The First Monday of the Holidays

After all the buildup, the holidays are finally here, and suddenly, I find myself lounging about with nothing to do. Well, I do have things to do of course, but I don't feel like touching them just yet.

First, a recap of the weekend. I watched the Canterbury Tales on Saturday night, and it was really quite funny and lively. I don't know if the artistic licence used brightened the Tales up more than they already are, but in any case I think the production did a great job in bringing out the boisterous, cheeky, and downright sexual flavour of Chaucer's works. It was a nice way to end the evening.

Then on Sunday we celebrated my father's birthday with a huge chocolate banana cake from Secret Recipe. It definitely weighs more than a kilo, and the height is just awesome. Next year, I shall get my black forest cake from there. At night we ate seafood at the Kallang riverfront. I wanted chilli crabs, but my brother sulked as usual and we had to switch to a crab cooked with garlic and spring onions. Still palatable, but I've been wanting to try a nice chilli crab for so long. The last time I ate one is beyond my memory.

It started on Friday, after training, or maybe even earlier, and since then I've been daydreaming about the team (our team) going head to head with rj in the nationals semis and beating them to face ac in the finals. It's a strange fantasy anyway, one that can never be fulfilled. But you know, after watching all the sports teams play their hearts out this season, I wish I was back in the July of last year. And whenever my mind goes back to that time I imagine all of us sitting on stage in an intense debate against rj (why rj? I think it's partly becos I'm tired of debating against our usual friends, and I'd like to save ac for the finals), and we're opp, since we've always been better at opp. It's a very close match, and we split the judges 3-2, but for the first time we actually win the damned split! Doesn't matter what the motion is, in fact, the whole dream involves me taking much of the limelight, haha, but then Owen delivers a stunning blow after Suhas's own brilliant speech, and I round up the reply with a flourish. Everything is pitch perfect, the style, the content, the argumentation. Our teamline is consistent through all three speakers. Prop puts up a good defence but they cannot quite reply effectively to one nagging point which we exploit and mercilessly blow up in their faces. Ah, sweet victory.

But alas, we all know our glory days are over. Time to fade into the shadows, buckle down and study hard. Oh, but for that moment, that one moment, we actually had the chance.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

This afternoon's rain has sort of placed me in a quieter, subdued, reflective mode. I love the rain when I'm nicely tucked into bed at home, but not when I'm out. Let me take the opportunity to thank Vicks and Jeremy here for running back to school and out again to get umbrellas for us, even at the risk of physical injury, as Jeremy suffered, and getting drenched, as Vicks suffered. Thank you guys!

So anyway as I was saying I'm now in this quiet reflective mode which I suspect is not too unlike a feeling of sleepiness. But I feel a need to think about my spiritual life in general, which has not been progressing smoothly recently. It's a bad tendency that I have, slipping into nonchalence for long periods of time, kind of wallowing about in lukewarmness. Sometimes I think I'm just lazy, other times I'm too timid. I hope this holidays I can spend some time setting my affairs right.

I just remembered something by CS Lewis. "We have never told the whole truth. We may confess ugly facts, but the tone is false. The very act of confessing - an infinitesimally hypocritical glance - a dash of humour - all this serves to dissociate the facts from yourself." It's at times like this when I remember the true meaning of those words and realise how acute Lewis was in his observations of self. And of course, he's right. How well I know that. It's an ugly truth.

Well, I'm off to dinner. I think a fault of mine is that I can never hold long periods of self-reflection. Or maybe I don't want to. Oh well, I'll leave it to God.

Waiting for the bell to ring

All my lessons have practically degenerated into exercises in patience. I sit there waiting for the bell to ring. The days are becoming so leisurely and frankly, dull, that we spend our time daydreaming of the possibilities available to us come Friday. Ahh, Friday, will it ever come? I dislike the looming prospect of the PC test tomorrow. It's like this untimely obstacle in the way of my path to the weekend. I wish I could get it over and done with as soon as possible. Other than that the rest of the week should be fine. I want to watch X3, and I hope it can be this Friday.

I still don't know what I should do about tomorrow. I'm undecided about going for the hockey girls finals, or to stay for debates. In the first place I don't know if I can skip debates. There are things to discuss... Anyway, I think that Owen should get a service award for debates too, so there, I'm making my stand official here. It's unfair to recognise only one person's efforts in a cca simply because the cca happens to be very small. What if another person did just as much work? (I'm still inclined to think that I've done more work though, hehe...) So, anyway, I wish Jill and co. all the best for their match tomorrow. Hope they win!

