices at the back of my head, and creep over the balcony, quietly, unknowingly, like the woman did creep in the Yellow Wallpaper, and then delve headfirst into the black borne of oblivion? I do not of course judge the value of my life, nor the value of my death, based on people's reactions. It's better if I passed and bygone without being remembered; less attachments, less burdens on my part and definitely less responsibilities. Then there will be no value to talk about. There will be no indicator to state whether I have lived life fulfilled and sated, or whether I have died unsatisfied and discontent. I want to be neither. I just want to take things the way they are, what's wrong with that?

I'm too tired to say that I hate myself now. It's one of those moments when my mother would scold and curse me so much until she's dried of words and empty of emotions and she would sit gravely by the kitchen table, her hair disshevelled, lips pulled into a frown, and deliberately refuse to look me in the eye as she silently lets me know how much she is disappointed. I'm just too tired, too disappointed, too sick of failures.

I failed both my math papers today. Both. One of them was a fucking careless error that cost me 9 marks simply because I read a major key word in the question wrongly. I don't know if I should be pissed that I am such a dumbass, or remotely relieved that at least it wasn't a conceptual mistake. I don't know, I really don't know anymore.

I'm losing sight, so fast...I need to find a way to help myself soon.

***

~~~*Waited for the Winds at 10.11pm*~~~

告白

2011-08-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

今日は何となく日本語で日記を書きたい。

昨日は病気だったので、何もできなくて映画を借りて見る事に決めた。まあ始めには「武蔵」という映画を見たかったけど、やっぱり古すぎて、どこにも見つけられなかったんだ。んで、変わりに棚の上に置いてあった「告白」という映画を借りた。

ほほほほほほほおおおおおおおおおおおおおお～～～～～～～～～～～～～

すごい映画だったわ！！！

皆はすごくｸｰﾙだった！暗くて大人向く映画だが、私はとてもとても好き～！血が多かったよ。それとも皆はちゃんと頭が問題あったし、皆極端な方法で失った物を取って見たがってた
し、ホホホ、楽しかったよ～

そして見た後本当に思い出させられた。世界はそんなに暗いの？社会はそんなに残酷なの？まあこういう考えがあったの。とてもよい映画だった。

命は価値があるの？－何てね。「笑う」

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 10.24am*~~~

I Should Go

2011-08-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

I should go, shouldn't I? What am I doing in this world?

If I had a life, if I had a life before this one...I would very much like to ask my past self just why I had chosen this new path to walk. Was he a filthy rich merchant who in the last throes of death thought of experiencing the refreshing spice of bourgeoise hardship? Was she a poor girl who wished for better but never wished high and far enough? Was he a murderer who experienced a stab of guilt while he brought down the blade and thought of repenting in the next life? Or was she a common soul, an excruciatingly normal soul, who, in the last seconds before death, failed to make her wish at all?

I'm not quite sure if I'm looking forward to being insane. Wasn't I insane to start off with? Which kid would at the tender and innocent age of 6 entertain morbid thoughts of people being cut up, people being tortured, people being murdered, people being kidnapped by factories and painfully killed...and god, those doodles, those accursed doodles on those accursed papers done on the accursed kindergarten floor! Innocent scrawls, yet so potent and full of darkness...what am I, really? If I became schizo one day, would this dark persona come out from within? Would I find myself living with this demonic self, who would whisper every night in my sleep and pull my hair and tug on my sleeves and, when I crack open my eyes a fraction of an inch, stare at me with haunting eyes: "Take care of me. I have killed too many."?

Abominable thoughts, such abominable thoughts! And yet, yet, they come to me! These visions, this sadness, this morbid sadism, they can't be embedded in me, can they? If they aren't, then where do they come from? People don't think those things. Normal people, normal children, don't think those things. How can I assure that I won't grow up and let this wretched soul devour all connections with reality? Such abominable thoughts!

Or am I in a personal sense like Hedda Gabler, spiritually deprived, a being encrusted in the grays of uncertainty as it drifts aimlessly in and out of the social common room, in and out, back and forth, up and down, without a care for too many of the cares that it carries on its shoulders? Will I, when I grow up to consume more of this revolting dish of life, finally call the waiter, hand him a pistol, and tell him to shoot the chef for coming up with such a ghastly dish - and do it beautifully? No blood, no brains, no splatters on the sparkling clean white tiles; do it gracefully, subtly, take his life in a courageous and powerful flourish and pass time by into the bourne of inexistence, for no drama will be tolerated, no outburst will be beautiful. Pass away beatifully, as he wished I did.

Or one day I will pass this pistol to my other self, and tell me, take both of us away this instant, away, away, far away! And never shall this be known by those faceless benumbed souls around us, who will not give a moment's hesitation to stare, and stare they will not with genuine curiosity, but with hidden fear that such an act, such courageous beauty, can really exist in their flawless, flawless little world.

Die, Hedda Gabler, die away! Be far gone because you deserve to, you deserve to end your life by your own hands, to choose your destiny by your own mind. Alas you have gained control over one man's destiny, and that man is you, that man is you, Hedda. That beautiful man is you. If only I had such courage as you did, such invaluable insight, to bring forth earlier what inevitably will come to pass!

Incoherence has muddled my words.

Well pass them by, pass them by! I do not mind if, in this very slightest minute, I am very much losing my mind.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 5.44pm*~~~

Weary of the Pain

2011-07-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I'm tired, so so tired. Why can't I get anything right? Why am I never able to get anything right, by myself, with myself, for myself?

I can't help but think I've become horribly retarded over the years. There's got to be a problem when you stare at a math question and your brain just won't BUDGE no matter how much you will it to; it's like walking in a quagmire and every step you take sinks into the mush and pulls you down, and time ticks away, and the remaining questions in the paper stare at you blankly, oppressively, imposing their aching incompletion upon you, until you feel like you're about to lose your mind. And you sink further, further and further, and no one but yourself laughs hauntingly at you. What IS the problem? What IS my problem??

I didn't come into this school as the brightest kid, I was pretty much below average when I started off at a mere one mark above the aggregate score. I ask myself many times, so many times, what the hell am I doing here? The moment I came here the only thing I did for myself was to have my parents' expectations raised and my own confidence and self-respect thrown to the floor in rags and stamped upon. Now I don't even know who I am anymore. What I'm good at, what I'm born to do, what I wish to achieve. It's all gone, like someone had blown it away while I wasn't looking, like blowing off a candle flame, blowing away my life.

I hate typing "I". It's such a shame, such a despairing thing, to be me.

I've given up on using the rubber bands. Even if I deliver the pain with the excuse of punishing myself, what I'm doing in the end is just relieving stress and nothing good comes out of it. I'm just giving myself a chance to evade like the coward I am. And yet I crave it, I feel as if somehow that stinging pain has become a float of sorts that can carry me back up to the surface when I'm about to drown; short, sharp stinging pain, better and more refreshing than the dull lifeless and timeless throb when you remain under the surface for too long and lose the will to breathe. But I'm too much of a coward to use a knife anyways. I wonder how those people do it...maybe I will too, one day, when my condition continues and I can no longer hold it anymore. It's just a matter of time.

I hate myself. Now I'm scared of people too, because they won't care, they are so faraway even under the pretense of being near. They give you fake smiles and fake hugs and those are to deal with obligations and expectations. Nothing you get is real...they're all a means of dealing with things! These people laugh, they laugh because they don't care, they laugh because inside they're all poor souls who are too desperate to belong that they laugh all the same! I hate myself, I hate being in this fucking crowd of entities wearing masks. I can't wait to get away from people now. I eat lunches alone, watching them fool around, watching their blissful countenances, all the while listening to Linkin Park's "Numb" in my head like some kind of haunting background music - because that's the way it is, isn't it? We all know of a sorrow within, but we numb it, we're numbed by it.

There must be something wrong with me. I don't get just what the problem is, because sometimes I can be social, sometimes I just withdraw away from people altogether. I don't fucking get it because I'm neither here nor there; I'm neither autistic nor social and outgoing, and it sticks me in this hard position that makes me deal with expectations from both sides.

Why can't I just be who I am, whether I hate it or not? If I hate being myself already, why do you want to make me hate myself more by allowing myself to be changed by others??

Examinations of the Self

2011-07-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

The poor. Such an encompassing word, not just implying monetary concerns, but is rather a category of all deficits in all aspects. I was just walking along the road back home sometime ago and while I was waiting by the traffic lights, I had the chance to observe a particular Chinese lady whom I often see by the MRT station, settled in a makeshift chair with a brown worn-down wooden box, a set of loudspeakers and a microphone in her hand as she sang songs that hopefully appeal to the masses that pass her by. She was a blind street artist. Occasionally her voice would quiver a little, the kind of quiver that renders you unable to tell if she was really tired or really absorbed in the song. And once in a while, she would reach out, tentatively yet with a little bit of desperation and a little bit of fear, and run her fingers across the wooden box, just to check, just to check...if it was still there.

There was a sour feeling that travelled up the bridge of my nose at this point. I wonder if others in that crowd milling around me felt the same, if they saw it at all, or whether it was just me being over-sensitive again. I felt this strange horrible sadness like a pain that isn't quite there but still exists all the same, a pain that isn't quite mine but still exists because it belongs to some other existence. Now if my friends were to know they'd probably tell me to stop being so sensitive, or in worst cases hypocritically pretentious. But I really did feel it. The way she was so hesitant yet anxious to ensure that all her hard-earned money was still there...to think that anyone would even be so heartless as to steal it. Isn't it such a miserable, miserable thing?

Az is right about what she said you know, her implication that if I start caring unduly I'd become bothered by things that the people in question don't even feel themselves. In other words, caring about things that aren't there, worrying about things that haven't come, sympathising with people who probably didn't want or didn't care about sympathy. Yet something in me always makes me care too much. It's like a voice inside my head, or perhaps outside, whose owner I do not know but which compels me to feel things beyond my own plane of emotions, and I follow it dutifully and experience these new, strange emotions that flood into me at specific times. It's as if there's a floodgate on the watershed between the outer world and my own sanctuary, and that floodgate opens and everything flows...and then it would close again, and things would be back to normal.

I no longer care so fervently about things like "empaths" and other spiritual connotations as much as I used to when I was small. At the end of the day, what good will these names do? What good does knowing that you're an empath do? What good does categorising things do? If you truly are an empath, you will set out doing what you need to do; things will come to you and you will receive things as you were meant to anyway, and if you are a true empath, things will still be the same whether you know your identity or not. The self exists without the need for specific knowledge of what the self constitutes. Regardless of how fruitless philosophical discussions about Personal Identity may have been through the millenia, haven't we still existed, as a whole, as one human race, as ourselves and all by ourselves?

It is perhaps this very indefinition of Self that paves the way to the final stage of universal consciousness. Well, let's not use such a melodramatic word; Awareness as a whole would do. Awareness of the self as something that constitutes individuality in unity, diversity in collectiveness, the overall knowledge of existence that presides in every being, everything, every building block of the world as we see it. Imagine if one day we find the definite answer to self, be it Soul Theory, Body Theory, Memory Theory, or Illusion Theory, say, Soul Theory, and we would suddenly become worlds apart due to a strong sense of possession over this thing that belongs solely to us and constitutes us as individuals. Let's say Body Theory, which would serve to pronounce prejudices even more, or Memory Theory, which doesn't quite work in the first place because of existing controversies like Amnesia. But if it were to work, we'd all be separated by our pasts and things would be carved into stone without the lubricative indefinition of the future. That isn't quite good considering how most of the earthly conflicts are with regards to disparities that carried on from history: religion and faith, race and ethnicity, hierarchies after hierarchies of social classes and categories...things that push us apart, separate us further and further, until we can no longer perceive the others but rather as annoying black blotches against our horizons.

The Illusion Theory is a little more unique, in the sense that it advocates a lack of Self, claiming that everything you think constitutes the self is an illusion. But there is a self. There is a self, just universal, one that encompasses all disaparities and differences to make a whole. And to gain knowledge of this Self is to change our perspective from a microscopic observation of human conditions to a telescopic acknowledgement of the big picture: existence, existence in itself, existence that is One and All at the same time. When Man finally achieves this one day, he will review his turbulent past and laugh amusedly as he would at a child's play, because he will realise just how easy it would have been to end conflicts if only he saw, earlier, that there was no point battling with himself.

Widely explored ideas such as National Pride and Cultural Identity, whether you realise it or not, are little steps to the wider consciousness. They are in a way little "Selves", miniature models of the final big united individual which in these immature stages only pertain to particular groups of people. It's the rush of collective support while watching your school compete in a national tournament. It is the united exhuberance you feel on National Day when colours of the country's flag in the wind remind you of how long you've all come.

And most definitely, it is that little twinge of pride and joy the 20th century's population experienced as it huddled around TVs and watched the video of Armstrong's landing on the moon, for as much as he was the first of mankind to step beyond home, in that split second, he was also Man as a whole himself.

Now as I think of that poor lady by the MRT Station, I think it's alright after all to feel the sadness, whether she wishes me to feel it, be it pretentious or not. She is after all not just my sister but also a part of me. She is myself.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 12.36pm*~~~

Reminiscence

2011-07-15T22:14:00.000-07:00

I've been reminiscing a lot lately, one of those little things one likes to do with the mind when it is not preoccupied with worldly affairs. When you stop thinking, your mind seems to open up to a whole new world of imagery, sounds, smells, tastes, stranger senses even, that don't exist in reality; the impossible comes when reality stands by, because when the hard facts are pushed aside, we suddenly realise that the impossible is also a possibility. You chance upon new things that will lead you to greater discoveries.

In my case, I've been lounging a lot along the lane of memory. Things small and big, loud and soft, bright and dull, all forms of comparisons you can think of...they would somehow fish out little pieces of my past whose existence I had sometimes forgotten. I would see a woman playing a harmonica and remember my childhood self being fascinated with the creation of a new timbre. I would see falling leaves and see an autumn I may have lived through but never remembered. I would buy soyabean ice-cream and taste that nostalgic twinge of China's yam ice-cream I used to eat with my friend when I was three, and along with it all those sweet memories of a faraway childhood, which now flows back like an exhuberant child running up the lane with a bundle of colourful balloons as if flying a kite. My child self proudly presents to me its experiences and wishes me to acknowledge them. Is it strange, then, if I say that when I look at that little beamy child self, I suddenly feel very much like a mother?

I have grown, and I now take care of my past self as if its a child in need of nurturing. It's ironic how the past seems fragile somehow, even though it's pretty much the only thing that's set in stone; when I behold my past self, what I see is a glass being, something that needs recognition, needs acknowledgement, or it would shatter, lie upon the ground in pieces and cease to exist. Sometimes I wish to walk to the future and never look back. The past is a painful thing, because even the happiness is never purely happy - it is tinged bittersweet. And yet, when I try to turn my back upon that fragile small child with those fanciful balloons, I see misery upon its face, a kind of heart-wrenching disappointment at having been rejected and deemed unworthy. My motherly instincts would take over, not quite fully, but still sufficient to keep me in check. I would remain where I was, watching it, our gazes interlocking as if each trying to explore the other's intentions and feelings that lie underneath that face.

Yet, yet, I can't tell just what that child is feeling.

When I enter a reverie of reminiscence, I hear the child speak, and let it speak as I take a seat and listen to that voice of innocence I have grown detached from over the years. It's not a sweet voice, nothing like honeysuckle or lollipop or strawberry jam and sugar. Yet it reminds me of all those sweet things I've missed: purple yam ice-cream at Chinese street stalls, fruit popsicles from my friend's fridge, large watery peaches and fresh watermelons in summer, white-rabbit milk candies, or those small bottles of yoghurt drinks whose name I never knew but didn't care anyway. These were icons of my childhood. They have the value of nostalgia, and the memories themselves make them sweeter, because they are no longer here. And as I listen to my own story, I watch my life flash past me, those little snippets that I subconsciously treasured close to myself. As much as I grew to dislike China in many aspects now, I guess it still has a place in my life which I can never bear to fill with something else.

Halcyon Days

I've always wished there was winter in the country I live, winter makes a lot of things very precious. The sun is warmer because of the cold, trees greener because of the white, shapes clearer because of the fogginess of everything else. Winter reminds us that you don't necessarily have to obtain better to enjoy more, you just have to unearth their true value.

Perhaps my childhood was like Seiran in this picture, and when I drew him, I might have been drawing my child self in a different body. I was never a very sociable kid; I lulled myself to sleep by telling myself little bedtime stories, observed rocks and pebbles when my family brought me to famous landmarks, climbed trees to catch cats, conquered the highest spots in the playground, and fooled under pine trees to pluck golden amber. I didn't have a lot of friends, but I had really good ones whose company I sincerely enjoy. I didn't love sports but fell in love with the art of creation. In those days, I was able to appreciate beauty for what it truly is, not what it's stipulated to be.

Maybe that's why I can't feel what my past self is feeling when we observe each other. I'm gazing at all the things I've lost, standing there, waiting to be retrieved, or to retrieve me.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 1.31pm*~~~

Failure

2011-07-07T04:51:00.000-07:00

I'm a failure. I've always been, haven't I? I screw up in everything I do, not just almost, but everything, because I just can't find one thing I did with which people weren't disappointed. Everyone's disappointed in me. My parents have long since had hearts for better and more honourable children, and my teachers have never had faith in me...or at least whatever faith they may have used to have in me is now gone.

I feel betrayed, but I think what really betrayed myself is me. I'm the traitor all this while. I haven't been able to fulfill that unspoken promise to myself to be as good as possible, even if it's to meet others' expectations, because most of the time they can be my own too. I failed others, I failed myself. There's nothing more hated in the world than useless people who leech off the meagre resources only to produce nothing in return. I don't deserve half the love I'm given, and because I don't deserve it, I don't feel it.

But I want to be loved. I wish so vehemently for that day when I can finally be embraced without being told what I have to do just so I can deserve that embrace. And yet I cringe away when people embrace me, not because I'm particularly uncomfortable with intimate contact, but rather because I didn't do anything to deserve them. My mind screams, "why are they being so nice to me? Why are they loving me? Can't they see that I can't give them anything in return?" when my heart screams, "love me, love me, love me, love me, and don't ever abandon me!" I'm so confused, you know. I wasn't born to be accustomed to two separate voices in my head, each distinct in tone and eager to make their presence and intentions known. I hate them. I hate them so much.

I hate myself.

When I was painting my coursework today, there was a moment when I thought I had finally lost it. It was something akin to the yellow wallpaper...all those menacing faces, they started laughing at me, they were mocking at my frustration while I desperately tried to fill up those omnipresent white spaces that signify uncompletion. They're teasing me, all of them! They hate me, I hate them, they hate themselves, I hate myself, just who are we teasing and what for?! The world, the world, it hates me doesn't it? I don't know what I'm doing but they do. And they're laughing at me for it, for my oblivion, for thinking that they are the ones being blind, when I myself am the one who's blind!

I'm painting my own failure. Those words sound so final and yet so befitting. I felt so betrayed when he told me that I won't be able to submit for UOB - I'm sure he doesn't have negative intentions, but it hurts so much all the same, my whole heart just crumpled like someone crushed a piece of paper between his palms. I'm not good enough. I'm goddamn not good enough, regardless of how hard I tried, how many months I toiled, how many worrying nights I've spent in bed, how many tears I've shed, at the end of the day I've still failed just like with all other things. But I'm not pissed at him for saying that. He's just stating the truth, he's a nice guy even if brutally honest. I'm the one who's trying to deceive myself. I'm the one who's trying to tell myself that hey, I can actually be good enough, that there really is a place in this world if I tried. There isn't.

Those glorious days that used to be are now history. They feel like a distant life I've lived, perhaps not even my own...they've become so alien ever since I became this wretched new person. I don't even know what happened, how it happened, but something seems to be eating away inside me and I know that my remaining days with sanity are most likely numbered. I felt so desperate and disorientated in Art Club today. All the voices, all the happiness; they worked hard, they worked hard and they deserved what they got. Voices. Voices. Teasing me, teasing me, laughing, crying...anger, anger, sadness, joy, misery and pain...I'm listening, I'm listening...there's no need to repeat. I get the point. There's no need to repeat, there really isn't!!

I'm too tired to call for help now. What a coward I am anyway. I shall give myself what I truly deserve and attempt to get back on track in a few days. Even if the remaining journey is going to be a failure, because nobody will show me a way out.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 7.50pm*~~~

A Window without Light

2011-06-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Is it strange to miss something that never existed? Somehow, and very much inexplicably, I miss so many things that have never occurred to me in this life before. When I look outside the window I hope to see a scene so much different from what reality actually presents to me. I miss emotions that I remember probably from another lifetime, miss the things that I've never had in these fifteen years...I probably miss living something I can truly call life, and it's strange, isn't it, if I never even knew life?

I've gotten back to writing a bit these few days, and what I retrieved was a world of lonely hours enclosed in a fictional universe, whose life I would weave by churning out more words to supplement the wonders of visionary inspiration. I used to have a job there, perhaps even a working place, a studio or an office, a summerhouse even, where I would wonder to and fro freely between work and pleasure and life was truly what it was meant to be. I thrived on an expenditure of words and a salary of experiential creations. My work was just to create, create, and endlessly create, and be rewarded with the joy of reviewing my creations as they become animated and alive.

As I grew older, I became enticed for awhile by the promise of more rewarding bonuses from the outside world. I quit my comfy job and ventured into a dangerous new world called Reality. I shifted out of Fiction country, into a vast new land called Reality, perhaps proportionally as big as Russia or even bigger in the real world, in hope of finding a new home in that new endless realm. Expectedly though, I did a horrible job surviving there. Reality gave me less than what it originally promised and I lost sight of many things I wanted to do. My skills became rusty and my ambitions dulled. Once in awhile I would remember to create, but my creations were restricted because Reality would not tolerate such wild ambitious projects. Reality had a God, and we were to obey it.

I miss Fiction. I miss Fiction so much. I have a house in Reality right now, of course, and everytime I push open the window I would see solid, beautiful scenery, perhaps a row of birds dwindling into the sky, or stars and sun and people and trees. These things remain as the hours pass by. Days, months, years, decades, and they would occasionally change, but fundamentally remain rooted. In one way or another, the knowledge that I could walk a hundred rounds around the estate and return to find it still there, of course, offers a modest kind of comfort.

But sometimes I can't help but miss the indefinite quality of Fiction. I miss pushing open the window and seeing a light, which takes no form and shape, but which I can manipulate and think into existence a new creation of sorts. I could create a night, with stars and clouds that drift ever so slowly over a sleeping landscape. I could create a day, with blue skies and a sun whose heat is warm upon my skin. On days when I'm sad I could create rains that plunder so heavily to earth that everything is a foggy silhouette beyond a translucent curtain of obscuration. There was so much imaginative freedom. Things happened for me. I didn't have happen for things. And that, in all aspects, was all it took to truly live.

Someday, when my work is done in Reality, I will go back to Fiction and enjoy my days of retirement by immersing myself in the creations I have quit such a long time ago. Only when I have reunited with what I truly need to do will I be revived.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.33pm*~~~

Contemplation

2011-06-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

There's so much to think about ever since we found his site on google. What originally started off as a form of friendly curiosity ended in the discovery of things so long unknown, so absolutely unknown that we were blown off our seats in that tiny instant. How can someone be so different? Whatever happened to him? Why is he the way he is now, a sad and lonely soul too distant to be embraced?

He was such a brilliant young man, and I'm sure that right now, deep inside, he is still that brilliant young man in one way or another. We just can't see it because of how far apart from him we're standing. Perhaps he is hiding for some unspeakable reason, or we're just sand-blind, but whichever way it is, an enormous, crucial observation has just scaled up the bridge of our nose, past our eyes and up into thin air. His english was gorgeous on the site, his essays full of wise contemplation and psychoanalytical philosophies that kept me reading and craving for more. I feel ashamed to have never seen or hazarded a guess about that part of him; what appeared to me, and which I accepted, was an aged man with not much up his sleeve and whose vain attempts at art (after being a chem teacher) was somehow plaintive in some ways.

How wrong I have been! How wrong I still am right now! It unnerves me that I can be so unobservant, so blind and unseeing that I eventually succumbed to taking him for who he appears to be.

Now, how am I to return to school and face my coursework? I am making a mockery of myself. Instead of being that perceiving soul standing up from the rest of the crowd, I am just as blind as the crowd is, blindfolded and unseeing, even if I may be aware of another direction I would wish to take off in. And there he is, trying his best to help me complete that hypocritical artwork. How ironic, how satirical my artwork can be in terms of admonishing myself! Self-portrait alright, I think it really fits, despite in a crude way, to be one right now.

Reading what he wrote drew me back into my old blogposts and those diary entries when I was a kid. I was surprised at how similar some of our thoughts were; our depression, our desperation, our fears at losing our grasp on the reins of an untamed creature like life. Deep beneath that aged face and slightly irritating demeanor is a poor soul just like the rest of us, with the same experiences and perhaps more. For once I felt this strong urge to reach down to him, reach out to him, to pull him out from his pit of misery. This is not a heroic action a matyr would do. It is simple, basic human kindness. I want to help him. I want to help him because of how human he is, how much like us he is.

Ever since the start of the year I just knew something was a little amiss about him. When many people urged me to join in the blasts of criticism targeted at him, what I saw was a sad, sad soul, so immensely lonely and forlorn, shrinking from the hurt and pain of exclusion. He needed understanding and acceptance. You could tell it just from looking at his eyes, that timidness, the slight hesitation sometimes when he speaks which makes me cringe. He's expecting rejection, expecting to be taunted and teased. And yet at one point in time my earthly emotions overshadowed my more perceiving intuition, and I yielded to the onslaught of negative feelings towards him. I felt so annoyed, so furious with some of things he did. I couldn't understand why he does things that way. I couldn't understand why he couldn't be a different person.

And now I can't understand why I didn't see that different person in him.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.40am*~~~

Immersion

2011-06-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt this strange, otherworldly sensation, as if all of a sudden so many things are flowing into your life and yet you're inexplicably at peace? There's something slightly disconcerting about it; somehow you know that this is an illusion, a calm before the storm, but it lends an almost ethereal quality to life which waters down its less desirable aspects. You know illusions aren't real and that they don't last, but you're glad to keep it up because they are so much more reassuring than cold, solid reality.

That's how I've been feeling for the past couple of days since the start of the hols. The first couple of days of week one was spent travelling back and forth between home and school for art coursework. I would spend half a day slaving away before the canvas, the other half at home dealing with my parents, relaxing instead of trying to do even more work, and then sleeping for approximately 6-7 hours before the next day. On top of that, my inbox churns up fresh emails almost daily regarding scattered school-related duties such as Geng Yun Illustrations, Art Initiative Speedpainting Video, ArtsFest Manga/Anime workshops, RI Badge-Making Machine etc. There are just so many things to do, and for moments like any other I would quickly switch to another tab, desperate to escape the harsh reminders of work from my inbox.

I'm tired, but somehow strangely content. Well maybe it's apathy, but I can't exactly be bothered to figure it out anymore. All I know is that things have settled into a relatively safe rut and life is passing by almost automatically without much effort on my part. Perhaps for this period of time it's neither me driving life, nor life driving me. Life may be driving itself now. And that's good, because I've always wanted to take the backseat a little while in the vehicle of my own life, watching instead of participating, but knowing that I'm still making progress all the same.

Sometimes I feel as if there is a growing split within myself. It's not a dangerous split like a hairline crack that may break a delicate vessel - it's the kind that expands, expands and endlessly expands, but never limited, never restrained. There is just too much space within myself. At certain times I feel as if I could contain two worlds, one for me, one for me, each cocooned in its own universe only to take turns to revolve to the surface.

When I was painting over the past two days, it was as if I was watching someone else paint through my hands. There's this strange sensation of being in control yet not totally, being there but not quite. It doesn't help that my painting consists of a self-portrait of sorts. When I refer to my self-portrait to my friends, I call it a "her", not a "me", and it felt so natural it's almost remotely scary, as if it's a part of me that makes up my being but doesn't exactly belong to me at all. Staring at her backview makes me feel even more alienated from the surface, as if I'm being pushed gently back underwater and told to take stock of things from a reclined spot. I know I'm being told to wait a little while for something which I do not know. The wait, however, no longer disturbs me. Instead of boredom, it is now a chance for a reprieve which comes by so rarely I have learnt to cherish it.

Life pushes me on now. There is no motive in its encouragement, just a mindless, droning pattern it dutifully wishes to get me back into. What surprises me a little is that I respond to it just as dutifully. I am not depressed, at least I don't think so, and definitely not now at any rate. It's just a numbing of the senses which I have no idea how to react to. Maybe it's because we both are tired. Life and I, the unbreakable bond between us from the moment of my birth...we've come to a consensus to resign for a while, to arrive at a well-deserved truce with that vast, unfathomable something we have both been battling together.

It would do us good.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.45pm*~~~

Nowhere in the Wind

2011-05-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's gone, it's gone, it's gone. Nowhere in the wind, nowhere to find. All that is left is the trail of coolness left to remind me that a wind has passed by. What has gone with it? Where have they gone? Where are these answers?

When I look back, I see my shadow on the road where I am no longer present. When I look in the future, I see my body where I am not existing. Where am I? Why am I in this strange situation that presses me so, not telling me who I am, nor what I have been and will become?

I live to need worth. I need to live worthily.

The wind takes it away, or me away from it. It tells me, no.

I do not know what it means.

***

