Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Grass & Grades

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The grass was soft, carpet-like almost. It was also mildly wet, but not unpleasantly so. The smell of grass in the morning was intoxicating to me, as if it smelled of bright and sunny days, of painted blue skies and bare strokes of white clouds. It smelled like sunshine and riverbanks. I love mornings like this, when I could just lie on the grass and let my worries stay in the classrooms, absorbed in this morning solace that comes only once a fortnight.

I hate the rain that came to spoil the sunshine. The trickling of menacing raindrops on the roofs, like nails being shaken and stirred in a metal jar, was always greeted with the unaccepting sigh of a soul expecting the rest of the day to be miserable and unsatisfying. But this day, at that moment in time, the sunshine greeted me with its glowing radiance, and I was half-expecting the day to be a great one. The other half expected it to be at least a good one.

I was thinking of her then. It would’ve been great if she was here, I said to myself. I looked to the empty patch of grass just beside me, and I tried hard to imagine her there, chatting with me, about anything and everything. Even about nothing. I would’ve gladly spent hours with her than do anything else. Even if we did nothing but lie on the grass and talk. I wouldn’t even need to face her. Just hearing her voice would’ve been enough. That’s not to say she didn’t have a face worth looking at. It was quite the contrary. She was beautiful, in every sense of the word. Beautiful on the outside, and also on the inside, or at least that’s how the cliché goes. And for her, that was true.

The grass had slightly dried after what was maybe three hours of idle thoughts, and no longer did it smell fresh. Instead it mildly smelled much like burnt leaves and branches. The heat from the sunshine had intensified, and my skin longed for moisture. I didn’t realise I had spent too much in the sun until I heard someone calling my name, and said something about if I wanted to go to lunch. I picked myself up, and left the grass field with a slightly remorseful aftertaste.

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I’m quite satisfied with my Maths C1 and C2 paper. I’m pretty sure I’ll get an A in each, bar a major cock-up that I still have not realised. C1 was ridiculously easy. I had to take three minutes rest in between questions just to make sure I didn’t have too much time left after I’ve finished. Still, I finished an hour early, so I had to check my answers slowly and carefully, twice, just to waste time. I know, I shouldn’t be bragging about how easy it was. Usually it’s the beginning of a pretty sorrowful story. Y’know, the one in which the guy thinks he’s done extremely well in his paper, and finds out later in the year that he failed. But never mind, I’m not the superstitious kind anyway. And to be honest, I don’t really care if I get a miserable mark. Not for me anyway. Maybe for my choice of universities, but personally I wouldn’t mind.

I’m so happy with my latest English mocks results for the Section B part of ‘Antony & Cleopatra’. I got 27 out of 30, and that’s a high A. Two months ago I was struggling and getting C’s and cursing myself over why I took English as my teaching subject rather than a science. Now I’m quite happy with myself for making that choice.

I’ll be happier if I get an A in English than if I get 100% in any of the sciences or Maths, and that’s because I don’t think science and Maths exams properly reflect how good you are in the subject. I rate English as a subject (and any other humanities for that matter) because much of it is your own opinion. Sure, you have to study for it, but only because you need to know the material to form an opinion. To be extremely honest, I’d rather have no exams at all, and not because I find exams troublesome and cumbersome. Well, partly. But mostly because I find it intellectually irrelevant and systematically flawed. You’d probably do better if you memorised the whole syllabus rather than understanding it. That’s what I think anyway.

Signing out

Over and out

Monday, May 21, 2007

Volent & Virulent

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I want to think I'm right. But I know I can't make any assumptions. All the assumptions I've made before had been wrong, and had been wrong so badly. So no, I'll try and restrain myself from making this one.

But I so want it to be true, it's unbelievable. It's almost unhealthy. It's really made my day today, even though I can never be sure if it's really true. I had a good time at brunch. I had a good time playing football on the new seven grand football turf for our house. It's so slippery we had to resort to psycho football, some branch of football that might have originated from what the gladiators of Rome used to play in their backyard.

