Journal Entry 04

Shame. That's the word I picked from the book of psalms today. Quite appropriate, since our class was defeated in the literature drama competition. But that's okay with me. I was the mere costumes' designer.

There must be something wrong with me, otherwise the same problems can't keep hitting a person. Why do people seem to exclude me so much and make claims that I'm excluding them? Well, I don't write private notes or sit next to the person and make-believe an invisible wall and pretend to be a psychaitrist and ask my friend to humor me. Sorry, I've gotten over this, but its a very classic example.

Well, I don't hide things. I feel guilty when I do. People know what I think of them, but I don't see why friends won't come clean to me. I guess I'm not the confidant people want. Too something-something or lacking in something-something. Its even harder when talking to you, God. I know I'm special, that I'm really important to God, that I shouldn't judge or assume or bother about what other people whisper in my full knowledge (hey, i don't hire private investigators or have loyal people to glean such information out). Its impossible to find the equipoise for this relationship.

I can't wait for Sunday, where I'll be my family. The world is a hard place to live in and one just whishes that we could live protected and sheltered, nto subject to shame or ridicule. Like me, to a certian extent, when I was emcee for the play, only told of the role less than 12 hours before, and decided to wear the tent like skirt Portia was supposed to wear but dumped for a more tailored suit. Not that I can blame anyone. that's the thing about it. Are people afraid that they'll hurt me or blatantly disregarding my feelings. Screaming "MY EYES, THEY BURN!!!" while running out of the bathroom... yeah. But I'm quite over that too, I'm thankful that I had fun all the same.

Maybe I'm just too proud, as Mrs. Wong says our generation is. I just don't want to feel like a pigmy when in truth, classmates in school push you around anyhow. Lesson learnt then. I just have to let go. Disconnect but stay ready for any erson who needs a ear or a hand.

Amen

I'm quite worried. There's a debate (practice) tomorrow with another school and yesterday's debate made me feel so inadequate. I wonder how much is enough. Of course one can always do better than the next person, but is that enough? What do people expect of me? I know that I can think on my feet better than some, but I get frustrated when I get a technical glitch with my computer or someone says something really out of point in a debate.

That's unimportant, the thing is that I sometimes dream really weird things. Last night I dreamt I was in my school P.E. shirt and shorts and started moving my legs around a lot on top a table in the teacher's staff room, while I was talking to the teacher. Someone later commented that I looked like a hooker or something to that extent. I only felt vaguely embarrassed and ashamed. Like I was Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon. As I think back, I can't decide if I really saw my classmates and a teacher there. Or if its just my sub-conscious mind working, whatever theory that is. Dreams are peculiar. But I do hope they don't reflect real life. But I've never been comfortable in the P.E. attire.

I think Flowers of Algernon has really influenced me this week. I can't help wondering if I'm mentally or emotionally retarded. Or if I am an incompetent person doing something trivial which is of great importance to me. What about God's will? Oh, freedom of choice sometimes hampers your own decision. Oh Lord, why is it so difficult sometimes to get weird things like dreams and events sorted out.

Please help me. I need the safety that David talks about in the book of Psalms. I wish that I could curl up into a ball and ignore the Literature test, the friends, the exams, the expectations, the numerous events being thrown onto me. Bu that's life ain't it. Shall just live with it.

journal entry 03

Deliverance. Sigh, if only it were so simple. I’m thankful that I went for L.T.’s talk. At least I won’t be tempted into thinking that I’m not following Your will any longer. But Lord, please give me signs and open and close doors to tell me. I’m glad that I don’t have to be worried about not hearing you per se in the verbal sense.

Thanks for brining me through this reasonably alright week. Friends have remained at tolerable levels. The tests should have gone well. Bless me for the Mother Tongue oral and the Merchant of Venice test and drama night. Oh, and please, please, please, the debate team really needs divine intervention. Okay, this is a bit too plead-y, but just help the juniors and me debate well, clearly and with structure.