~~~Played with the winds at 2.01pm*~~~

Don't Make Promises

2011-05-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

If you don't plan on fulfilling them, don't make promises. Don't make promises at all.

At the end of the day you're just going to hurt others and gain a hilarious amount of nothing. What is the point of raising others' hopes and dashing them? For fun? Do you think it's fun? Or perhaps out of that weathered know-it-all adult mindset, you think it's practical? Well fuck practicality. If practicality involves being blatantly insensitive, I'd sooner throw myself off a building than conform to it like a beggar waving around an intricately ornamented shield. All surface and no depth. All appearance and no value. Such a way of things does not appeal to me one bit, and I will not buy it.

Empty promises. Abandoned hopes. These are all things that we see all around us nowadays but choose to ignore, choose to dwell in oblivion that would save us from the anguish of awareness. I don't care about the implications of your promise. I don't care what your promise carries for me to gain, or what it compromises; what I care about is how you deal with your promises and just how much sincerity (if applicable) you have when you mouth those words.

Those words aren't normal, you know. They bind you to responsibility. They bind your audience to hope. To give hope to others is you giving yourself a responsibility of sorts, and to fulfill it is your mission. Do you mean what you say? Do you?

Don't give me bullshit about just how practical things are if the promise was to be nullified - I don't give a damn, you know, I don't give a damn. If anything you should probably have thought thoroughly before making that accursed promise. You don't go around jolly and gay after which you say, "hey you know what? Now that I think about it, maybe that promise wouldn't work after all", and think that your audience will take it lightly.

You're just another bastard who drenched someone else's mood for the day. Don't give yourself excuses.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.03pm*~~~

An Unfilled Hollow

2011-05-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

I figured I'm gonna change the format of my post titles such that they feature something other than the date. There's no point repeating the date when it's already there in the header, and besides, ten years down the road, dates won't matter anyway. Everything that's past will be in the past, specific details only break the flow of memory.

So as the title suggests, life has regained that immense, unfathomable void-like quality I had tried so hard to shed in the past few months. There was a point of time when things seemed to be picking up and life seemed more optimistic. It now seems that that period has passed, and I'm left standing beside the tracks, wondering where my train of life has gone to - who's controlling it, what's going to happen in it, for it, and to it. The questions are endless, and so are my answers to them all. I just don't know which ones should match. Everything's in a jumble so chaotic I can no longer find orientation in that mess.

I screwed up my Art practical really badly this Wednesday. I like to believe it wasn't due to an insufficiency of skill - no, it isn't, it shouldn't be, because it is in fact due to sheer carelessness that I chose to paint on the unprimed side of the canvas and ended up unleashing hell on it. The end product looked horrible, worse than a kindergartener's, worse than anything for that matter. I was so embarrassed. Yet like in most situations people are drawn by morbid fascination to the misery of another, and they came up to see, surrounded me, prodded the board I'm clutching so defensively to myself and requested to see it. I don't blame them, since it is only human curiosity to wonder about the reasons behind suffering. But it hurts all the same.

I ended up slipping out of class when (I believe) no one was looking, and hid in the toilets a bit, then went to seek reprieve at the pond. If I remember correctly there was a light drizzle. The mud was wet and soft, the rocks slick and mossy, and everything was in a sort of silence that I have always appreciated but not so much. They seemed to understand, you know. They seemed to understand. It wasn't a dramatic show of empathy either; the rain was small and reserved, trickling slowly from the sky, a form of timid assurance that bespeaks so much more than heavy downpours whose melodrama only evokes doubt and cynicism. Just this drizzle, it's good enough. I don't wish for more.

Times like these make me wonder what life really is, if I don't all the time. While I cry for horrid events I believe I am actually crying for something else, taking that chance to let things out, taking that opportunity of justified weakness to tell myself, "it's okay, you can cry now, nobody knows what it's for anyway". I'm not deprived, not really. I have a lot of things in the world that people would die for. But to me they are a matter of quantity and numbers, superficial statistics that fill up the hollow of deprivation, and there are no seeds sown for real things of quality that take root deep in the heart.

I have parents who do in their own ways love me. I have friends who love me and are absolutely lovable. I am living in a world where communication is convenient and prejudice has been scaled down. But why do I feel so absolutely, frighteningly alone?

Sometimes when I stand underneath the little patch of visible sky by the pond, it feels as if the whole world's watching me, and I watch it back, just the two of us, each not participating in nor caring about each other's affairs. At times like this I can't help but feel as if everyone is suddenly so far apart, each an unreachable universe of its own world and dimension. I don't know why. I don't even try to find the answer to it, because it is so vast, so elusive, so meaningless. There is no point trying to give myself an answer that will distance myself even further from others.

Maybe I am a loner trying to be social afterall. It's so easy to plaster a smile on my face when others show concern or accidentally blurt out something that offends me but not to their knowledge. It's so easy that maybe "plaster" isn't the right word to use at all; it comes naturally, a reflex of the muscles to pull the face into good shape to present before others. Hiding is an instinct, man does it all the time. But don't you find it funny? I hide my emotions physically, but here I am typing away like a weary, bereft soul hoping to build myself a stage for expression out of empty cyber air and uniform typewritten letters. It is funny so. It is funny so.

I have told my friend before that I will not be surprised if I really go insane some day. Even now I get times when I feel my mental horizon tilt like an unbalanced beam high in the sky ready to plunder to earth, and sometimes it would quiver unsteadily as if trying to suppress a quake underneath the surface. Sometimes it flickers like an old bulb on the verge of fusing. At other times it churns up a blank sheet of paper with chicken scrawls over it in splashes of vivid colour, that would meld away into a deep black something that swirls, and swirls, and won't stop swirling. Nothingness, nothingness. Blank reminders of my memories that pass by in a wildering blur.

Nothingness, nothingness, nothingness.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.54am*~~~

12th Apr 2011 (Tuesday) *I am Not a Replacement

2011-04-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

After getting to cool down and think things over, I declined the request to present a speech at Nan Hua Primary this Saturday.

It happened yesterday when a teacher found G. and I in class and asked if I could make a speech at Nan Hua Primary as the Sec 4 Ex-Student from RGS - and I had been quite inclined towards that prospect, until she told me that they found me because G. was unable to make it for sat. They wanted G. at first. They wanted G. Period.She couldn't make it, so now I'm supposed to fill in.

I don't mean to be petty. I don't think highly of myself either, and for a point of time I was even thankful to them for remembering me. But was I really that desperate? Was I really that ready to throw away my dignity and self-esteem, simply because I was given a chance to replace someone who was worth a lot more?