Facts, fiction, truths, lies. And there's assumptions.

I can't stop thinking about it. It's making me unbelievably positive, it's almost certain it's going to break my heart. I can't let my hopes up. It's emotional suicide.

I'm confused.

Signing out

Over and out

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Time & Tenacity

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Exams time again.

Everyone's blogging about it, so just in accordance of this trend, I'll talk about it too.

I'm not nervous at all. I don't even think I'm bothered. I know that if I cock this up, I'll make it that bit harder for my future. But still, I'm not really worried.

I can't go panicking about exams just for the sake of it. I need to, I guess. Or else I won't really start to properly revise. I've been working hard, but only in classrooms. And I do most of top schools (homework) on time and with effort. But other than that, I haven't studied one bit. I spend most of my nights watching a film, or reading a book. I'm currently reading three books at the moment, like I always do. If I read just one book, my attention span gets really short. But with three books, I can shift my attention to the other one before I get bored.

One of the books, 'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller, is really interesting. It's an anti-war, fictional, satirical and historical novel, set in World War II. It's a lot different to Kurt Vonnegut's great anti-war novel, 'Slaughterhouse-5' which I read just before Easter.

Basically 'Catch-22' is a lot about paradoxes. Catch-22 itself is the main theme (obviously, it's the title). Catch-22 is the condition that has to be met if an army pilot does not want to perform any more combat missions. The condition is that the pilot has to be crazy, and that he has to report to the army himself that he is crazy and request retirement. The catch is that if the pilot requests retirement, therefore he recognises the dangers of combat missions, and by recognising danger, he cannot be considered crazy. This forces him to stay in the army.

This book was written in the 1960s, and it's still very relevant today, especially in bureaucratic terms.

Okay, I'm gonna stop talking about the book before I sound pretentious and boring. Haha. Ho.

I got distracted from the exams issue quite quick there. I need to concentrate.

So... Exams...

For my opinion on exams, just read my blog entry from long ago. Click here.

Although be warned, it's only two paragraphs on exams. The other part is about everything else.

Signing out

Over and out

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Rooms & Revision

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I'm here in my friend, Geo's room, while he's off doing the house duty thing, of which the experience is such a nightmare. Trying to get the third-formers to bed isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world.

Anyway, for people who has seen me play basketball, they'll know I'm well below average. So me getting into the house team sounds improbable, right? Turns out we're so short of basketball players, they needed me to play. Jeez. Apparently basketball isn't high on the school sports priority list.

With me in the team, you'd normally expect the team to be naturally crap. Well, crap enough to let me in the starting line-up, that is. But it turns out the other house teams are crappier than us. Actually the team consisted of two extremely good chinese players with a few other people to make up the numbers.

But hey, surprise, we got second place. Hahahahahahahahaha.

I'll leave that statement as it is, so you can ponder over how we managed it :P

Signing out

Over and out

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Contrived & Conclusive

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I feel so distant sometimes. Just with everything. Reality seems further than it is. It feels like even reality isn’t real anymore. Everything feels so… Contrived. Imagined, even. Nothing else exist. Just my mind, imagining that everything exists, to not feel lonely. And not feel empty. I can never be sure I’m real, let alone everything else. Even nothing seems wrong. It implies absence, and therefore it doesn’t necessarily mean non-existence. It’s absurd. Sometimes I don’t know why I think the way I think. Other times I completely understand why. This is the time when I’m in between the two states of mind.

Can I ever be sure everyone that I know isn’t a figment of my imagination? A personified ideal that my mind had created to fill that inner void, perhaps.

I feel so separated and detached from my body, it feels unreal. Pain, pleasure, it’s all in my mind. The fingers that are typing the words now, they feel like they’re not a part of me. Like they are just parts of machinery that I’m operating from my mind. I’m the machine-operator of my own body, pulling levers and pushing switches in my head to make the right movement and reflexes. Almost like I’m playing with a remote-controlled robot.