I realise NS talk makes me depressed. I don't know how it started, but our conversation somehow drifted into the army as we waited for history makeup. It's really unnerving and gloomy to think about the prospect of entering two years of regimentation, physical hardship, trauma, filth, mud, soil, sand, rain. I wonder if the nation is worth dying for, really. All my life I've always placed NS in a corner of my mind whenever the topic comes up, because I don't want to face it, and anyway it always seemed far away. Now, I'm left with roughly six months of freedom, depending on my performance in Napfa. Oh, the misery.

Let's look at brighter things! I'm home! Nice and dry! My bed seems comfy, and later on I'll snuggle up in it. The food is on the table, the TV dispenses entertainment. Ha, the comforts of home.

It is the last week of school. Yes, the final frontier to cross before we can reach that blessed period of rest, if indeed it can be called rest. I think the June break needs to be renamed. It's not the holidays, it's something else, like extra lessons time. But in any case, I want that break from the regular routine.

On Saturday I went down to watch the team debate at the semis. I don't want to comment too much on that here. I've said much more elsewhere. Then after that I went down to orchard to catch the Da Vinci Code. Interesting movie. I've always been a sucker for conspiracy theories. They bring some mystery into my life. I realise that's why I like adventure stories or thrillers. I like the feeling of being compelled to turn the next page to find out more.

I think I'll go sleep for a while. Then do the SBQ. ugh.

After a valiant attempt to resist returning to me, my watch now sits safely at home. Let me tell you the adventure. I went to Wheelock Place with Dai Wei to collect the watch. So we took the lift up to the eighth floor, but I didn't see and we ended up on the ninth floor. So we decided to take the stairs down one floor. We went down, and found the door locked. So we went back to the ninth floor to take the lift down. But horror of horrors! The ninth floor door was locked! We were trapped in the stairwell! So we went down, and down, trying every door, until at last we re-emerged in the lift lobby of the first floor... Then we went up again via lift. And the rest is history.

I'm tired and sleepy now. I just want to take some rest before I do my work. Night, world.

In larger freedom

I want to thank everyone that tagged after my last post, even though I only actually read the tags on Friday. Even then I was too tired to blog, but I was quite heartened by them.

Quek: yeah, I agree with you. I'm still too afraid, or at least right now, too tired. But it shouldn't be this way, should it?

Benita: yup, pressing on, I mean, what else can we do, right? Thanks for understanding :)

Liz: well, I wasn't pinpointing you, but in any case, thanks for the congrats!

Kelly: haha, you're one of those that make life better too. Perhaps one fine day we can actually say goodbye without rushing off somewhere.

Owen: well, if I didn't think so much I wouldn't be the person you feel crippled without... but it's good having you around anyway. makes me laugh, haha.

And now onto the meat of my post. It's done, I'm done with it. All the bloody late nights working at presentations and what not are done for now. I think this has been one of the most stressful periods of my life, and I shudder to think that the worst is yet to be. Anyway, the MUN presentation was a success on Thursday, so I'm happy about that.

My Vesak Day holiday was totally burnt by what became an 8 hour meeting over the UN seminar presentation. Then yesterday was gone too, since the seminar took up the whole day. But, I'm glad to announce that at least we got 2nd place for our efforts. And, the dinner at Tony Roma's more than made up for the work. There was so much food we had to pack some home. I love Tony Roma's chicken. I absolutely love it. I know they are famous for ribs, but the chicken serving was so large and so nice that by the time I was finished with it I could only take in two ribs, which were nice too, but they didn't rock my socks off. I guess the chicken had overpowered it. In any case, I wasn't wearing socks, hahahaha! (ok that was silly)

I also attended the college play on Friday. Now that was some tricky business of rushing back and forth. I nearly broke down going home, actually. I just felt the strain was almost too much to bear. But anyway I made it home, changed, and was off again. The plays were okay, and I liked the first one better. More thought-provoking, although I believe both were supposed to do the same. Now the image of Vicks dressed up as a ma-jie will forever be engraved in my mind. As though being called one at school wasn't bad enough!

Essentially I'm left with only today free after the long weekend. But I'm still quite tired by all the events of the past few days. I titled this post "In larger freedom" because I thought it apt that the closing words of our presentation yesterday echo my sentiments now. It's all temporal though. I have two tests coming up this week, and more debate training. But this time I refuse to be bogged down by training. The juniors have exceeded my expectations over the weekend and won three debates in a row at the ACJC Debate Invitationals. So, I expect them to be more active in taking charge at meetings. I'll just leave the key with them or something.

Okay, I'm done. I'm in this pleasant state of sleepiness, the residue of an afternoon nap. Now I'll go finish off the rest of the chicken.