I hate being treated like replacement, like I'm second-choice, the back-up, the reserve, the not-so-good, just there to make the organisers feel better because they have managed to drag a bucket of water to quench the fire. There is this hollow feeling that I am unable to get rid of. It hinders me from finding the zest and genuine commitment to the task that this would require of me, and which I cannot give.

I cannot give a speech of whose content does not come from my heart. I cannot give a speech with no feelings.

I cannot give a speech as a voice for another person.

I guess I'm just not good enough. Since when was I ever good enough? And if I'm not good enough, could you at least not rub it in my face? I'm sick of it. Sick of trying to be good for others, sick of trying to live for others, sick of trying to be who I'm not just so I can fit into society.

I wish someday i could stand at one spot without having to wonder if it's meant for someone else. I wish I could accept commissions with no doubts that there is a mistake of sorts, that perhaps the job was meant for someone else. I wish I could be myself, and love life like that.

To be very honest I have many things I would wish to say to Nan Hua. I'd love to inspire, bring some form of encouragement to my juniors. But I'm sorry, if I'm not the one originally intended to do it, I will keep everything to myself until the day when I deserve full entitlement to the obligation.

Which may be never. I have no idea.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 10.10pm*~~~

9th Apr 2011 (Saturday) *Dunno why I'm here

2011-04-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

I am very serious, very seriously uncertain about why I'm here.

I think reading Tessa's blog just, you know, gets me into the blogging mood. Maybe emoness is infectious. Or maybe it's just me. At any rate I'm just not feeling so upbeat right now...this might take awhile.

Nothing much to update for today. Well except for the fact that I got stuck at the tuition centre for 1h while waiting for the rain to die down, heavy rain it was too. Lots of thunder plus lightning - kids cried, adults smoked, and I ended up reading 1h of BBC Knowledge Magazine which was pretty enjoyable except for the fact that people keep smoking around me.

Hmm anyway since I have nothing to write about I'll post art, uh, unfinished art to be exact. A Port City WIP that may or may not be finished, depends on whether I get the time.

The Long Way Home - WIP

Comments: Seiran carrying Mago home after a long day outside. Mago sleeps on Seiran's shoulders. And yes, that's food in Seiran's hands, Mago had been chewing on the egg (yellow part) before he fell asleep. Played around with colours in Photoshop this time round...have yet to blend everything out, but these will be the main tones. I'm working towards Nuriko-kun's colouring style, and maybe also Yuumei...oh and good old 10rankai! Man I still love her art so much.

Port City art haha. PCA. Wowee.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.34pm*~~~

5th Apr 2011 (Tuesday) *Not Sure What to Feel

2011-04-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

In school right now, some kind of free block this is. I was supposed to act mugger for once and do some of the long overdue Chinese homework - and hey look, it's with me right now, just underneath my pencilcase beside the keyboard. But well, untouched.

Maybe later. Maybe never. *shrugs* It's always down to this question isn't it?

You see, I'm sandwiched between 2 girls who are chionging their Math PT reports right now. And I'm sure there're loads of other girls in this com room chionging other things. It's just...kinda funny you know? A morbid sort of funny, not that people can actually laugh at it.

I got scolded by the Math PT group leader yesterday. I think I pretty much deserved it, but considering I'm absolutely clueless about the Math PT Group Task, I wasn't able to help out much anyway. I ended up doing the glorious job of the humanities student - clearing up grammar errors, correcting typos, basically useless stuff that will be swept away with the words "such little contribution". I'm not saying otherwise, but it's all I could do. Sorry man, but math and I don't go together, and people must learn soon that anything that's got to do with me in Math is pretty much unreliable.

Somehow there's this small voice that constantly reminds me to look on the bright side and forget about complaining. Complaining can't get you anywhere, can't do anything. But if not complaining means living in a void everyday, going the same way from home and back, doing the same things, feeling the same grand nothing, then I think we might as well complain a little. Let off some steam.

Carlin: "Let's see a little smoke..."

Ah yes, you'd be surprised. You might be seeing a little more than smoke after all.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.26am*~~~

2nd Apr 2011 (Saturday) *Ruminations

2011-04-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

I just found a friend's blog yesterday and read most of her posts, and they set me thinking so much, so much that I'm no longer sure if I know where to go anymore.

It seems that the world is no longer as composed as I used to think; like a fog clearing, dispersing the beautifully vague silhouettes that hide the ghastly truth underneath a blanket of mythical beauty. What is left underneath is a gigantic system of rusting cogs and creaking hinges. The mechanism of society is deteriorating. The world is about to fall apart. Or maybe it has already fallen apart, and we are just living in a reality composed of our own delusions - our delusion that we are alive, that we are living in a solid reality, that there is meaning to what we see through our blindfolds.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Just like my friend, I have been frequently pondering about who I used to be as a child. She is right about childhood being the most tragic and precious thing. Childhood is the nursery of life, the only few years we can truly see the world through our wide, innocent eyes, untainted by sin and the guilt of knowing. In this context knowledge is guilty. It really is, because while teaching us things that should bring civilization to a higher level, it is also tearing civilization down, day by day, hour by hour, second by second.

From Knowledge was born Lies. From Knowledge was born Ignorance. From Knowledge was born Greed, because we are all suddenly aware of what each of us wants, that what we want tends to collide, and that there cannot be two winners. From Knowledge is born Misery. We all dream of greener grass on the other side.

And perhaps the worst of all, from Knowledge is born Man, the greatest enemy of Nature, yet also the one who knows the most of it.

Sometimes I wonder if Man really knows what he is doing. We actively strive towards the future, faster, taller, higher - like one gigantic hornet swarm rolling up towards the blue sky, with no signs of hesitation, no notion of reprieve, just horribly bent on achieving what we set out to achieve. Yet most of the time we do not know what it is that we want. We progress eagerly but blindly. Aiming but with no direction. It is a system of the blind leading the blind, each with his own reasons, each guided by his own intuition, each aware of a common goal we have yet to discover.

But we are also aware to some degree at least that what we are seeing could be one gigantic, incorporeal illusion. We know that none of us knows the way. And thus from our blindfolds is born distrust, a wild animalistic distrust that roils within because we know of a light beyond this darkness which we cannot see.

It is time for Man to stop in his tracks for a short while and recount the way he has come. He needs to learn of the things he has recklessly thrown away and lost, and remind himself of the remaining things he possesses that should be guarded more carefully. He must wake up. Wake up from this limbo state of sleepwalking, wake up to a real world where personal awareness is no longer the largest part of life. He must know that life is never fulfilled, that existence is never meaningful without finding that something we have set out to achieve a long time ago.

If you believe in destiny, think of everything in life as little cogs that propel a larger system - good or bad, positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Destiny will guide you to where you are destined to go, it will be your compass, your map, and also your ship. If you believe in God, believe that he has planned things out for your own good, that he wants you to have these experiences because they make up who you are, who you're meant to be. If you are spiritual, live life knowing that you are in one with the Creator, that you are a creator within yourself.

Nobody can control our lives. We create life. We create ourselves.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 11.05am*~~~

31st Mar 2011 (Thursday) *Competitions

2011-03-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

Az won 1st place in the Illuminative Competition thing! I think it's a really pleasant surprise for all of us. She now gets 500 bucks and I really hope that she won't be starving herself again. Though uh, I can't help but feel slightly dejected about this...I mean yes, she's one of my closest friends and I'd love to be able to whole-heartedly say sappy things like "her joy is my joy" but, BUT, I think I must be honest with my feelings. .__. I somehow don't really know what to feel. It kinda makes me feel wretched.

I mean, she's my friend and of course I'm happy for her achievements, and besides I didn't even participate in this competition in the first place so I don't see why I'm feeling so emo about my art. But it just kinda makes me feel like my art isn't good enough, you know? It's just this tricky limbo state between joy and dejection. I've never won top 3 in Art before...well, technically I've only participated in 1 competition, which is the Extravaganza thing last year for which I only got an Honorary Mention. It would really look stupid next to a pedestal for the first.

I think all this worrying is coming from an uncertainty I have about my future. I want to pursue arts, but that means that I must be really goodin Art and my results and points and everything must be good enough to get a scholarship. The prob is right now my results are dropping, my LEAPS record sucks, and I only have 1 Art Competition Achievement whereby I didn't manage to get top 3. I don't think this is enough to even be considered for a half-scholarship, despite having the newly added TXY committment to my testimonials. How am I ever going to be as good as I want to be?

Competitiveness puts me off but I realized I can't help it for myself either. I get pressurized too easily. And when I'm pressurized I pressurize myself even more by thinking that everything I do is pretty much not up to standard. The main reason why I put so much emphasis on Art is because I suck so much in the sciences and everything, I dump all my hopes in Art which is the one subject I am better at and am actually actively passionate about. And I end up wanting to be the best in this subject, because I can't be so in other subjects.

Sigh nvm, I must not let this emo mood overwhelm me. I must be a good friend and congratulate Az whole-heartedly - it's not like it's her fault or anything, there's nothing wrong with achieving 1st place, just something wrong with me and my inconfidence issues. I'll climb out of this depression soon anyway.

I hope she puts her 500 bucks into good use, she could really do with financial presents. :)

PS: Was down with 38+ fever yesterday and saw Joey and Niki on 190 bus today. I have 2-day MC but both are down the drain since my parents made me go to school anyway. Exciting things happen huh.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.38pm*~~~

15th Mar 2011 (Tuesday) *We have hols?

2011-03-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

So yes, we have hols? I don't think we can be so sure now hm? Gah I feel so guilty - that's practically the only way you can truly get a proper hol anymore I realised. Sinful pleasure. *snickers*

Anyway yes, I feel guilty because I wasted my past two days being tremendously unproductive. Well having 4h of drawing is in my own terms productive, but unfortunately I cannot gauge by my standards (since when was anyone able to gauge by their own standards? J maybe). =_= 3h of tuition isn't nearly enough to match up to those muggers who could have done 32h of studying already. I feel so dodo.

But I want a goddamn break! *cries* I mean, what's the point of calling it a MARCH HOL if you have 4 PTs at hand and intensive tuition classes and a whole bunch of revision to do before SAs come in 2 weeks afterwards??? Everyone's rushing off like scary muggers and I'm left blinking stupidly in the dust. I. want. a. goddamn. break.

(School answers "No")

Sigh. Man sometimes I feel like I can spend forever lamenting about the SG education system. If my school can cleverly decide to change "Free Block" to the name "Study Block", I think MOE will decide to be clever someday too and change "Holiday" to "Study Week." It's a humane excuse for an inhumane purpose.

"You have a week off to chiong the four projects I have just given you. Enjoy your week!" Yeah. I will. Try.

Alright whatever, let's forget about the not-so-vacational holiday...to....THE JAPAN QUAKE!!! Oh my goodness it's a friggin' 8.9! And I'd love to be humanely sympathetic to the entire affected population of Japan, and of course I do feel bad for them and hope the best for them, but I find myself selfishly worried about Naruto's mangaka Kishimoto Masashi and voice actress Takeuchi Junko! I wasn't able to sleep properly for 2 days because I was so damn worried. Takeuchi turned out to be ok. But KISHI. KISHIIII. What if he died? What if he's hurt real bad? What if he's stuck in some ulu place unable to ask for help? What if he's unable to contact the rest of the world?

RUMOURS OF HIS DEATH DON'T HELP. I don't like these rumours. They give me the chills and make me bristle at the prospect that certain someones could be enjoying their sadistic pleasures. Sigh.

At any rate...Jys Japan! Hang in there!

(Blogger friggin' cut out the rest of my post thus the truncated ending)

～～～*Played with the winds at 9.59pm*～～～

17th Feb 2011 *Everything's Back on Track

2011-02-17T04:26:00.001-08:00

Yeap, it's as the title implies. Some things happened over CNY that shook my life a bit but left me feeling better than ever.

Most importantly: I realised I love my parents! Very much! You know it makes me feel so relieved to be able to say that finally. I have been bottling that up within myself, fed with so many false perceptions (half of which is caused by my own issues) that I got so confused for a long time before this. Remember when I used to emo so much about how life sucks and everything? Well I figured out that I was the Confused type of Emo, not the ohgoshmylifesucksIwannadie kind of Emo. That's good to know.

So you'd most likely see some more positive posts now since I have started feeling better about life in general. I can't guarantee 0 relapses into emo pitholes, but on the whole things should start looking better. :)

A few updates on life, to be done in sections that is.

---
Az, Awa and I are planning to create an Art committee called AKA (Art Known As), as an extension of Art Club to organise art-related activities and promote Visual Arts to the whole school. I dunno, we didn't plan on creating a comm at first but Ms Tong suggested it so we thought we'd give it a shot. We already have quite a few plans in mind...just have to get them through the red tape thingums, and sort some stuff out, and we should be fine.

I have LitRA Inkspiration to work with, and Art Club has Arts Advocacy vice chairperson YunTeng and member Kim to act as middlemen with the more publicised art comms in school. Plus Ms Tong seems to be pretty excited by her own admission. Things might really get to look good after all.

---

I tried out watercolour for the first time yesterday! Didn't like it at first, since I don't really favour watery mediums, but I realised I do like it particularly because it blends really well once you get the hang of it. Besides watercolour has this wispy feel that make things look ethereal and whitewashed, somehow rain-slicked, with a tint of melancholy mixed with nostalgia as if gazing at a faraway dream or memory...it's beautiful, unique and impacting in its own way. I think I'd really consider taking it up after all. It might work well with Copics too. :D

---

Terry has a new little terrapin to accompany him in the pond! We named the little terrapin Pinny. So it's Terry and Pinny. You know Pinny follows Terry practically everywhere? I observed them for about 10min one recess, just watching how Pinny lags behind Terry yet not daring to break off from the older terrapin. Man, nature is just so irresistably adorable.

I hope Terry feels better now that he has company. I've been thinking about it the whole time...it always seemed to be so alone and sad and you know, like the only terrapin in a pond full of plants and other lifeforms like fish and insects? I don't think it feels very nice for Terry. I'm glad it has a small counterpart now. Take good care of Pinny haha!

---

Az and I are having more and more creepy incidents whereby we both talk about the same things at the same time! It's not just the "same" things...it's mainly how we just happen to open our mouths at the same TIME. Like some weird mechanism that clicks in both our minds or something. We often joke about how we seem to be on the same wavelength. I think it might be unconscious telepathy. Oh whatever it is, it has been happening more and more now, not that I'm complaining. It adds some interesting elements to life. ;)

Oh yeah. I WANT TO GO FOR THE ART JAP TRIP THIS JUNE!!! I love Japanese Art. Plus you know what? We're going to Ikebukuro! And Shinjuku! Durara anyone? Woot!!!

Plus Azalea wishes to go. We'd be fulfilling our promise of "just the two of us going to Japan without our parents one day" sooner than we expect! :D

I'm just worried about Coursework. There seems to be a bundle of hurdles that I need to overcome before I can qualify for the Jap Trip...need to do up a coursework timeline...ugh...I still dunno how long it takes to order canvas and prime them and buy all the necessary materials yet....=___= Ah well, will work it out somehow.

---

Port City finally made progress! Albeit a little, but significant. Seiran is now a Pirate and MG no longer exists, just that Seiran jumped ship so it's more of he "used to be a pirate".

Voila, life is good I guess. Work coming down...SAs...projects...assignments...but it's strangely exciting. I think it's mainly how Art seems to factor into my life a lot more now (now that I have art club) and all sorts of initiatives coming up from everything around me, plus sec 4 is slightly more manageable since after sec 3 we all kinda know what to expect. Creativity sure hypes things up.

Alright I should go do my things now. Eng FA. Hmm.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 8.45pm*~~~

30th Jan 2011 (Sunday) *Anger Control?!

2011-01-29T18:57:00.000-08:00

My. Parents. Fucking. Need. Anger. Control.

I'm really pissed that I have to break the promise I made to myself a few days ago on my blog to post only 2 negative posts every month. Well technically the promise isn't broken yet - but close, if you count this post, it will be 1 out of 2 and I have only 1 more post saved for the rest of this month! D<>

Nothing new really. We got into a big dispute again, pissed both sides off, everyone acted super unreasonably, another crack in the relationships. Oh wow. Brilliant isn't it?

Welcome to my family. Where we're doing pretty well in terms of everything in the material aspects and that leaves us no chance to justify the twisted relationship sometimes. Because you know how the world works; you have money? Okay, you have a nice family. Bullshit, justified bullshit by the bullshit logic that this world goes by.

(Too much George Carlin)

Sometimes I just really wish my parents could learn to rein in their temper at appropriate times and know when to shut up. I didn't even DO anything outrageous, okay? The most I did was being reluctant in reading the Chinese book my mom made me read (cuz I have to go rush a goddamn school essay!!!) and then my mom got damn pissed and just started screaming and I ended up having to read MANY more essays than I originally had to. Stupidity on both of our parts. Gianormous waste of time.

And then wow, she started talking about how I am proud and haughty and unfilial and morally twisted and didn't have a heart and that I had nothing in potential and yet loved to brag about it. Wtf? Do I BRAG about my stuff at ALL? Anyone who knows me just a little bit will know I have confidence issues, or more specifically, INnconfidence. That's like the fundamental thing to know about my personality. And she started talking about this newspaper article featuring some random boy who had to help out his parents in the hawker centre and still got a scholarship to study overseas in Australia or something.

Okay...whatever. So what is it you want to say? Huh?

I'm already used to them telling me that I am pretty much a sucker as compared to all the other heavenly kids and that part was okay. I am just PISSED that they have to keep saying that I don't have a heart, that I'm not kind, that I am morally - what? - twisted and not going the right way. Hello, just because I don't like them doesn't mean I'm a goddamn heartless person! Can't they actually make sensible judgments that won't piss the hell out of everyone??? If they want to misjudge me simply because of their lack of understanding of who I truly am, fine with them, but IM not fine with that.

Next time, choose something else to insult me for. Something more logical and sensible, since I can't really expect you to do sensitive criticism.