Sometimes I feel that nothing in the world matters. That existence is illusory. That life’s goals are just distractions to keep us busy till the day we die.

It all sounds a bit depressing, I know, but it doesn’t exactly feel that way. It’s more apathy than anything. I’m not suicidal, but I feel like ending my life right here right now won’t really matter much to the grand scheme of things, if there ever was one.

Moving to reality, if it exists.

We are just a tiny speck of dust, us humans. Still we get cocky. Still we act like we own the world. Like we own the universe. We act like gods. Sometimes worse. We commit unspeakable atrocities, then we say we do them in the name of our God. Observe, 9/11, the Crusade, the Holocaust. We wage wars against one another, to prove whose God or gods are better. History will always be rewritten by the victors of wars. Imagine if Hitler won the war. We’d be reading history books on how the Allies were unjust, polluted minds bent on destroying an ideal, a Nazi government that was and always had been (claims the book) right all along.

We divide ourselves in groups of race, religion, nation and political ideas. We shoot each other down in a typical ‘I’m definitely right because I’m stronger’ manner. That’s the decaying human race, ladies and gentlemen. Fighting against each other just to prove whose cock is bigger, and about other petty things.

The world is dominated by testosterone-driven, egoistic principles, people bent on being selfish and as rich as possible. Capitalism cripples the poor. It strengthens only the rich. Moral virtues are now considered for the weak, for hippies. Concern for others is way under the list of priorities. Human rights are constantly being ignored. We are also crippling the environment, with our reckless polluting and wasting. We indulge ourselves in the illogical reasoning that saving the world is not reason enough to start changing our lifestyles.

Anyone thinking or acting or even appearing differently from us is automatically exiled, questioned and shot down. We are self-centred and narcissistic creatures. That’s why we are one of the only creatures to have self-awareness when seeing the mirror. We are vain, self-absorbed beings.

Apathy is the main problem with most people. We are indifferent to everything. We shut ourselves out from the everyday massacres, wars and famine, and act like nothing’s happening. We watch the TV, see a starving child in Darfur on the news, say “Oh my god. Poor kid,” and then change the channel to watch what else is on. It’s not happening to us, so why should we be worried about it, we convince ourselves.

We concern ourselves with news of famous people dating other famous people. We concern ourselves with news of our favourite football team winning against the other football team. But why not, for a few moments, concern ourselves with news of the world’s real concerns? Just for a few moments, pick up the newspaper (not the tabloid), read about what’s going on around the world, and don’t start with the back page either. And after that put the newspaper in the recycling bin. How hard will that be?

Moving away from human indifference, if we can ever move away from it.

I feel empty sometimes. Well, most of the time. Like there’s a void waiting to be filled. Partly because my best friend is halfway across the world. But a lot of it also centres on the fact that I don’t have someone to call just to say good night. I wanna fall in love again. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Because falling in love would instil some sense of reality back into me. Because it’d fill that void. For a long time I have thought, I can be happy when I’m single, which is true. I am happy with my life. But being happy with it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing I would add to it.

I don’t know. I’d like someone who would put her head on my shoulder, while we look up at the sky, talking about our dreams and ambitions. I guess I already have friends to do that with, thought they won’t necessarily rest their heads on my shoulder. I am so thankful for my friends. They make me look back and feel glad that I feel that I would never change anything that I’ve been through, just because it’s made me to who I am today. I am happy with myself. What makes me somewhat a liberal humanist is the fact that I value relationships over other things.

I love you. Whoever you are.

These are little snippets I wrote for certain people for Valentine’s Day, probably two Valentines ago. I won’t reveal who they’re for, but they’re people who’ve made a special impact on my life, just for being in it.