Get off my back

It is in the quiet solitude of the night as I walk to the bus stop that the sickness overcomes me. That damp air sticks to my skin and the tiredness washes over. As I reach the bus stop that familiar feeling of irritation takes over. It's always like this. I get charged up and excited during my activities, only to lapse into this bitter, antagonised self.

Why, I wonder, do I have to come home everyday at 8, leave for school by 6.45? People have 8 hour workdays, I have 12. It's just the whole pressure of working late, coming home, and doing more work that really gets to me. I was never quite like this. But recently my fuse is getting shorter. I swear only the presence of beni, dai wei, jeremy, bryan, musa n vicks keeps me relatively jovial and happy in school. That and the grace of God. And to be sure, it must His grace that keeps me going, because how else to explain the fact that despite the stress that's been building up over the past few months, my body refuses to fail or break down, even if I may secretly wish for it to do so and get myself a break? Compared to me my class is absolutely sickly. In fact, this is the sickliest class I've ever been in. People "fall ill" on a regular basis, or some don;t come at all because they're "sick of school". Yeah, sure, like the people who DO attend aren't sick of school.

It's rubbish you know, to hear people complain non-stop about how they can't keep up with lessons or that they don't understand. Of course you don't! How could you, when your absenteeism rate averages out to around 2 per week? And I have to put up with all this shit, and then come home to be questioned by my parents about my whereabouts. I mean, I know they're concerned, but give me a break. I'm sick to death of having to explain continually to them what MUN means, what this activity is or that. It's not like they remember anyway. Where could I be anyway? Gallivanting round Singapore? I have better things to do. And then my father tells me to stop overcommiting myself, tell the teachers I don't want to do it. Yeah sure, it'd be great if life could just stop and I could drop everything. But I can't. I've made commitments, I like what I do, and even if I don't, I can't just stop. There are others around me who are more laden with work than I am.

But of course, it's back to the same conflict. When do I stop comparing my situation to people worse off than me and start living for myself? There will always be someone poorer than you, true, but there's always someone richer than you. And one day, one fine day, I wish I could just fling out all this talk about oh, people have more stuff to do, I shouldn't complain, and get on with life. But I'm brought up this way, I have my principles. My parents would be proud, if they knew the crap I go through. I get home later than them everyday, I still have to work through essay assignments, I still pass up on time everytime, I still get respectable grades. I mean, come on, how much more can you expect from your son? There are plenty of people I know who idle their time away at home or somewhere else in school and still can't produce work on time. You know what I say to their reasons? Bullshit. Life's tough, so get on with it. Grow up, and stop whining.

By now I now I've completely contradicted my case. I've just completed what must be the longest rant/whine I've ever done on this blog. Well, I know. Judge not, lest ye be judged, how well I know that. But the steam needs to let out sometimes. So although I complain so much, at the end I know I'll just bite the bitter medicine I've just dished out and go on. What else can I do? Skip school? Dream on. I have an entire PC essay to complete, and I know that no matter how late it gets it will appear done tomorrow. So be it. That's my lot in life, I'll just have to do it, and if this post has taken up too much precious time, so be it.

On a happier note, I passed my 2.4 for the first time in JC today. Thank be to God. I'd never be able to do it without His strength. And to think about it, I'll need plenty of strength in the days to come.

It's been a while...

The fact that I have not blogged for more than a week is proof of how busy I've been. I'm quite glad that the weekend is finally here, but even in this sacred rest time work will not let its grip go: I have to spend my Saturday evening discussing a GP presentation... Of course, some will point out the pleasure of discussing such a topic in the presence of three lovely young ladies, and though I will not begrudge that fact, I'd rather have my Saturday night free of work and not meet them, than to meet and work.

I realised today that I for the whole of this week not once did I leave school when lessons ended. The next week looks set to be repeat of this. I have meetings, debate sessions, and other meetings lined up for all my afternoons, and even the whole of next Saturday will be taken up. Add to this the increasing workload and the intensifying academic schedule, and I have a pretty large amount of stress on my back. Hopefully, it's time I find the discipline and time (how ironic) to start studying seriously. Happy is he who has time to pass.

Anyway, I think I make things out to be worse than they truly are. School is still liveable, especially in the company of six other people who make the time pass faster, if not happier, than it really does. Where would I be without them? And the after school sessions aren't really school work. I mean, debating is still attractive to me, even though I fret over the j1s. Mun, well, it's fun too in a way, preparing to present. I look around the balcony and I see many people actually studying and doing far more real academic work than I am. So, I guess I need to buckle down.


I want my praises to be more than empty words, I want my intentions to translate into action, I want my will to be stronger than temptation. In fact, I want to want to overcome. I need that passion to fill me more than it ever has, and I yet I need to stop being afraid of the consequences of fire. I need to find my sense of direction again.