Ah yes then my dad. He has the WORST words to say and actions to do at the WORST timing. Period. I'm not gonna elaborate, just that he started yelling at me about something entirely different right after my mom yelled at me. I almost lost control of myself again like I did twice in sec one. I really would have lashed out had I not kept myself in check at the last minute - I'm glad I did control myself, it would have sucked if I had another screaming contest like a madwoman or something. That would really suck.

And great, now this whole thing has totally ruined my mood for my school essay. Plus I might have to cancel the jogging plan with Nans tomorrow because my parents will most likely wake up in a pissy mood and I won't be let out of the house.

Good grief.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 10.59am*~~~

22nd Jan 2011 (Saturday) *A Resolution

2011-01-22T03:40:00.000-08:00

Gah, after what Tiff told me on the MRT the other day about bosses reading the workers' blogs as part of the application process...and that if I ever encountered a boss like that I shouldn't show him/her my blog because of all the emoness in it, I think I'll make a resolution this year. NO posting of emo and depressing stuff for more than twice per month. I just reread my blog and realised how dark and oppressive it really is and I don't think I want it that way. D: Whilst my "personal sanctuary" (lalala~) is indeed a place for my heartfelt thoughts and emotions I really don't need it clotted up with negative energies.

It's not very healthy hm.

So yeap, no philosophical or metaphysical or emo stuff today. Just plain, good ol' life registrations.

Good things happened lately. Yes I will focus on the good things from now on I swear (other than the occasional bad stuff)! D<

I GOT INTO ART CLUB!!! :D Woo!

Az got in too! So we can meet each other 3 days a week now instead of 1 like last time. Mondays, plus Tues and Thurs in Art Club. Sounds good to me. :)

Speaking of which I have MOAR ART!!! :D Muahhaha I haven't been uploading for so long, I think all the old art I've uploaded here are just rotting somewhere deep in the archives and waiting to be refreshed with new art. SO. I will post art right here, right now!

Well it's actually just one picture. I'm a bit too lazy to upload more than that - *sheepish smile* - plus I think it's better if I upload bit by bit per post. Won't piss off anyone and easier on my time too.

---

PRELUDE

Description: First time experimenting with night color palette. This is just the monotone version, there's another type of night palette that utilises Desaturated colours and I have yet to try that out yet. At any rate I think Desaturated will be hard. I mean, monotone is hard enough already...wait, then again...desaturated versions at least follow the original base tones pretty much as compared to monotone which requires you to totally neglect the previous colours. Gah I dunno. Night is hard. Period.

This is Anbu / Hokage Naruto!! :D I really liked the necklace idea which I got from this sasunaru doujinshi. The Kunai thingum, just that I drew three instead of four (cuz I was lazy LOL - nah, aesthetic appeal counts too). And I had a inner debate *cough* about whether his eyes should be red or blue, but settled on blue in the end since red seemed kind of demonic especially with the night atmosphere. X) Wee Naruto!!! He's so cool hahaha.

Fangirl syndrome? Oh noes.

*Facetablet*

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 8.03pm*~~~

11th Jan 2011 (Tues) *Art Club Trial

2011-01-11T03:08:00.000-08:00

You know I really hate coming here everytime I'm depressed and starting every post with a sad sentence. But the thing is I really think I need to talk, to make myself heard, even if there's no one on the other side...life hasn't been the best for me lately again and I find myself being pushed up notch by notch into a position I find hard to escape from.

I just went for Art Club trials today and ended up feeling rejected and hurt. It's not that my art skills weren't good enough; the teacher said that there was no problem letting me in, just that I'd have to go through HOD and he was worried about my CCA records. I know, I understand and appreciate his concern and thoughtfulness in prompting me to reconsider my decision. But the thing is...I really, really want to quit guitar to join Art Club. Not simply because I no longer feel that interest in Guitar which miraculously sustained through sec 3 year, but also because this time round I really have pressing reasons that compel me to leave Guitar for a cause I'm willing to put much more effort and time in.

And that is Art. I'm still so frustrated with it. I mean, I love it, but I've been shown harshly so many times that it doesn't really love me back, same as many other things in life or just life in general. I keep thinking I'm not good enough, or that I'm not the best suited to pursue such a discipline. People do such beautiful artworks and revel in the joy of their creation and they deserve all the recognition they can get. But me? I keep doubting that the day whereby such recognition comes to me will ever arrive; wherever I go people don't seem to want me there, because they're better off without me, as it is, as it was, and as it has ever been.

I hate feeling rejected. My parents think I'm a big disgrace to the family because I can't get the results they want, and I'm not the best kid in their hearts. My family thinks I'm too plump (which is true) and that I should slim down as soon as possible, and also try to shoot up in height. My tuition teachers sigh at my horrible science results. My art teachers are nice but I cannot expect them to like my art in face of so many other geniuses that pervade this whole school.

And then I get streamed into the low-rank A class for HCL even though I come from friggin China. Then what? Disappoint my whole race?

I hate myself for being such a huge disappointment to everyone, for not being able to be the kind of person that everyone will like. I hate myself. I hate myself so much it hurts to just think of it.

When will I ever stop disappointing people? Whatever I do doesn't seem to meet the expectations whatever the case it is. Whatever I endeavour in hardly bears fruit. I know it's really, really childish to be like this but I really feel so...so horribly depressed! I need to be someone whom others can welcome, but I don't want to be who I'm not! I don't want to conform to this stupid society in any way that goes against my own faith!

I don't even know if I love myself at all anymore, even if it's spiritual-wise. Somehow it just seems as if the Me I'd really go with belongs in some other world, unseen by men here, unappreciated by the earthen dimension. I don't feel a sense of belonging here. People just pile heaps of expectations on me and when they are not, I pile my own onto myself, only to find out that I cannot walk as fast as others who are able to take on more.

Can't you see? Can't you friggin' see?

Stop getting so disappointed with me! Can't you see that I'm trying? That I'm doing all I can to just hear your acknowledgement of my endeavours at least once?

STOP BEING SO DISAPPOINTED! STOP BEING SO DEMANDING! I CAN'T DO ALL THAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, I CAN'T BE THE BEST STUDENT ON EARTH, I CAN'T BE THE BEST KID ON EARTH. I CAN'T BE WHO I AM NOT AND WHO I AM UNABLE TO BECOME!

I CAN'T BE GOOD IN EVERYTHING!!!

I don't cry outside. I don't want to show my weaknesses and problems to the world. But it fucking hurts and I know it!

HELP ME GODDAMNIT! Why can't anyone hear me???

God, I'm pathetic.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 7.31pm*~~~

29th December 2010 (Wednesday) *God

2010-12-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

Hey there once again after...one month or so. I'm back in Singapore, after a hectic holiday in China sprinting here and there between math and art tuitions, but it was worth it so I'm not gonna complain. At any rate being a bit busy can be easily slighted if I really sat down and considered all the good things I'd received this hol.

One particularly important thing I wanted to pen down almost instantly was a chat with Raf some days ago that made me re-establish my perception of God. Regardless of its simple nature I called it enlightenment. Because it really is. It was the start of a series of understandings that I wouldn't have attained if not for this particular springboard.

Simply put, what I started over to perceive is one of the spiritual context. God is not Him, nor is God an It, but God is All. God is existence. God is not one, but is all and everything put together. In other words you and I are God, that cup over there is God, that cat is God, the trees are God, Life is God and Existence is God. We are God. God are Us. That's really the whole point.

What I used to believe in after I had lost faith in religion was essentially the same in nature but different in description. I believed that there was no other god than the creators within each and every one of us. The ultimate creator I had viewed as the Cosmic Source, the origin of all and the supplier of all energies. But now I know better. We are co-creators. We don't depend on God, nor do we fear him, or obey him, or love him with a price to pay. We work with God. We help God, just as he helps us...it's a mutual thing.

Faith, like many things, is mutual. And Love likewise is mutual. Something I've been wondering about focuses particularly on this issue; that whilst love is supposed to be an innate, natural ability, an instinctual part of ourselves that should be utilised as we would use our lungs to breathe, it has been twisted and altered and blemished with the artificial manmade labels just as man's desire to give everything a physical form of worth did to almost everything else. Love needs sacrifice. Love needs fear. Love needs possession. Love needs submission.

Some people die for love.

But can't they see the simple answer underneath that dark cloak of miscomprehension - that you can, similarly, live for love?

It's a tiny step-wide fork in a choice that presents itself all too often before our undiscerning eyes.

If only one day every Man could open his eyes, look around himself...see himself in the other, and the other in himself, that is the day when true ascension comes. We don't need love to be paid for, not must it be requitted. You love another as you love your own. You love others as you love yourself. You love God as you love you, because God is you, God is everything, and you are everything.

Man are afraid of looking beyond this shell of individuality they have created around themselves, perhaps because of the fear that when melded into this universal being of existence they would lose their personality and uniqueness that make up their shaky grounds for existing. They exist for the knowledge that they are not others, that they are different beings, cognitive individuals who can only be relieved with the knowledge that they have something others do not. That makes them reject others of their own kind, and subsequently reject themselves. Cold wars. Hatred. Misunderstandings. Rejection and Fear. All adverse consequences from that moment of foolishness that started it all.

And that moment, is the start of civilization.

It is ironic that whilst civilization was supposed to bring a more noble love, this instinct has actually been downgraded to an afterthought, pushed behind conscious calculations and lies and measurements of profit that pervade the soul of mankind. People are no longer happy with love anymore, and they do not hesitate to make their complaints known.

But can't they see the simplest of answers?

You don't need to be happy only because you know the other accepted your love. You need to be happy because you loved.

And that is the simple philosophy.

I give them a leeway for their unyielding obstination in this matter. Because you cannot call them obstinate or foolish when they have yet to be able to see the bigger picture in the first place. The Me a month ago wouldn't have. It takes time...sprinkled with well-placed opportunities, for people to digest the simplicity of this answer that slips the mind conditioned to look for complexity.

And as I have said earlier to myself (not in this post), now I finally understand why we cannot save Man by simply intervening with whatever they are doing and setting them right back on track. Because by saving them we need to let them grow. And by letting them grow we cannot keep making decisions for them. Only when they finally realise the freedom of decision and choice left to them by creation, can they fully be called a true civilization worthy of further growth.

And that's the point. You make yourself better, so you can be worthy of further growth. That is the point these earthlings must understand.

Trust me, you will be free one day.

We will all be free one day.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.50pm*~~~

15th November 2010 (Monday) *Ruminations

2010-11-15T03:54:00.000-08:00

This is just the second post in months and I'm already starting to realise just how much I had missed this world here. Talking to the wind, talking to that perpetual, unmoving sunset...to that distant bank on which whoever stands I have yet to know...there are so many things here that feel like home. So many things reality would bereave me of, and of which I will not let go.

Life to me lately has been like some kind of pot filled with all kinds of flavours. Things just blended in, with as much rigor like they did in normal semesters but with much less intensity and with gaps for reprieves. I finished the bulk of the illustrations. I started learning a bit of parkour. I continued going for tuitions. I got an art award. I attended a sort-of disappointing AFA. Life just went on. Everything, from bitter to sweet, sour to spicy, they all formed a strange unperceivable blob of something for which I do not know what to feel.

And that blob is life.

After fifteen years I still find it difficult to understand what life means to me. I know of a distant purpose, some instinctive idea that there is a task I have to complete within my designated period here, but I just can't put my finger on it. An ego way of putting it would be that I have felt, from the day of my birth, that I was born not to pull myself through the sludge and conform to societal norms; I needed to do something big, and to achieve that I would have to walk a way different from others. I need to find the courage to walk away from the rest in pursuit of what I truly want and need to do.

But courage is a strange thing. I do not believe many years will make me understand it. I do not think that I - no, anyone ever will.

It is difficult to understand something that shuns you.

Ah well. Enough with the mindless emoing. I guess I've been missing out on the...more physical details of life lately so why not go into that? I'll list all the things that made me happy over the course of the past month.

1) I got honorable mentions in Extravaganza art comp.
2) My parents surprisingly did not explode at my horrid GPA.
3) I got to improve in the parkour roll and managed to do a bit of lazy vault.
4) I've been going to Az's house for the past 2 weeks, and she came to mine too. Had a lot of fun (RS is not counted).
5) Naruto manga is going into climax. Hope the anime can get rid of fillers soon.
6) Talked with the counsellor. Made me feel better.
7) Attended AFA for the first time, and saw cosplayers up close for the first time! :D
8) Az bought me Naruto's frog pouch gama-chan. It was so cute! >.<
9) Read an awesome (-ly sad but bittersweet) Naruto fanfic.
10) This is kind of long ago (in Oct) but - AZ GAVE ME THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER, complete with presents, drawing, movie, and homemade cake. It was really awesome! Thanks Az!
11) Az and I are planning to start our own manga.
12) I fixed my blog background music! :D And got to check out some of Joe Hisashi-sensei's awesome piano compositions in the meantime.

Hmm. Now for the things that made me sad, or moody, or just generally feeling some form of negative emotion...

1) Daily bickers with parents. The old thing. Getting really sick of the prevalent disharmony.
2) RS is taxing.
3) Pressurized by the other winning artworks at Extravaganza. The truth of my standards hit me.
4) Tuition teachers are getting serious with my results. I do not want to be reminded of Physics and Chem experiences after EYA.
5) Had to be coerced into reading extremely boring and loooong Chinese texts everyday.
6) Father seems not happy enough about my artistic accomplishments and pursuits. It seems he can only be appeased if I gave up art and turned in the science direction. (Rest assured I will not.)
7) My computer crashed from trojan virus. D<>
8) K up-ed the tension in our friendship by getting jealous.
9) Getting increasingly displeased with a friend's attitude.

Yup, that's about it. I have 12 main happy things and 9 sad things. 12>9 and enough said. I have more happy things I can think of compared to sad ones and thus I really shouldn't emo so much anymore. I should be content whoo! *pumps fist in the air*

Hmm so speaking of which the manga Az and I are planning to work on will no longer be durarara fan-comic-ish, but instead it's gonna be fully original. Well sort of at least. We kinda went to random plot generator at 7th Sanctum site and pieced some bits and pieces of inspiration we got from there. Now we can actually see a tiny story bud sprouting from the mud. I'm gonna drag in Seiran who's gonna be this newcomer to the city and also a wanderer / mercenary who has a serious misunderstanding with his father, and I will also be creating another character who's gonna be a poor peasant boy / commoner boy. Ah well. Everything's still in the form of a temporary hashed out plan. Nothing can be said for sure.

At least I know I'll be in charge of two main characters so far and will make sure I take good care of them. *Evil grin*

That reminds me of the bittersweet Naruto fanfic I read today morning. It was so beautifully sad, so purely and cleanly touching, I cried for dunno how many times whilst reading it. The loneliness and pain Naruto underwent...it must be a lonely existence, to be a hanyou when all the rest of the world remains perfectly human and shuns you for exactly who you are. He didn't get a chance to be understood. He didn't get a chance to understand himself.

And the way he was taught to view himself! Oh heavens! He thought of himself as a mere gift to his father and thought he would be deemed a burden if he wasn't good enough. He didn't understand what love was. Not when he believed he should have been his father's servant instead of a bloodkin, a son. And Minato showed him, step by tender step, the gentle ways of a father and the heartwarming bonds of family. From simple actions such as being there during a nightmare Naruto leaked over through the connection...to greater things like accepting his son's demon half...Minato is a great father. He is a great father just like the Father of the Konohagakure people regard him as. He was a great father to Naruto.

(I would love to have a father like that.)

It was so beautiful, so fragilely touching, I lost myself utterly in those heartwarmingly hearbreaking words. It was sadness and joy. Fire and water. Acceptance and rejection. Love and hate. It was bittersweet.

Sigh. Good fanfics like these are so hard to find nowadays. Whenever I search for something good that could keep me submerged within its alternative universe...somehow whatever is desired no longer pops up. I've scoured through the more prominent Naruto communities on fanfic.net. Maybe it's cuz I've read all the good stuff I can find there, and good ones are coming too slow and too few at a time. Oh well, guess I'll just wait.

After all, like courage, good things are best received when they are unexpected.

Like a pleasant surprise. Hm.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.59pm*~~~

14th Nov 2010 (Sunday) *Extravaganza Art Competition

2010-11-14T05:50:00.000-08:00

Finally! After one month of inactivity I've finally decided to drag myself back in here and post something about life. Life. Ah that big, sophisticated, annoyingly confusing thing.

The results for the Extravaganza '10 Competition were out yesterday. I got an honorable mention in the Trad Ink Category, along with Ch who got about the same and Bella who got honorable mentions in the Graphite Category.

Hmm I guess I'm pretty happy. I mean it IS my first art competition ever and also my first time getting a proper award thing for my art. Not that the prize was actually very nice, considering how they somehow took out the original $50 bucks from the prizelist and replaced it with the Animax Goodie Bag, but who cares. I'm just after the certificate. It's all I need to tell myself there is proof of recognition for my artwork, money doesn't count.

Though no matter how elated I should be I can't help but feel depressed after the entire event. It's strange, my person that is. I always just seem to feel the opposite of how I should feel for happy occasions, and this irks me that it prevents me from enjoying what I have earned. The pressure follows me everywhere. The inconfidence. The notion that whatever I do does not match up to what others can do.

I hate myself for being this competitive, but I felt this pang of depression when I looked at the other winning artworks. I mean, seriously, what's up with mine? A rushed piece of work within 3 hours filled with unfinished brushstrokes and unblended splotches, along with a clashy colour theme (which is the kind I really hate). Can't I do better? I should have, really. I should and could have done so much more. But somehow things just don't come out the way I want it to sometimes. Especially when life gets on me and my inspiration gets all blocked up...I feel frustrated, so frustrated.

And then my parents. They were happy. Well at least I'd assume they'd be considerably glad. But for some danged reason (or maybe none at all) my dad kept talking about how much prize money I'd be getting, whether there'd be interviews, whether my friends and teachers would be there etc etc. Come on! Give me a break. He made it sound as if he expected Extravaganza to be a horridly huge and formal competition - the kind like UOB in which winners like Bai Tian Yuan get shot up to national fame. But it isn't! Stop trying to hope that it is! Because it isn't, and by that I really mean it isn't! I dunno, I guess I really am too sensitive but it makes me feel as if I wasn't good enough, that I got an award for a small informal competition instead of the prestigious kind that my parents would just love to see me winning in. But isn't this good enough? At least for now?