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Melodrama of one's silence
The turnaround of the day
A guilty pleasure in seeing you cry
It breaks my heart

The words of my needed solace
The voices inside of me
Call your name in an endless loop
It breaks my heart

A war for my Valentine
A resolution is what we need
Feelings that are mine
They tell of an angel's deeds

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The words of a jovial angel
Brings solace to a grateful friend
A smile just so ethereal
Motivation for this tired soul

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A sweetness defined by endless smiles
Enthused with a touch of vivid cheerfulness
An amiability defined by amicable laughs
Inspiration for a friend by joyfulness

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Reminiscent of the afternoon conversations
Gratitude for the affable friend
The melancholic state of mind is eased
By the willingness to listen

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A fair innocence brings joy
As a friend in innumerable circumstances
A thousand angels could never replace
A million thanks would never suffice

-----------------------------

Thanks everyone, for just being in my life. I really do appreciate it.

As they say, a stranger is only a friend who you’ve never met before.

Signing out

Over and out

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Thinking & Hoping

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I'm still trying to move on, after the shock of hearing the news that my grandmother had died. When I heard about it, it took a few hours for the sadness to sink in. And when it did, I found myself in lessons staring at thin air, ignoring everything around me. It was hard enough to concentrate in lessons. It was even harder to hold back the tears in front of everyone.

It was ironic I found out about it after more than a week it happened. Through my cousin's blog. It sucks, having to find it out by yourself like that. I felt angry because no one told me about it directly.

But when I rang my parents, I kinda understood why they didn't wanna tell me. They were simply being pragmatic. I respect them for it. They didn't tell me right away so I didn't have to fly all the way back for the funeral. It would've cost a lot of money. And it would've severely disrupted my studies. My dad was calm. I knew he didn't want me to get too emotional about it. "Belajar saja... Jangan tah ingau. Doa kan saja nini mu atu.. Karang kau balik, tarus kita ke kubur, bertahlil." It's really strange - but I guess, entirely predictable - that what my dad said was so similar to what my uncle said to his daughter, who's also in the UK. It took me quite a lot of composure to construct the next sentence, because I could feel the tears trying to pour out. "Camana nini laki?"

That's one thing I'm really grateful about, is that my grandfather is doing well. He's relieved of intensive care, and is now home and healthy. He collapsed in the jungle around the same time my grandmother was in the hospital, he and was sent to intensive care. When my grandmother died, he was unconscious. So he didn't find out till later..

This is an excerpt of the blog from my cousin (21st April 2007), which broke my heart when I read it...

"It tears me up even more to hear that my grandfather doesn't know my grandmother has passed away. His heart is weak, and they don't want to make it worse. Apparently they had a few minutes to each other, as though they knew their time was up. So maybe he does know, though no one has told him. How can a heart not break hearing that?

... But today, even with a heavy heart, I felt thankful that her death made me realize I'm not a robot. That I can feel again. That I can shed tears and ache at a loss. That I am weak and have fears. That I am human and have regrets. Regrets that I didn't always treat my grandmother well. Regrets that I didn't spend as much time as I should've as her favourite grandchild. I wasn't bad to her, but I wasn't good either. And yet, she loved me."

One recurring image that's been going through my head since her death is the image of her with tears, in the airport, when I was about to leave for the UK. At the time, I was really touched, because I didn't spend as much time with her as her other grandchildren, but she still loved me as much. But I didn't think much of it at the time, because I thought I would see her again during the summer. She was such a strong character, with such a beautiful laugh, and a generous hand. I liked going to my grandparents' house, and I regretted the fact that I didn't go there as much as I should have.

She was the midwife and the masseusse of the village. She was quite the woman. Everyone in the village knew her. Every weekend there would always be someone visiting her for a massage.

Nini bini, you will be forever missed

Signing out

Over and out

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Hopes & H

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This is so fucked up. I can't believe this...

I woke up today, feeling just like the happiest man alive, had a wonderful breakfast, and was ready for a relaxed day, with the allowances coming out. But fuck, how has that feeling been crushed...

I still can't believe this...

I just found my grandmother had died... After more than a week...Gaaah.....

This is.....

Fuck... I can't do this......