When is anything ever going to be good enough for you?

When am I ever going to be good enough for you?

I don't know, I'm just trying my best. I'm trying to be the best kid for you too in a sense, but I'm also trying to be the best person for myself. I know all about the filial piety thing. And I feel obliged to repay all that you have done for me with sincerity. But when in doing so you're living someone else's dream instead of your own, it's no longer called filial piety. It's mindless sacrifice, a horrific lack of personality and purposeful direction in life that leaves you lost and alternating between others' wishes. Others' wishes. Others' desires. Others' hopes.

For you, perhaps, but not your own.

I know what is best for me. Trust me, I do. I know the age of fifteen is mid-adolescence and it is difficult for you to let go of me so easily, but someday, a very inevitable someday, I'd be off and away, beyond your hold and beyond your line of vision anyway. It is just a matter of time. And when my time comes I'd have to be on my own, no matter how both you and I may wish otherwise.

People keep telling me to be who I'm not. People keep believing I'd be better off if I were a different person from who I am now. But I want to be nothing but myself, to live with the persona I have created like I would in a house I've built a long time ago. By that I mean, and I sincerely mean, that I want to go with art.

I want to hold art's hands. I want it to hold mine. I want the two of us to be crossing those wild, wild moorlands which nothing but time can trespass. I want it to be just the two of us, a piece for each other, in an eternal, unbroken, poetic friendship.

I love art. I love art. I love art. I love art. I love art. I love art. I love art.

I love art to the infinitum.

Will you love me back?

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.14pm*~~~

11th September 2010 *No August? :O

2010-09-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Haha so I broke my not-so-existent oath regarding one blogpost every month. I missed out poor August :O

Not much updates really. Well actually who am I kidding - it's the (fake) Sept hols and EYAs are just prowling around and eating up all my FWREE time. Practially spending everyday revising and crap, though I have to say I got away with filching some time reading fanfics / watching anime / gawking at 10rankai's gallery (again) under the pretense that I'm doing e-learning. I guess that's what kept me alive..

Been doing too much CG lately. I think I should really do some traditional art - Transitional Paintings DON'T count! D<>.>

Will post some art here maybe in a few...er, I dunno, after some time? ^^" Better not make promises.

In the meantime my art will be in http://www.yumebunya.blogspot.com/, just an artblog I created lately. Most of the stuff up there are in Deviantart anyway...though I think you would get random priveleges *cough* of seeing some scraps and unpresentable quickies now and then. It's written in Japanese so don't pitchfork me if you can't read it; I warned you.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.18am*~~~

27th July 2010 *Drained, and Metaphysics

2010-07-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

'Been wondering how Man has been gradually more deluded by the things they themselves had created. The kind of value they can tag unto something as simple as a piece of dollar bill...something that originally came from nature, now cycled through the world in a fracas of political whirlwinds - it's just hard to think of something so innocent, so blatantly pure, being the rotten root that led to the decay of morals.

Value brings judgment, brings weightage, and provokes the innate nature of Man to start measuring the worth of things. But once things are measured, and subsequently labelled, they are no longer equal. They have a value. This value can raise them millions of levels above their original, or lower them down to unseen depths. Does value equal to worth? I doubt so. Value is the physical cost of things, the unit of judgment civilization has created, but worth...worth is the true substance and essence of things in their purest. Worth is not to be casually tinkered with by the physical aspects of evaluation.

Perhaps someday Man as a whole will open his eyes and see for the first time the true world around them, that everything in this world, when stripped of their physical burdens of appearance, are common souls and energies that make up our universal web. We are in unison, distinct beings but in unison; diversity in equality, and vice versa.

Not everything has to be named to have worth. The name does not give you worth. Names do not give anything worth. They only give you acknowledgement of your worth, a form of recognition made easy by the physical facet of identification. But we cannot forget the other aspects that form the identity of things. We need to learn how to recognise things not by their labels, their value, but their worth.

It will just be like throwing away the words "I", "You", "He", "She", "It, "They" or "We" and looking at the barren form of things unadorned with such labels. They will be so very different...so much more real, so much closer. Only by discarding the physical facade and looking beyond these masks we cover them with, can we finally perceive the true substance that make up what things are.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.41pm*~~~

21st July 2010 *RHD and First Commendation

2010-07-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

For the first time, I received direct acknowledgement from my school art teacher.

It felt so nice. The commendation itself was so simple; plain, quick, soft, fleeting...just an effortless "I'm putting this up, it is very well done" as she walks away to store away the pieces - but wow! It made me feel so much better, like something's been lifted off me in a whoosh. Seems like I've been so repressed by my own faltering self-confidence (or lack thereof) that something like this could cheer me up so much.

Serious, this really made my day. I felt like a primary school kid...face flushed with happiness and childish pride (well, on the inside =__=) as an adult expresses his appreciation of something you did, be it a pat on the head, or quick words, or just a smile of recognition. It's really wondrous how a praise can have this much effect. I dunno, I guess it's cuz I've been waiting so long by myself to be recognised that this came as a considerable surprise. It almost feels like the trapdoor above being opened and a beam of light drifting into the darkness. The hope...the revivement...the re-ignition...

It gave me a confidence boost, one that I had really been in need of lately. Thank you so much. The timing was impeccable - thankfully. :)

Though on a darker note things happened in SAP today that weren't of joyous nature. Well, not exactly "things". But I do suppose HP coming into class, dumping her bag and slumping on the table snifling and sobbing IS definitely something out of the ordinary. I mean, she has always given me the impression that she's a strong girl, the kind of tough basketballer who is lively, sarcastic, cracks cynical jokes and just downright entertaining albeit in a sardonic and dark-humour-ish way. To see her crying is really...quite scary.

She wouldnt' tell any of us what happened. I really felt a twinge within when I saw her, but I really didn't know how to help! I tried talking to her, but she just shook her head and on second thoughts I figured it was better to let her have her space and quiet for awhile. It's frustrating, this kind of thing. I couldn't focus on my art for a long time cuz it just felt WRONG to be doing your own stuff nonchalantly when someone is f*ing depressed a little ways near you. That and the fact that you know you can't do anything about it.

And the way most of the other SAP ppl acted...it really unnerved me. They just totally ignored her and left her sniffling on the table! Someone even said "Who cares?" I mean, wtf is this?? Shouldn't you at least show some bit of concern? Is that really the way you treat your friends - laugh at their ingenius jokes when days are sunny and then turn the cold shoulder when she's down? I dunno if there are any underlying meanings and factors behind this, but this act of utter nonchalance just seriously frightened me.

Oh well...at least E offered a pack of tissue and talked a bit, and C folded a little gift thing for HP. That's good enough for now I suppose.

Sigh...the complications of man and this world...it's bound to come down to this. Perfect beings losing their perfection via knowledge - the acquaintance with earthly affairs, and the subsequent loss of innocence that degrades us to what we are today. It's either be empty or be emptied. Of what, that would for now remain a metaphysical question.

Speaking of which, MW has a new blog. Apparently he's putting up all his rants there...the first few lines were f*ing emo for crying out loud lol. Well at least now I know my blog isn't the only emo dump in the vicinity. Just that his is more cynical, more acerbic, and mine is more...alkaline? =__=

So much for a screwed up chem SPA (that is now screwing up my mind).

And now the politically correct things.

Happy Racial Harmony Day! Regardless of race, language, religion, blahblahblah.....:D But you get the point. All races unite woohoo! XD

Oh boy, do I love diversity hm.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.36pm*~~~

12th July 2010 *Motivation and New Plans

2010-07-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

'Ts been a while again hm? Life has been keeping me busy. Pretty much. Though I should say that ever since the reprieve from June Hols I've been taking things slightly slower and easier than before...but dang, it's only the 3rd week of term 3, I'd better shut up.

So...the annual UOB art competition has ended with Bai Tian Yuan's topping as best painting of the year. She's from JC1! Isn't it cool? I mean...she's only 18 years old and she won a competition whose previous winners have mostly been renowned Singaporean artists - surely that's something. She said she had started in art since a really young age...and Mrs Lai also confirmed that she had really good art foundations since she entered school. Sounds like one of those art prodigies who begun at ages 5 or younger. >.<

I know this sounds funny, or ridiculous, it depends on how you interpret it. But yes, I have NEW PLANS. I'm going to aim for this UOB Art Competition. Serious. Well, what's so funny about that? I'll tell you it's the highest award a Singaporean artist can aspire to achieve (Mrs Lai's words) and for someone like me it's f*ing darn impossible, and you'll see what's funny. But I'm still giving a try. I don't care. This is a good opportunity, and even if I fail in utilizing it properly, I could at least make the effort to seize it.

Being a natural introvert (dammit) I've always been doubting my art skills so much, I've been hating this insecure feeling and accursed inconfidence that I seem to have in whatever I do. Sooner or later I'll have to overcome this problem. I can't always be the artist who hides my sketchbook away from others, or draws only when others are not around. I can't always be the artist who articulates my own inconfidence behind what others automatically assume to be "modesty" and "humility".

I can't always be the artist who sits in a corner and draws while stealing looks at others and wishing I could be better.

I need to get out of this little corner. I realized I need to go out, take stage in the centre of my own room and...just express myself. My world is my stage. Whichever way I want, however I want it to be. I control the backstage, and the frontstage. No restraints. No doubts. No fears. And speaking of which, cowardice is an ultimate NO NO.

All these things I've been doing...questioning myself, why I'm here, thinking what I could do for this world from within my field of passion...and also being frustrated with the words of adults saying it is a banal dream, a fool's ambition to escape from an all too realistic world...I think I have found one of the first answers I have been yearning to tell myself all these years.

I WILL stick with what I truly want to do. I will walk with my passion - wherever it goes, I will follow. Whatever frontier it takes me to, I will gladly explore. You cannot hold me back. No one can. I've been told many times that these will not work...that the only way to survive is to conform to everything society says. But f*k that.

Do not tell me to be who I am not. I am still a member of this society, and I will fulfill the duties required, and maybe more, of me. But telling me that I have to give up my passion, my love, basically giving up what makes up my identity, for this lone cause, I will not heed such crap. I will definitely find a way out of this. A path that merges both together.

I want to help the world. It's one of my sole purposes being here, being who I am; part of why I would be at times painfully frustrated with the negative energies in this dimension that plague even the purest of souls, and find myself desperately wishing for a distant idealistic world. I want, and will, help the world.

But not in the way that involves conventional jobs that derive the best economic profits. Not in the way that involves "politicking" your way up the ranks of society. Not in the way that makes sure you work like a dog in loathing or utter emotionlessness for a career that holds no specific meaning to you, other than the fact that it guarantees money. No, I will not go with this. without at least putting up a fight.

I want to help the world, through art, through expressing via imagery the things I would probably never be able to express by mouth or word. And most importantly, though also perhaps the most absurd of all dreams I can spout, I want to prove to others, to my parents, to society, to other budding artists, that no one should ever be fully confined by the status quo.

Gee, this sounds so uncharacteristically ego and ridiculous that I cringe at what I type. But for this once, I want to stop being that emo self as I've always been, even if it's just for a few seconds...just so I can tell myself...

I CAN do this, I WILL do this, and I HAVE done this.

Stop telling yourself you can't.

Because I believe in miracles. People are capable of miracles.

And I want to, and will, believe that I am equally capable of miracles too.

Just wait and see.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.26pm*~~~

4th July 2010 (Sunday) *A Runaway Dream

2010-07-04T08:57:00.001-07:00

A runaway dream...

Literally. This dream I had didn't feel nice or anything, instead it had felt downright depressing and hopeless, but somehow there were things within it that I had cherished, and experiences which I had never thought of having before. Here goes:

It began with me being on the highway connecting SG and M'sia, at midnight, when suddenly the highway began slanting downwards (I dunno how that's possible, it was as if part of the land beneath one of the ends began sinking or something) into the ocean. So logically I slid down with it, but before I dropped down the highway fell onto...land? Uh yeah, but it was still very steep, and I found myself crawling back upwards with a lot of difficulty. There were a lot of cars around me, they just zoomed by...and I almost got knocked by this car that came from the back, but didn't, and I stayed close to the pillars.

I think my condition then was that...I was a runaway, or a wanderer, or just some wretched thing who doesn't have a place to go back to. >.>

Somehow I made it (back?) to the M'sia customs (erm don't ask me why "back", I live in SG and have no idea why I would be "going back" to M'sia). But the people there were seriously something. Not only did they absolutely not care a heck about my condition, which was like, worn out, tired, shaken, er, just downright pathetic...ahem...they had taken a damn long time getting me through the customs. There was this woman who said they needed to take a photo of me (huh?). I complied and stared at the camera, but it just wouldn't work. And I was exhausted.

Then this guy working there suddenly said something about it being very late and that they should go home. I was like thinking "Hey but you can't just leave me here! At least get me through the customs!" and for some VERY weird reason I called out to him in Japanese, "daisan dankai!" which practically means "it's already the third stage (of the customs)!" Then he was like "daisan dankai ka...?" and then decided to stay a little longer till I was through. Yeah, funny huh.

Scene change.

It was still the same night, and I'm still the same person. This time round I was in some kind of orphanage-like place, or rather...like a home for juvenile delinquents, or runaways in this case, kind of like a prison but in a very unrealistically free and easy way. I was in the elevator with two guys who were both wearing gray hoodies and drinking from cans - probably fizzy drinks or something. They were damn quiet and had the hoodies drawn up, like classical emos. Erm so yea we reached the ground floor and managed to get out of the place into a grayish parade-square like place...with a platform that held the flagpoles and stuff.

We had planned to run away together. It was weird, I didn't have any horrendously negative feelings towards that place, but somehow in the dream I needed, no, wanted to leave it. I had a choice to stay. I had things in that place for which I had wanted to stay. And yet something compelled me to leave...

Anyway, I climbed up (with difficulty?) to the flagpole platform (which was really wth since it was such a conspicuous place) after the two guys, and noticed the fat old guard with a white beard holding a flashlight and talking to someone in the square. Somehow he didn't notice us. Right.

Then when the other two guys were going to make a (stealthy) run for it, I held one of them back and whispered, "Are you sure you want to leave this place? If you go out into the rest of the world you wouldn't be able to survive, they wouldn't want us. This place provides us with the basic stuff. At least we get to live here. Outside there there is no future for us."

When I said that I felt kind of weak and helpless. I had really contemplated that said "future" before that. I had really felt, no, seen darkness wherever I looked, and the only place where I could ever be relatively safe and accepted was that not-home I had been stuck in. I was a runaway in the dream, remember? A runaway who was going to leave the only place she could survive in. Throw it behind and heading for death for unknown reasons, even though I knew that going out beyond was going to kill me. But my decision was...it was there. I felt a pressing depression wherever I looked, back and forth, between that "home", and the darkness outside that forewarns future-less years.

Well, the guy stared at me disapprovingly, but then the guard noticed us, came over and shone his torchlight into my face. o_0 He was surprisingly friendly. Brought us back to the place, in time for breakfast (btw the signboard said that breakfast started at 2am something and ended at 8.30am???). The weirdest, and yet also the best part of this dream is that...when he brought us back, I felt a small sense of warmth.

It was kind of like the sense of warmth when you're finally accepted. Finally belonged. Finally loved after years of not being so.

I know it's really funny that I'm saying all these, had this kind of dream and experience in the dreamlife, when my real life provides me with majority of what I need and want. In real life I have a home. That's the basic, foremost, and most important place to begin with. I have parents who, despite not being the most ideal, are doing a pretty good job at least in the materialistic ways and most of the psychological side. I am allowed to develop my passions, even though it clashed sometimes with my parents' orders. I had friends. I was safe. I know I belonged somewhere.

But in the dream? I didn't have a family. I didn't have parents. I didn't have anything but the basic needs for survival provided by a not-home in which I had not felt acceptance and warmth (except the little bit at the end of dream). I didn't have friends. I was in danger, and everyday was a survival exam (be it mentally or physically). I did not belong. I had no future.

They were such polar opposites. It was really weird that I would have such a dream experience at all. The helplessness...everything...it felt so real. It wasn't like I had lost everything. In this dream I did not even have anything at all.

Even weirder is the fact that this dream is the first in which I was running away from a "home". Usually in my dreams, most of the time I did not have a home (as in, I was just a single person, with no familial ties, no blood relationships, and did not care about the notion of home) or had a home that was the one I had in real life and had fit in nicely. And in one dream I visited the "home" and parents from a supposed "past life". But this dream....this dream is different. This time round I was running away from "home". And it wasn't even a real home. It was just kind of like the only place where I could ever have the chance of surviving.

The question this dream left me with was...home as a place where you get what you need for survival, or home as a place where you truly feel accepted and actually belonged?

Now that I think about it, I think this dream may have been evoked by recent situations in my real life. My parents have been mad over my results lately. They've arrived home everyday, been around me everyday, talking about nothing else other than results and future. They wanted me to draw up an "action plan" to improve my physics and chem, made me quit saturday art lesson, taking up physics and probably chem tuition instead. And threatened to confiscate all my art stuff if I ever get bad results again. Told me it was for my own good.

And I suppose the worst thing they said was, "what's the point of raising you up if you don't get back good results? Our family has never had any failures before. If this continues we wouldn't even have the face to go back to see your grandparents. If you grow up and become an utterly useless person our family might even disown you." - said in a harsher way, and in Chinese. Which makes it even harsher. >.>

So you raise me up so I can get back good results. Like you keep a pet dog so he can fetch you the stick. Heh. I see. At least I'm pretty sure they weren't serious about the "disowning" part.

"I'm going to kill off the passion you live for. It's for your own good."

I have a lot to think about.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.56pm*~~~

16th May 2010 (Monday) *Random Music Quiz. Beautiful World

2010-05-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

Stole this from Kim's journal. :D

---

RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, mp3 player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
5. Tag 15 friends
6. Everyone tagged have to do same thing
7. Have Fun!

---

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
- Imagination 2. (Oh yes, use your imagination.)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
- Loneliness. (Ahhahhah, I would like that of an adequate proportion.)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
- Existence. (Ah yes, I question my existence for numerous times just like every other day. =__=)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
- It's the Training. (What training?! For what? Who what when why how? @__@)

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
- Requiem for a Dream. (Now that's interesting...)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
- Serenade of Nirvana. (What the - okay...I'm spiritual and I meditate....huh? OxO)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
- Prayer. (Well they're certainly UNlike prayers to me. Maybe I'm praying for something else in them. Or maybe I subconsciously pray for them. Gawh)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
- Afterglow. (Afterglow? Of what? Of things? .__. Sounds mysterwious)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
- Always. (Oh yes, I think of her as my best friend always. Didn't we use to say Best Friends forever....^^")

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
- Aoi no Sora. (Translation from Jap: Blue Sky. Woohoo I love skies. Especially when it has clouds in them...hmm, not necessarily blue, but I do like natural sky blue.)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
- Canon Groove. (Now that totally doesn't say anything. I think. Maybe my life is going to be as rough as the canon. Well that sucks. >.>)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
- Autumn Chrysanthemum. (Oooo, isolated, dreamy, mysterious, melancholic? XD Well I do love autumn.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
- For You. (O.M.G. No I don't think I'm THAT selfless and this is sounding wrong.)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
- Beni Soubi. (Translation from Jap: Battle of the Red Rose. HUH. They think I'm a battle? And what's with red rose...blood? O__O Blood and romance? hurhur)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
- Bond. (Now that's nice. It's not a dancing song at all but I suppose the meaning is nice.)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
- Break Dance Instructor. (LOL, yea right, playing the first song that ever started me off being interested in dance and exercise - which I no longer am btw. >.>)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
- Burial. (Whoa, sounds ominous. I don't want to dig graves. :O)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
- Caravan. (Well most of them ARE fun people XD)

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
- Raikiri. (Getting hit by Kakashi's Raikiri. Yes, that would suck indeed. =_=)

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
- Lord of Ideals. (Right on the point dude. I regret being so damn idealistic. D:)

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
- Hokage's Death. (WTF - lol! Utter disrespect muahaha! >D)

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
- New York. (Does it? =O Seems like I shouldn't go there after all.)

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
- Guidepost. (Oolala, seems like I need some form of...instruction, before I can say anything.)

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
- Maplestory Fantasy Journey. (Ahha! Now does it. It does seem so excruciatingly happy and dreamy.)

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
- Following Memory. (2 meanings to this. Either I should check my memory to see if anyone truly does, or that this is now memory. Which I hope not.)

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
- Gaara's Memory. (I would, wouldn't I? >:D)

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
- A Crisis After Another. (Bwahaha! That fits so well indeed!)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
- Beautiful World. (*.*)

---

Weeeee~ That was fun! =D Anyone can do it btw. Yeah.

Short update: Still dying under PTs, 58/60 for art SOVA exam which was really unexpected (considering I was short of time in the end), and Kim apologised and we made up. :) Hooray for resolved friendship problems!

Now back to the sucky life.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 10.44pm*~~~

10th May 2010 *Monday

2010-05-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

Horrors of NAPFA 2.4 ended when we were all saved by the beautiful, impeccably timed lightning alert...save for those already on their 4th round on the track that is. Poor things...but, well, Utilitarianism, most of us get the good stuff so...tough luck.

Yeah right. Philo is cruel. =__= Having an exam on it 2 days from now doesn't make it any better.

Anyway I'm kind of in a dilemma..as I have been for so many times this year. She seems distressed. Well somewhat at least, from what I read on her blog and her convos with me. Personally I'm confused as to why she is conversing with me on MSN these few days as if nothing happened when she pushed me away not more than 1 week ago - and also wondering why I actually replied and responded beyond one-word replies. Maybe it's a thing for being sentimental.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Well as I was saying about her aforementioned "distress", it seems that she's wallowing in some kind of regret over past actions or just, perhaps, some frantic wishing that someone didn't do something or that something didn't happen the way it did. I have no clue what it is about but I believe I shouldn't nose in where things might prick. But somehow, just somehow, I thought I should at least try to cheer her up.

Really, what's wrong with me? I'm still angry and hurt over that incident you know - well not as much now, but the emotion is definitely there. If I could I would've just ignored her during her very first MSN convo with me after that day, or gave her some form of sarcastic reply and made it our last parting for good. But oh well, guess I really have too little resolve for my own good.

I still want to help her in one way or another. I believe she as how she appeared would not want a lot of sympathy / pity / empathy / whatever sentimental emotions, especially from someone whom she deliberately pushed away, but other friends tell me she doesn't get along well with a lot of people. It is quite observable too in a sense. I would like to help - but not knowing what she truly needs and helping in the wrong way would end up taking us nowhere if not aggravating the situation.

Suppose I'd just leave this issue here for now, and watch how things take their course.

On a sidenote, Ming Wei asked if I could accompany him tomorrow when he goes to change some music instrument since he "felt bored and needed company". Sounds like one of those emo spouts that Endro and I would experience at times; those sudden moments whereby you just wish you could contact someone and rant or whatever lol. Yeah it happens. Too bad the workload enchains me to weeks of toil - which will not see an end till the June hols are in sight.

Week 10 then, after my projects and exams are down. I really have no time at all for these couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, reminds me I'll have to change my guitar strings immediately after concert. I'm kinda worried they'd snap during concert you know, since they look pretty rusted and worn and I haven't changed them for nearly 1.5 years (the 6th string looks dangerous), but if I change them now it would suck too cuz the guitar would keep going off-tune. Well, let's just hope they won't snap.

I miss piano. >.<

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 10.05pm*~~~

9th May 2010 *Sunday

2010-05-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

LIFE. SUCKS.

6 projects??? Concurrent??? Due end of term??? Plus upcoming Guitar Concert and extra practice sessions??? Good grief you've GOT to be kidding me!!

Now kids, the above scenario has illustrated a growing problem in our education system.

According to common sense observation, school has proved to be mentally scathing, suffocating, utterly heartless, illogical, emo hell, pressurizing and hypocritic, amongst many other things. It has caused countless hyperventilations and nervous breakdowns in bed at night and open declarations to "give up on life", and took away time, along with all meaning of life, from all its poor little victims who suffer under the crippling workload that presses them to their early deaths at less than 6 hours of sleep per night (refer to recent yahoo news). It puts too much emphasis on result and exams and percentages and so called "excellence" in performance that your life is filled up with it - and everyone starts fighting savagely and not sleeping (in extreme cases for 3 days straight) for a flimsy piece of progress report with As and A+s which are downgraded to, in the sudden-academic-difficulty-jump sec 3 context, straight passes. Our future is dissolved to quantity of academic achievements and certificates. Our spirits are melted into mushy blobs that drag past every day of the week. Our clocks are wound down to 12 hours per day with the proportion of work we receive.

Oo yeah. Now add all that up and what does that tell you?

Yes, school is bad for you.

If you want a healthy education go to somewhere in which your sanity is guaranteed.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.58pm*~~~

1st May 2010 (Saturday) *Healing and Real Friends

2010-05-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

I think I'm really starting to believe in sunshine after the rain. Yesterday was dark, but in this darkness I found lights that were otherwise outshone in normal times by stress and such preoccupations of the mind...I found new friends in those I have otherwise not considered as particular close friends, and I found friends who are actually true. Tangible, true, friends who would actually be there for me.

It was really, I think, one of my first major depressions (despite the main thing having lasted for only one day, and the next comprises of merely a dull ache), and I was so weirded out I talked to so many people to derive some form of comfort and...guidance. I had been so confused as with how I should continue. But yeah, I'm glad I still have true friends; they really helped me out a lot you know, they stood by me, gave words of comfort and not just words, they acted on them too.

These are, I believe, the friends I should really trust and pay most of my social attention to.

In a way I should say...this entire incident IS indeed depressing, and I did feel in one way or another very betrayed (which I bet is the first time in many years), but I also did learn a few something-s from it. I learnt that I trust people too easily. Not in her way, but it's just that, when someone manages to get past the acquaintance level in my standards and is considered my friend, I tend to give that person all my trust. I wouldn't think he or she had something against me at all, unless she was showing it. I wouldn't suspect he or she would try to harm me or would, without purposefully trying, do so in the end.

I won't raise my standards for friends any higher. As of now I am happy with those that I've made - because with an exception of her the others have thus far stuck with me through thick and thin and I value their friendship very, very much. But I am going to be more cautious now, because I've had my first - no, second, encounter with the dark side of people. I'm a generally evasive person so I avoid all forms of conflicts when able to, and when such things happen I often feel very, very confused and shocked, for if there was something wrong I would usually have managed to pick up the signs and do something to prevent further deterioration of whatever situation it might be.

It makes me feel as if my perception and judging skills have been washed down the drain.

And with that there's another thing...the most outrageous thing about this entire friendship crap. I've been utterly fooled, yeah? If you didn't like a person then DON'T act like you do. It may make you seem like you're "bearing with it", "putting up with it", "tolerating it", but really, all it shows is just the hypocritic side of people. I don't mind if you cleanly, decisively TOLD me that you didn't like me since the start. What's the point of acting if you know it would aggravate the hurt you would cause to the person in concern? Or maybe you don't. Or maybe that's really your purpose, to hurt that person. Maybe it's your way of taking revenge. But in this case, for now unless other unimaginable things happen, I would like to believe that you have an unaltered nature.

Look, we're both in sec 3, everyone here is, and we are all VERY busy. If your version of an ideal friend, no, from your actions I wouldn't even add in the word "ideal", is that that person pays FULL attention to you every single damn time, and that all of the who what where why when and how-s must be focused on you and you alone, then I'd rather not be counted amongst your "friends". Because if I were, I would have to EARN your friendship. Friendship with you is earned, right? It doesn't flow naturally, right? Because if I want to continue that friendship I have to give up my life and other concerns and just focus everything on you.

You want people to be there and listen to you everytime. But are you yourself a listener in the first place? No. You are not.

How many times when others and I have emoed have you actually listened, if not gave advice / comfort, and not changed the topic (like you criticise those of you so-called not-friends of)?

How many times have you actually considered that there would be deeper reasons behind people's actions and that they canNOT be full-time social nannies?

How many times have you actually reflected upon yourself instead of always seeing the wrong in other people?

You say I would kill myself if the damn book doesn't get published. Excuse me, if you don't take the illustrations as seriously as I do, what is the problem anyway? Our deadlines ARE crazy. So what if I stress out about it? I'm trying to take responsibility. In normal context with normal friends I would not have actually suspected that you would take it as offensive, though it seems like I would have to revise that with your case. If you're telling me to pick between getting killed by the publishers for missing the deadline and paying full attention to your emoing, then I'd go with the former. Because I have to prioritise.

I'm saying all the things here that I, similarly as you said on your blog, cannot bear to say on a public platform. Though ironically this IS a public platform but I know nobody really reads it anyway. Most of the time I'm just ranting to air, but it relieves me of the build-up, and it's surprising that something non-sentient such as air could actually take up the role of a friend.

You've pushed me away. I will not attempt to go back to you, and since I have read your blog and understood more I no longer have any inclination to do so anyway. From now on we are no longer friends, we're complete strangers as you've implied. And thus I have no obligation to listen to you anymore. I have no obligation to care about whatever you want or desire or do, as long as it's beyond my requirement of conscience and social awareness as a human being. If I've given you what I could before, and you did not appreciate it, now I'm taking it back.

I will not be mean to you. But there will not be any semblance of friendship between us. I am indeed the very sentimental type, and kudos if you've gotten that, but I can choose to forget things I'd want to. Maybe ten years down the road I'd still remember, "oh, you're the art illustration person I worked with in sec 3", but that will be all. I may not forget entirely.

But I will remember that our friendship started in January, and lasted for a mere four months.

Thank you for the interesting times with you I had during the past four months. But yes, our paths cannot cross any further and thus we will be parting.

As a response to your poem on your blog:

Paths that were never meant to cross
Would one day do so
For we are all wanderers on our way
Whither to we do not know,
And being lost, such wroughts betwixt us
The budding of friendship and support,
To hold us through.

But times come and by, and not all stands
In the way of our viewing. We all know
There would be days of parting, as were there other days
And someday paths that walk in different ways
Will thus part in different pursuits;
We may wish we never met, wish we had just
Not taken that first look in our eyes that started it all,
But alas, that is not so,
And ten years down the road, this memory
Which has failed to endure time
Will fail us both.

Perhaps we will have a new beginning,
Another chance to see in each other
A new friend, a time reborn.
But as of now,
We will be strangers.

For the last time I will turn,
And with no regrets say,
Farewell my friend, here I leave you.

***

~~~*Dreamt with the Winds at 10.02pm*~~~

30th April 2010 (Friday) *Friendship?

2010-04-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Really, what?

Somehow a seemingly, perfectly fine friendship just died off. No sound, without even a breath - it just left. Leaving one standing alone feeling completely, absolutely, utterly confused.

It hurts you know? I never knew it could hurt so bad. After 3 years of relative peace in friendship one would expect a constancy in that pattern of things. The last one was in P6 and I had been so determined to make it my last, I even tried to patch up that friendship during P6 graduation thinking I wanted to graduate without any grudges, awkwardness, enmity or anything. Who knew a new one would come? At this time? And worse still, this one's odder. She wouldn't tell me what's wrong, and subsequently I didn't know until I managed to find out partially on my own.

Okay. So the problem here apparently is that I have appeared to her to be uncaring when she emos, too stressed over the illustrations to care, and have appeared as a so-called friend unworthy of her acknowledgement. Okay.

I get it. I get it just fine.

So all those times when I've been trying to listen, trying to give advice in whatever way I hoped was right, attempting to help her fight her self-esteem problems, these have all gone down the drain. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it wasn't of an appropriate degree. Maybe it was totally unnoticed. Maybe it just wasn't, appropriate, or utterly in the wrong aspect of consolation.

Maybe some things would've been in a better state if they were just left be.

I feel so...weird. Depressed is not the only word, really, there are so many others I have no idea how to list them. To think that amongst all the sucking and dying academics, friend-less mugger class, my own self-esteem problems, deadline submissions, parents' not understanding everything, and more and more shit piling up on the way...man sec 3 sucks. It sucks. It sucks so bad I just wish I could kill myself and get over it.

Bursting at the seams? I suppose so. In an adverse way. Of all the sec 3 suckism FRIENDSHIP is the LEAST expected item on my list, if even listed at all. Give me a break. I don't need more turmoils. I don't need more unnecessary stress. I don't need more misunderstandings.

No one can be perfect you know. No one. Even if I want to I can't care for every-single-damn-person who's around me!! I'm a perfectionist and that I know very well - it's bad enough attempting to attend to the friends I have, who are kept at a few because I DON'T like missing anyone out, and that is already nigh impossible. I try. I want you to know I f*cking try, ok? Sorry for not attending to you enough. Sorry for not being a damn good friend. Sorry for not being the most perfect person in the world.

Yeah, sorry for having lived and met you.

I know I have socializing problems. My standards for friends are so high...they're really high, seriously. All my classmates couldn't make it - they're acquaintances. But she managed to. She actually managed to make it past that level and I considered her as my friend; I trusted her, just like I trust every one of my other friends. Wow, to have that trust betrayed so cleanly...wow.

If that feels like "breaking up", then love must be a thousand times worse.

Thursday will be the last day. Yeah. Then everything can be pushed aside along with the f*cking illustrations.

I really wish I can just stop being so friggin' bothered by friendship. Making new friends is so tiring. I knew I was not one for it, I'm just not one for things ok? I screw up in all the stuff I do. Almost all at least. People are getting scholarships and honours and acknowledgements and all forms of recognition and I'm stuck in a dark, emo loner hole wishing for a dream that can never come true...and then snapping back to reality to face my parents and expectations, to face life, to face crazy weird things that happen out of the blue every now and then.

"Out of the blue every now and then". How ironic.

I'm damn confused now. I know I should be writing something more rational because after reading the journals I really did know now, at least I've gotten an inkling of what the heck happened that resulted in this friendship thing. But I can't. I can't! Everything is overflooding, it's getting overwhelming, I need to pour it out before I explode.

School is crazy enough. No social problems please thank you. Just, please. If I haven't already had enough then I'm going to soon.

Why are friendships so hard and tricky? Why are there heartbreakers and backstabbers and traitors and misunderstandings and just. utter. crap?!

F*ck off, life. Just f*ck off.

***

~~~*Dreamt with the Winds at 11.41pm*~~~

7th April 2010 (Wednesday - Continued) *Art Post

2010-04-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

Browsed through some of my older posts and realised I had promised right after I came back from China that, well, I'd post some of the paintings and drawings I did. Just that in this case they wouldn't be limited only to those that I did in China, but some are from that period of time. I just discovered the wonders of Painttool SAI about a couple of weeks ago and am absolutely in love with it - you'll see what I mean. 8D

They're in, er, reverse-chronological order (lol) by the way, from newest to oldest.

________________________________________________

Out of which "Ruminations" and "Shishou no Ishi" are done in Painttool SAI. The rest are in Photoshop CS4. ^^

Phew. 'Ts been such a long time since I last uploaded something arty here, eh? I've been filling the blog up with ceaseless ramblings, should recognise a limit somewhere.

So here's ending off a colourful post in hope for a colourful future! Cheers~!

***

~~~*Dreamt with the Winds at 10.22*~~~

7th April 2010 (Wednesday) *Tempest

2010-04-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's mindless ramble I feel so much better now, like, somewhat back to myself again. Revived. I feel a relatively significant lift in my confidence reserves and, well, getting a bit optimistc about my future (albeit still kind of gloomy regarding the entire picture) - which is usually not so commonly observed in my daily interactions with the world, but I guess exceptions could be welcomed once in a while. :)

Thanks, really.

Ah so on to today...uneventful, I mean rather uneventful, but there were a few unexpected thingums that happened for a good change. You know the Tempest? Oh scratch that, of course you don't, since I haven't been blogging. Well anyway it's this play from Shakespeare's famous literary work, and apparently ordering of tickets and stuff were supposed to have been settled like 2 months before, which were, but...my SAP cum Lit RA friend today suddenly told me she couldn't attend the play and asked if I could go in her place - which was like in the last 2 minutes before the meeting time and left me rushing like crazy to the foyer. Having a certain English teacher in charge of the whole thing doesn't really help the situation either, you know.

Actually I didn't mind. I was in fact rather glad about the change; I could skip SAP for the entire afternoon, since I was not really looking forward to awkward moments whereby the teacher would stare at my horrendous self-considered completed PT, and I got to watch something LITty(!) in which I was actually interested. The thing was at Esplanade, which is like...central or something. Bus ride was too short. =_= I was hoping for a nice bit of air-conditioned break.

So yeah the play itself was really, REALLY nice. Screw not understanding like 70% of the show due to thick accents and notorious Elizabethan English and not knowing the plot beforehand - AND reading the synopsis only very briefly - but, BUT, the acting was downright awesome. There were comedy scenes which wrenched laughter out of the entire hall's worth of audience, and by that I mean it was absolutely funny. Man these guys sure know how to act.

They are, after all, professionals, and I have to say every clap in the eventual applause was rightfully well-earned.

I had no idea how to get to the MRT from the Esplanade after the play. QAQ Stuck around with Hui Yie and Anissa - who left halfway with her sis to hitch a taxi - and it just so happened that HY and I both took the red line so we travelled together. I just feel kind of cheated that her stop was only 11min away whilst mine was 47. Yes, I remember the exact numbers. -.o

Oh well. To sum it up today was a relatively good day. New philo teacher, interesting chem lesson (Doctor Slatter's very entertaining Acidic experiments o.<), cool Chinese block, slack periods, congress hogging CLE...and reminds me, tomorrow I have FREE BLOCK! That's like the ultimate magic word. *starry eyed*

And RS. >.> But that's the last and after that Cher gets to come to my house anyway so that wouldn't really make much of a difference.

*Sigh* Now I'm only left with Physics Assignment...which is like only 2 pages but also AKAed my worst nightmare...or in this case ONE of my worst nightmares. Seniors have died in physics, you know.

I wouldn't be surprised if I joined in the assemblage one day.

I sincerely hope not. =.=

***

~~~*Dreamt with the winds at 9.53pm*~~~

6th April 2010 (Tuesday)

2010-04-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hey...*hugs bloggie tightly* I know I've been neglecting you for the past couple of months, without an explanation for my absence too, so I would like to say I'm really, really sorry. I somehow realised today that I desperately need to blog again...life is just...well, it's just not right, you know?

Let's just say it's going downhill, fast. A new year, new class, new committments...you see me in January (or was it Feb) enthusiastically announcing my resolutions for 2010 and thinking I was really in for a great time - and then vhwoom, it's April, some random inserts of my dampening moods inbetween, but it's April and I'm back, and I believe I've changed quite some bit if not a lot. I feel myself changing so much lately, in adverse ways that is.

I don't...feel like myself anymore. It's not just the crappy school committment thing that's getting to me, there's also the way everything is eating out of my own social and personal life, and how I can't seem to find time to take care of my own - and in a sense, my friends' too - well-being anymore. Drawing is kind of like out of the question for regular days...if you don't count the meagre amounts of doodle time filched during classes. And yes, my class, that horrible social prison I would find myself stuck in for the coming 2 years without a proper friend and everything. I don't like this. I really don't like this. Why can't I simply evade these things like I used to last time, or find a way to end them???

And then an even greater problem that's like the major ego-crusher for me is, surpisingly, ART. I mean I really love it and all, and really attempt to do my best in it, yet I can't help but feel depressed when I see all those pros' works before me while I screw up lots of things in SAP. It's got more factors than just...being kiasu, if you call it that way. I feel really sorry, both helpless and apologetic, as if I have not lived up to my SAP teacher's expectations (and I believe I really haven't) and I'm trying vainly to redeem myself of whatever good impressions that might ever be left in her. I kind of feel guilty, you know. To disappoint someone again.

And again. And again. The list is endless.

Things are a total mess now, I feel so useless. Out of place. Life just goes on and I float through stuff like I'm lost or something.

You know, sometimes when I walk down 310 or 314 and stuff and sees Az and Cher with their friends I can't help but feel this twinge of...jealousy, or was it some kind of...desperate longing? Maybe it's a mixture of both. I keep asking myself why some things just can't be the way they could have turned out - but I also keep answering myself that "it's reality". It's true. Reality hurts. It hurts to be a friggin' damn idealist in this hard, down-to-earth world.

*Sigh* I know I'm getting really desperate, not to mention I'm still holding most of the things in, but, really, after a few months I really feel the need to let some stuff out. Everything's so confusing, it's like losing it in a sense, albeit really slowly. If I can't find a way out of everything I really dunno what I could or might do...

Someone. Just, someone.

What should I do? How should I continue with this screwed-up life??? Just WHAT direction should I follow??

I really don't know anymore. I'm sick of life in this world and sick of this f*ing year 2010 too.

Wish I could go home soon.

***

~~~*Dreamt with the winds at 9.57*~~~

6th Jan 2010 (Wednesday) *Horrible Day

2010-01-06T04:20:00.001-08:00

Plainly speaking, I'm feeling very down right now.

Firstly my guitar teacher-in-charge just replied that, after having spoken to the HOD of CCA, they are unable to accomodate my request to be excused from Tuesdays' Guitar sessions for one semester (for the SAP bridging course), which leaves me with almost no other options than to either transfer CCA from guitar to art club (which I really hope not, and sounds impossible as art club is not a core CCA), or to just give up my CCA points for the year and skip one semester of guitar. Both of which sucks equally.

So, apparently my guitar teacher IC wishes to meet me after school tomorrow to discuss my options. =_= I really dunno what to tell her, seriously, I can't blatantly say "if nothing else works then I will quit this CCA and join Art Club" - which would make me sound so much like a shameless traitor. Same goes for giving up the CCA points, she'd kill me for even having such an idea in my head. Not like I can afford losing anymore CCA points anyway, after having lost all those in NCCair just because I transfered OUT of it. -.-

Well there's a really slim chance that I may get around with the SAP teacher and ask her if I can be excused from Bridging Course as I will catch up on my basics with Wang Lao Shi (my art teacher) - she has an idea of my level of skill from seeing my portfolio during the interview, so I hope that may...well, may work. Sounds stupid but seriously it's the easiest way out now. It's either this or that, I have to get excused from something or quit it.

Okay so secondly...I am officially feeling like a loner now. O___O Spent the entire day alone because everybody else in the class had someone they were familiar with, even the foreign scholars, so I didn't get much of a chance. Feels as if I'm back in my primary school lol, but at least then I did have one or two good friends in class, even though they were of opposite gender and we talked through note-passing.

*Sigh* Just sent (Az) and Cher a letter each through the class trays, which is like a really pathetic way of communication compared to how it used to be. I'm missing the two of them already. Seriously a lot. I didn't know that the three of us being separated would make such a great impact, I practically think of all those old memories whenever I walk those familiar places and realize they are not there anymore. And reading Az's article in the 207 class booklet yesterday, about how she turned around for a spiteful remark only to realize that we weren't there, didn't really help. It just made things so much...so much...I dunno.

Az, Cher, I love you guys. T_T I can't think of anything else to say already, just feeling all...wrong right now. Remember how we said that, last Nov when Kayal announced that she was migrating to Australia and set three quarters of 207 crying, we wouldn't cry even if one of us left? Well I realized it's not that easy to keep that promise now.

Goodness I feel so weird. It's not like me to say these mushy things but seriously, you guys were the greatest friends I've ever had. Miss you so much.

Hopefully things will take a turn for the better, but meanwhile I shall emo a little while time allows.

***

~~~*Played with the Winds at 8.21pm*~~~

30th Dec 2009 (Tuesday)

2009-12-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

I'm back! Had a long stay in China over the past one month and - probably - a half, with no connection to blogger, so I had to put this aside and stuff up my DA journals instead. Goodness it looks really dead. =_=

Well anyway, the hols weren't very interesting, just math tuitions everyday, homework, draw, writing fanfictions and listening to music...and maybe meeting a couple of relatives from the rural places. They just came up without preamble, it's kind of, um, uncomfortable for me. And they always seem to come on days whereby I am either very busy or very free. So it's not a fair trade either way.

In the end what really is worth noting is that I had my first flight alone on 28th Dec 2009. :D It felt really good, disregarding certain irritating complications. The flight was relatively smooth and the plane was pretty big, but it got delayed a little more than 1 hour due to some...what they call airplane rotation? What's that? O___O Well mechanical problems I suppose. I was kind of pissed because I was going to have SAP selection test and interview the next day at 9am, and I needed to get to SG as early as possible to sort out my portfolio.

Speaking of which, I finished and edited a small part of my portfolio on the plane, I think it was the...abstract and fractals section, and maybe also the manga sketches / digital art. Just basically running through the stuff and clearing out funny things. In the end I got home at 12.30am, printed out the stuff and slept at 2am, and then woke up at 6am, took photos of bigger artworks and printed another bunch of stuff, and rushed to school at 8.20am. I was almost late cuz apparently we didn't have enough time and my dad was in a frenzy - ended up taking a couple of wrong turns and got trapped in some ulu place facing this huge police bus that was trying to come out, and we were in its way. Wasted 5 minutes trying to turn out.

But whoa, all these were really worth it. Yup I got into SAP! XD I just had a feeling that the interview went well.

The selection test was a little funny though, they gave us this bare tree (I think they carved it out of wood or something), a square cube and a plaster face, and told us to incorporate these three elements into our sketches. We had 1 hour for it, thinking and drawing and all. Mine was pretty messed up. At first I wanted to draw the tree sticking out of the head, something about "roots of thought and imagination" blah, but later felt the idea was overused and the distribution of the work wouldn't be nice on the paper. The tree was so much larger than the head, it wouldn't achieve a nice balance.

So I flipped over the paper and started anew. My finished work was...something like the plaster face connected to the tree by the neck, and there were many little cubes hanging off the branches by thin strings as if windblown. I don't really know what I wished to imply, but all I was thinking was just "tree spirit" and the like, and most of the time I was just drawing by feel. Nothing else, really.

The test and stuff ended at around 11.15am. I was hiding from Guitar because the day was CCAO and apparently they didn't know I was back in Singapore already, since they didn't put my name in the shifts - but nooooo, Ming Wei was there for his sister's orientation and of all things, he got LOST.

It wasn't even a funny place in RG, it was just the Evelyn Norris Hall with the foyer a little ways to the left and there are so many ways to get there. =_= He called me and said he didn't know how to get to the main gate. *Sweatdrop*

Yeah, so in the end I got dragged back to the school under absolutely non-existent pretense (from my CCA) to help him. We ended up sitting at the *cough* somewhat conference table somewhere around the 1st floor staff room, and drew for about 1h. We went to Takashimaya after that, with my parents, to grab lunch and get some stuff from Art Friend.

Mm hm that's where I got my Copics 36-colour box set. I was waiting such a long time for it - it cost a whole lot more ex than the internet had stated, so I believe the supposed $118 was US dollars for me; the actual thing cost SD$209, almost a hundred bucks more. I paid $130 which I got partly from *cough* my grandpa's kind of accidental kindness, and also translating my mom's work review, and my parents kicked in another $79. So there goes.

I tried it. :D The blending was really amazing, and really nice to use, but now I realized I needed lighter skin colours. The lightest I've got in my box is "Flesh", which is a deep pinkish beige colour, commonly reckoned as a darker shadow tone for skin instead of the base. It makes the skin look roasted if you apply it on every part of it. I'll have to get the lighter tones individually, maybe "Eggshell" or "Cream" and the like.

Oh, and there's also the colourless blender that I need to get. Wow. This thing sure punches a hole in your pocket, despite being worth it.

Well yeah so I'll be posting some of the sketch dumps and art works I did over in China, maybe sometime in the next few days. Not now. I'm kind tired and pissed after Blogger cut off the entire chunk of my ending and I had to retype this again. =.=

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.55am*~~~

14th October 2009 (Wednesday)

2009-10-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

Exams are over! The big End-Of-Years. Phew. Screwed up about 3 papers (at varying degrees), and a few others I'm not feeling very confident about. Ah man but who cares, it's not like I've been screwing up things all along, shouldn't get so worked up about it sometimes. Studying isn't and will never be my life. -.-

Ok so as compensation for all the times I missed drawing this year cuz studying kicked art out, I am going to stuff myself with drawing until I get sick of it - which I most probably wouldn't. I can get tired after some time but art is just too amazing, haha. :D Anyway, I do have a few CG plans in mind, one of which is the "Bells" project in which I'm gonna paint 4 bells each representing one of the four seasons. Autumn is already completed, so I'm left with...winter, summer and spring. Whow, long way to go.

It just happened that I was painting this bell I bought from Hong Kong airport, it had maple leaf patterns on it and was brown (actually mine was black but I just used it for reference for lighting and shadow), and had a really autumny feel, thought I could work on the concept a bit more. I love representations of the four seasons.

I'm thinking I should make the winter bell kinda translucent, or transparent; the icy feel could bring out the frost quite well. It's gonna be really really hard though, I've never played around much with transparency, and less so during painting. Especially since my reference bell is opaque, I'll have to devise the lighting and shadow plans myself. Either that or go google image an ice orb or something. Hopefully that helps, unless google chucks me trash like they tend to do sometimes.

*Sigh* I just spent my entire free day today drawing practice sketches while rewatching Naruto from the start again. I really love that anime. For some reason, simply watching it, or just hearing it, makes me have that homely feel. It gives me a lot of encouragement; like when I'm down or feeling lonely or just simply wanna run away from everything, knowing that someone could make it (even though he's a fictional character) just somehow comforts me. It feels really nice.

Reminds me, I think I should return to fanart-ing soon. I've been doing too many "free" sketch and CGs lately, well, after some time I kinda wanna draw out others' creations that have already been established.

I have a plan for a CG fanart in mind - of course it's Naruto, and it's about Team 7. The background's gonna be a sunset and basically they're standing on a leafless tree - at different heights of course. I'm just kinda debating on whether I should draw a back view or front view. Personally I think back view brings out the mood more, since I'll be able to draw out the sun (cuz it makes sense that they're facing it) and it has that melancholic feel - but then again, I suck at human anatomy from the back, and front view would allow you to see their expressions and...well, my current photoshopping skills will make back view look really bland, since I have yet to learn to incorporate many tones or details into the picture appropriately.

Haiz I think I'll push that idea to the back for future work. It won't really look nice if my photoshop skills stay as they are right now.

Dang, now that I brought it up myself, I really do need an improvement somewhere in art soon. I love those, um, what I call "skill spurts" whereby you just suddenly reach a stage after drawing and practising and you just get to a level higher naturally, like the one I experienced during this year's June hols. I dunno, I think it's cuz of lack of practice during exam week, my skills are a bit unstable lately. I mean they don't de-prove that much, but sometimes I'd think I improved and only discover the next day that I was back to normal.

Bleah. Shouldn't get too impatient. ><

*Entire chunk deleted by blogger because they couldn't format it properly -.-*

I'm not saying that I totally rule out hard work as one of the factors - I have been working for art and my efforts do bear fruit when the right times come. I've worked for math and I've seen the effects - even though I do screw up now and then since it wasn't my natural forte altogether. But yes, in art, a person with 0% talent drawing really well with just 100% hard work is very rare, if there is any. Art is a feeling thing, you need it in your blood to do it well.

They say the difference between artists and people who are not artistically inclined is that, for example, when drawing a few chickens, the artist would make them seem like a family, whereas others would be drawing purely a few chickens.

Just like in my art lesson, when we were doing a charcoal piece of five bears in a basket, the art teacher reminded us that we need to constantly observe the relationship between the bears and the basket and not make the bears seem like a solitary group altogether. That is, drawing the folds and shadings appropriately according to where the bears come into contact with the basket. Basically everything is interlinked in art, in more ways than one.

Alright, now I'm getting tired. Bleh. Dance exam tomorrow at 12.15, I bet I've already forgotten all the Jive moves. Then there's OBS health screening until 5 something. Sometimes I really wish I could just heck care and blow it all off. Lots of extra stuff around, it's becoming a bother.

Oh yea, next Friday is my birthday, and my grandparents are coincidentally flying over from China right on my birthday! Whoohoo, I would like a green tea cake, or chocolate mint. Mom said I could save some for Az and Cher even if they come in the afternoon, though I am kinda wondering about the funny candle-blowing traditions if 2 slices of cake are gone. It is a bit weird if you think about it.

Anyway, signing off now, cya!

***
~~~*Played with the winds at 7.32pm*~~~

10th September 2009 (Thursday)

2009-09-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Whew, it's the hols. Actually it's already the fourth day of the hols and nearing the end, but, well, beautiful day I had today. Had a really great time with Az and Ming Wei at the Jurong library and then at Az's house - managed to buy Naruto volume 47 after hunting at IMM, the school bookshop never seems to restock their mangas.

Yup, as expected, three art nerds having an awesome day together. ^^"

Oh but we finished the chibis! Took us quite some time to get all the requests, and in the end Az just drew a couple her way since the people concerned didn't seem to give a damn. Ah well, now that it's over, I have to say I kinda liked my chibi. *Woots* Thanks Az!

Bleh I'm kinda tired today. Getting really really emo now from the song I'm listening to, and yea it's T.A.T.U again, All My Love to be exact. I was hunting for the instrumental version of that song for soooo long, but till now I could only find the Russian / English version; already an achievement, but somehow having lyrics kinda spoils the entire ambience. All My Love is better off being instrumental honestly. The original lyric-less version is played with acoustic guitar and piano, and some other things. Sounded beautifully melancholic.

Now if only I could get the instrumental version...there isn't really a way for me to get rid of the voice since it's part of the audio, but then...

Haiz.

Ah well, forget it. I'll find it someday.

Just read the volume 3 of Residence of the Sun, the plot ended there, very nicely. I'm still way too mad over Residence of the Sun - it's the awesomest narusasu doujinshi ever and I haven't gotten over it yet!! Argh! I think the coverpage had a spell or something. The way they coloured the sunset was so...TwT soothingly lonely. And that's one of the reasons why I'm now mad over All My Love too; background music for my fav doujinshi, what else can you expect? Both of them fit perfectly.

And then there's the entire sad ambience for the plot that draws me in so much. I love bittersweet endings, and volume 3 ended the plot wayyy toooo well. There was a cycle sort of effect; when they last went to view the sunrise at the mountain it was on Sas' birthday 4 years ago, and in the ending it's Naru's. And the way humour and life was weaved in with melancholy...small, obscure things like looking after a tomato garden, and Naruto's reaction when he found out the utterly ridiculous fact that Sas loved comedy, well, they explain a lot on their own. I bet this artist could've been on par with Kishimoto well enough.

Alright, this is definitely my ultimate pal for emoing. I can read it over and over and not get bored, cuz the plot is just so sad. I'm never sick of sad stuff.

Kay I better get going, had a long day and I'd love some rest. Cya!

***

~~~Played with the winds at 10.50pm*~~~

5th September 2009 (Saturday)

2009-09-05T07:27:00.001-07:00

Okay for some reason I'm feeling very emo now so I'm gonna blog again. I think it's because of Ming Wei's sms spree; he was in the botanic garden and apparently he smsed me about how, um, wonderful he felt lying on the grass staring at the night sky so...yea. Then we talked about various manga plotlines, Japanese films and our fav times of the day etc etc. Wow, simple things sure spiral into bigger stuff sooner or later.

Well he said he liked evening and night, something like my favourites, I liked sunsets, evenings and nights. Actually my utmost favourite is still a time in my world for which I have yet to find the right adjective; it's something like a combination of everything, there's no distinct watershed. Maybe not so much of night, but it's definitely got evening and afternoon, and a bit of morning. It's the time at that place with the whole field of waist-length yellow, mountains, lots of wind, and a clear pale blue sky. Or another one when I'm up on the mountains looking down at this calm sapphireblue lake below, and really a lot of wind. Yup. I loved that kind of time.

And then I have other times with sunsets - one of them is down this mountainside village, I'd be walking through the streets and there're lots of people, stores, and houses, food stalls and smoke (those from cooking) on both sides, a little bit of festive ambience but definitely not so in truth. It's more of a daily life sort of thing. I dislike crowds, but for some reason the village was really nice; it felt so isolated, like watching life going on but they don't give you extra attention. And the best thing is still the beautiful sunset that fills the entire place - red, warm, and forgotten.

The second sunset is a colder one, it's the one in "Looking Back" which I posted in the previous entry. Mountains, a pale sun, yellow fading to pink skies, and a fence on this side of the hill. The time is still for this one, it's like, as one of my deviant buds said, as though the sun stays there and never moves and thus time never goes on. Really fitting description :D This sunset is one of my favourites. The pic I photoshopped, though, was inspired by this Naruto doujinshi titled Taiyou No Sumika; really awesome plotline and cover page painting, bittersweet ending, and it's in my absolute favs.

The last sunset is also on a mountain, cliff to be exact, but this one's golden and warm, and it's got a field. The field's mostly green, but has occasional streaks of brown and yellow. Lots of wind again, and the sun's big and golden, those you get in early sunsets. This kind of sunset makes me wanna spring off the cliff, in my world of course. Oh yea and another one is by the ocean when the golden setting sun glistens off the water surface. Huge rock walls behind me, so sometimes I'd just sit on the rocks looking out at the sea.

As for night I have two, one on the green misty fields with alpine mountains around, and another by the sea with a lot of stars. The seaside scene is usually the one whereby I'd have picnics with my dream companions. :)

Actually my world is a whole lot more dynamic than these few, I was just listing out my fav times. Hmm but these visualizations sure set me off thinking...when I'm meddling around with my idealisms, what are other people's utopia?

Well it could be just about anyone. Az, Cher, Ms Lim, Ming Wei, Mrs Tan, Mrs Chia, Brendan, etc etc. Everyone has their own world, and I definitely know them all too little to imagine.

It's so easy to start thinking about what's after death. We do that all the time - it's in our instincts to fear death, but why? Well if everything in life has got a deadline, and death is the deadline of life, then do we have to submit something by death? What is that something? Do we fear the ultimate deadline that's ingrained in our subconsciousness since birth?

It's all such a jumbled mess. I've seen some interesting theories; one was the Time Split Theory, whereby everyone enters their own realities after death (I've forgotten the spiritual / scientic - if there was - implications stated), sounds quite possible. Because if our own realities are what we spend our entire life building, then we could possibly redeem our works after death. Could, not "would", and don't forget "possibly", cuz it sounds so out-of-realism and too utopian.

You know, actually to me, it's good to be a pessimist when appropriate. Like, thinking you flunked your exam, but when the actual marks come down they're better than expected, and it comes as a pleasant surprise. And if it isn't so, then we can try getting optimistic and start planning for what's coming next. It's harder to disappoint yourself this way as compared to a full-time optimist.

In a way, pessimism is beautiful. It makes you view beauty, when it appears, umpteen folds better than what they originally are. Optimism is an all-time brightness, but after a while, you get darkness if you don't alternate between these two regularly. This society is like that. It's just a bit of a warped version of the original implication of adaptation; when some can take this as a pathetic way to make yourself happy, others can take it as an effective method to mitigating misery.

Well, ts all a matter of choice. We just have to keep choosing don't we?

Life is such a millipede.

Okay I'm tired. Yay. Now I can go to sleep - next time if I'm emo but awake and want to sleep, I should blog.

Alright good night and take care people! Horrible days ahead and hols ending in, uh, about 7 days, and then another 3 months and we'll be sec three, and another year and we'll face the horrors of unresponsive sec four, then jc, then uni, then working like a dog...and if a person's max life span is 100 years, in about 86 more years we'd be dead.

Not to mention if global warming keeps escalating that span will be halved if not quartered.

*Pessimism*...

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.13pm*~~~

31st August 2009 (Monday) *Happy Teachers' Day!!

2009-08-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

Oolala, it's Teachers' Day! Let's see...there're many many names down my list, I can still remember most of my teachers who taught me from p1 all the way to sec 2. Except for a few, maybe. Let me see - I'll try reciting.

A biiiigg thank you to...*takes a deep breath*...P1 Mdm Yun, P1 Miss Poh, P2 Mdm Teo, P3 Ms Noor Alinah, P4 Mdm Nora, P5 - P6 Mrs Tan, Sec 1 - Sec 2 Mrs Chia.

And also heartfelt appreciations to all subject teachers (I can only remember those in sec school the clearest sry): Eng/Lit teachers Ms Lim, Ms Wu, Ms Irene; Math teacher Mrs Chia; Geog teacher Ms Wong; Chinese teachers Tang Lao Shi and Zhang Lao Shi; History teacher Mrs Mak; PE teacher Mrs Wee and Mr Yeo; Chem teacher Mrs Tay; Philo teacher Ms Chan; RS mentor Mr Tan; my SG math tuition teacher Mr Koh, and also my China hols math tuition teacher Yu Lao Shi (like reaallly big and exceptional thank you - if he could read english!).

Oh and not forgetting the awesome guitar teachers-in-charge Ms Seah and Mr Larry - and an even awesomer guitar instructor Mr Chua!!!

Yes, a big fat humongous Happy Teachers' Day to all my wondrous teachers - who cares what my initial impressions were, eventually we'll all end up happy and, er, sound! - hehe nah just joking, I never had anything against you guys. *Swells with pride* My teachers are just uniquely different. ^^

Okay, on to the proper reports. Well today I had guitar and we were preparing for assessment pieces, had to do sight-singing for 2h and played for another 1.5 hours I think. Mr Chua had to cut the cake for the tiny party at the end - Ashley baked the cake, it had one candle on it, and Mr Chua was having this really toothy grin that is just so...>

Hehe. Yup, and then Az came over, we watched a damn ridiculous arc in Gintama and then finished our products for lit PT. Learnt quite some stuff about Photoshop from Az; guess being in tribune and rushing through all those articles really helps huh? XD Now I finally know more about the Magicwand tool! Yay! Joy to the world!

Ahh man I'm so happy today. For some reason I'm just so happy today. My drawing skills sorta recovered from that previous warping freak-incident, and Pan says that she thinks my current style is a little better so I shall stop trying to get my old style back. I shall try to forget about my horrifying intuition of math exam today - just for today, before I start chewing out on the last bits of my happiness.

Uh huh so our CSI group's coming over tomo at 11am to film the stuff, and Az is reaching (again) way earlier than them in the morn, somewhere around 7 am, so we can finish our lit PT reflections and then sort out the props before the rest arrive. Keer's bringing powder for finger-printing, Az the maid's costume and black construction paper for data collection, Nans the video cam, Dams and Cher the...? Me the house, sketchbook for sketching data, and CS4 / moviemaker for video editing. Yup, hopefully all sorted out.

I'm writing to Ms Lim lately! She has such an interesting personality that really fits her profession. Missing all her lessons and those humourous banters...haiz...good stuff just has to end someday, no matter how they end huh? Is that part of Murphy's Law? Cuz if it is I'm kinda like a half-supporter of the law so...

Oh well.

Should I end off with a picture? I did this sky practice in photoshop a couple of days back, nothing much, but I think I'll still post it up.

1) Sky Practice 1

Description: Airbrushing and soft shade in CS4 Photoshop, approx 2h. First time painting clouds digitally, very amateur, but also really fun otherwise. Had to make use of quite some layers to split the process up; like one layer for basic white, then another for gray shadow, blue shadow, highlights, etc. Tried to fluff up the edges of the clouds with smaller detail brushes. I forgot to apply the gaussian blur in the end, but, oh well.

Supposedly having a dreamy feeling - and yes, this kind of skies do exist in my world too. A soft dreamy sun, but still isolated. :D

Okay I suppose I should really go now! Tired after the whole day. Cya! Good night, and enjoy your teachers' day and hols!

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.25pm*~~~

21st August 2009 (Friday)

2009-08-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a terribly long break. Not in the literal sense since, you know, we have exams and PTs et all, but I've just been kept away from blogging for quite some time, and I have to say the past month was one of the worst I've ever had. Lots of stuff chucked in our timetables; just got rid of a whole clump of annoying things today (exams + guitar rehearsal + guitar costumes + Chinese PT + Jap Compos), and another clump's comin' up. *Sob* No time to pursue the arts for now, have to get myself settled down.

Goodness, just the first few seconds and I'm already getting emo - when pressure and stress comes up, my emoness follows suit. ><>

I guess it IS kinda irritating that I'm so darn idealistic. It makes things a lot harder, and living with constant longing for this unknown something isn't exactly the best anyone could wish. I'm not saying I hate being such a dreamer; my idealism is, after all, what propels my passion in art anyway, but sometimes it just gets a little...you know, too much.

These few days my world just grows too taunting; in those dreamy seconds before sleep, my inner world seems so close, so realistic, I could simply hear the wind and feel the entire ambience of it, and yet there's this barrier that keeps me from crossing over, and that's what makes it seem so far away. And then again there are all those terribly vivid and amazing dreams, which leave you aching and feeling dang hollow when you wake up into reality. It's really hard to stop dwelling upon these things.

And what's more, now my dream companions aren't coming back anymore. I still catch occasional glimpses of them in my dreams but we seldom get to exchange more than a few words; the most vivid one was the month-old dream about my dream companions visiting another dimension with me into our past, but I fell asleep in the dream in the end and when I woke up it was reality. It's as though a phase (like childhood) ended along with sec 1, a little sad haha. I still remember that farewell dream in p6, the one on the moon, dreams before that used to be so nice and secure despite the same mysterious ambience - now it's just a vast dreamworld with so many strange faces and unknown places, and I have to find my own way.

I dunno, maybe this is a sign telling me that it's time to grow up.

Yup, my parents used to chide about how I should grow up; forget those stuff cuz they aren't real, and face what's coming instead of being a coward. It's kinda true I guess, but to think of discarding all these idealisms, like abandoning dream after dream, just isn't very easy. I run too much. Like the sort of wandering idiot who pauses every few seconds along the road to gaze at the clouds, taking every chance to forget what's going on and just simply drinking in the dream, and then panicking when you think of the long long road ahead and what you'll have to face in the who-knows-what-will-happen crazy future.

Wish I was more practical, a little more...you know, "mature" in terms of dealing with life, but there's always this little part in my mind that urges me otherwise, to remain the self I've always been since birth. Kinda funny huh, how growth can be so complex. Maybe that's why people are so scared of aging; you have this terrible conflict going on deep inside, one side bound by ettiquettes and laws, saying you need to act as what a person of your age should, and the other yearning to go back to where everything originated from. Of course, this disregards the physical factors, but the underlying complication is there.

As what Az and I agreed, time is indeed the biggest bully.

Alright! I should REALLY shut up. Have a feeling that this is boring you guyz...hmm let's see what should I do...ah yes, PICTURES!! I did another piccie in photoshop over the past month, it depicts a scene my inner world. XD I have a lot more, mainly OCs (okay, ALL OC designs), but posting them all up will destroy my formatting for some weird reason. Will post them up slowly so that blogger doesn't get chucked up.

Kay, so here goes.

1) Looking Back

Description: A landscape pic I did in photoshop, took about 2 hours. Very amateur, but it depicts very adequately this sunset scene in my inner world. In case my work is so noob you can't see what's there, um...that's the sun, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, and a lonely fence in the foreground. Yup. My sunsets are usually lonely, isolated and a little cold, as in, not the warm golden-y type. I do have those too, but at different places and different times.

Used a combi of soft-shade, cel-style and airbrushing. Played around with adding 10% opacity black in the touch-ups for this pic to give it a bit of a painting feel. Have a lot to improve on, but I liked how this turned out.

Funny how I actually wanted so bad to pounce into this scene when I was colouring it in photoshop. ^^"
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Okay that's the end of pic-sharing for today! I'm practically dead after all the stuff today. Ah well shouldn't complain this much - I bet teachers have it worse.

And when we grow up, it'll be our turn to have it worse too. There you go, a new metaphysical cycle born...

So before I get drawn into this new metaphysical blackhole, I better sign out. Don't feel like cheesing you guyz off anymore. =D I need some...er, proper rest! Yeah! Oh and Az is coming to my house tomorrow!!

To discuss PTs and RS.

But of course, be rest assured we'll play. I'll er, haunt someone if we don't. Okay signing out! Night~!

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.36pm*~~~

3rd July 2009 (Friday)

2009-07-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

Yo world! The emoer is back!

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Whow, I missed out blogging for the whole month of June hols. Well, was in China, and sadly that chicken shaped land didn't have connections to something as simple as blogger. Last year it worked, somehow this year didn't go as well. =.= Haiz, so much for China-related affairs. There goes my trust. *Stares down the gutters*

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Anyway it's not like the hols were really that eventful, so I shan't go through the details; the main things are having 3 hour intensive math tuitions (in chinese) every single day and even more time spent on tuition homework, and then drawing and designing OCs for basically the rest of the days. Nothin' friggin' interesting.

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But I do have to say that my grandparents look so much older now.

Somehow that strikes a cord somewhere, it's a little hard to put into words. It's just the feeling of age...leave it to philosophy to solve the crux of human nature, and you may not get any form of an answer for the next millennium. Well that was random. Guess I'm not in the right mind today. I'm still having a bit of a fluctuating temperature you know.

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Okay, so a brief recount of my godsend 7 day LOA holiday that was, both unfortunately AND expectedly, littered with complications. I had fluctuations in my temperature ranging from 37.0 to 37.68, which covered the trigger temperature as the news reported, a bit of a sorethroat, and quite some fatigue, and that alone was enough to make the clinic doctor send me off in an ambulance to the KK hospital - for check-up, so it was reasonable in a sense. My parents are the ones opposing against it, not me.

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Kay. You know what?

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Let's cut it short. I'm tired of having to repeat this over and over for the past few days, concerning the complications with school and stuff. I received results after 50 hours (actually I called them for it) and it's tested negative, so I DON'T have the H1N1. Great news ain't it? At least that removes half the original stress factors for the past week.

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Oh yea, and the doctor ridiculously, happily, obdurately took me as the parent (my mom). I know ppl say my voice sounds like my mom's over the phone, but, well, I did try to make my identity distinctive at some points. He just doesn't seem to be able to pick up any of those more than conspicuous signs. So, well, in the end the conversation was all in terms of "your child", "your child's NRIC please", "your child's name", "when did your child come". Denise said this little anecdote was pretty funny. I kinda agree.

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Yeah now that these reporting duties are finally over, I am going to treat you guys to...PICTURES! Phweee. Yup, my ton of drawings accumulated over the month in China, plus some other things I did here and there back in SG. They're all up on Deviantart, but I do like pics on my blog too. Get ready for a lot of OCs.

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Here goes.

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1) Amaya

2) Amaya - Coloured

3) Asami

4) Asami - Coloured

5) Chinatsu

6) Daichi

7) Hideki

8) Kasumi

9) Kohaku

10) Minori

11) Saki

12) Sayuri

13) Sayuri - Coloured

14) Shouji

15) Tatsuya

16) Rokudaime

17) Endure

18) Evening Light

Phew. Too lazy to add descrips since there are so many. And I bet blogger's gonna throw me some more problems with formatting so I think I shan't care. If you ever wanna find out the OCs particulars, they're on my DA account (www.Aurinya.deviantart.com).

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Ow, shoulder aching.

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Anyway Naruto chapter 454 was pretty okay, a bit draggy, but I guess it's still much better than the anime's pace. O_O It was a little bit weird that he became the punching bag for the lightning emissionaries. :X No spoilers, so I think I'd better shut up before I blab.

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Just one thing. Wonder what Sai's gonna do. Somebody has to stop that right?

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Okie. I think I'm basically done here. Wow things sure turn into chores if they stretch too long. Signing off, gud night and sweet dreams :)

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***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.13pm*~~~