I miss my friends. Those in primary school and in church, past and present. Melanie. Shannon. My whole discipleship group. I feel like I am living for Sundays sometimes. I feel so at home with them its odd. But that’s fellowship and accountability isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking back to that Christian self-help book. Every Young Woman’s Battle by Shannon Ethridge; guarding your mind in a sex saturated world. I’m going to keep the off week, which means no weird videos, no fiction books which I have read over and over again, no music with such and such implications. I’ve been battling it and I think it is helping. I don’t intentionally look for such-and-such books as my friends imply. Its just that sometimes you don’t know what you are getting yourself into. Ah well, play safe with the classics.

It’s getting a bit difficult. In tuition class the two students who sit next to me are the really trendy sort. Short shorts (not too short but still past the thigh’s mid point) and well, some people at church too. I mean, I can’t criticize it or anything but I still get irked out over such things. It shouldn’t be an overactive conscience right? Sometimes I just wish that I could still fit in a little more, but ah well, that only happens sometimes. So long as I am others-first at the same time I’m sure it’ll show through. Someway, somehow.

It sounds really superficial, what I’ve just written. But I feel like I can talk to you about anything and everything. And so openly that I don’t mind showing this on my blog. I still can’t think of you all the time and I’m still not so sure if I want to go for the WOW camp. Urgh. Sometimes it is just so tricky. I just feel like relaxing but with my home with such a close proximity to church I think I won’t have a clear conscience. That article on mind-your-body, people can only guess how different people process their thoughts and morals and ethics.

I liked Fantasia from Greensleeves. To imagine You allowed a folk song to be created around four centuries ago to be sustained till today in this epithet in the classical genre. And it becoming a beautiful Christmas carol.

Sometimes I feel like getting away from this life. But I’m sure I have some work here to do. Bless my mom, she seems so stressed with her work becoming a teacher. And my dad. Who knows what will happen tomorrow but you? And yet, we still have free will. It’s a beautiful thing, the right to choice.

Amen

journal entry 02

Well, blogger isn't up to standard today.

I've been thinking a lot about family. And about my life.
Today I asked my parents a question: If you had to lose one of your senses, which would it be? My mother said taste, which was my answer too. My dad said touch, so that he wouldn't feel pain. I guess we're different, but I can't imagine not touching all the things God gave us. The rain, the cotton sheets, a friend's warm touch, a firm handshake, flower petals, the brush of a stranger,and the wind. Oh the wind. Perhaps it was Paulo Coelho's Alchemist that made me love the wind so much, but since I read On Angel Mountain by Brian John, I can't get the word "zephyr" out of my life.

I'm thankful for all those comments that have been appearing on my blog, even if some are anonymous. I won't go out of my way to find out who it is though. Some things like tests and problems with friends and Alessa, our debate trainer being mad at us. I have it easy compared to a lot of other girls, and compared to a lot of other people in the world. Sometimes though, I wish that I could understand the acceptance some people so gracefully allow in their lives.

I was thinking though, how much would I be willing to sacrifice for Christ. Alright, the time I'm using now or those precious Sunday mornings could be better used for something, but they are very rewarding. I feel energized by them. If someone chooses religion as the topic for discussion on the bus (Gwen), I like renewing my faith in the midst of Christians from other groups of Christians. Its confusing with the Catholics and the Protestants and the Anglicans and the Presbyterians and us Methodists, but I think I simplify things to a simple, "We're all Children of God". I'm kind of fearful that I take church as just a recharging point, I want my relationship with god to be much more intense and stronger than me getting a wake-up call which subsides by Monday morning. The quiet time has been helping.

I guess I've been dalliant with my time, but I think sometimes that I had rushed through childhood. One of my more vivid memories was when I was in kindergarten and we were all at the playground somewhere in Jurong. It was those old brown tile skeletal slide plus bridge type playgrounds located on a huge sand pit. Then a stranger, which was wearing black and honestly, now that I look back, looks like Michael Jackson. I was about four then? He was giving out those fruit flavoured heart candies after walking out of a taxi. The rest of the kids except me and a boy, with stubble hair on his head, went over jumping and skipping, clamouring for one. Both of us remembered the teacher's rules before they left for a while: Do not go near strangers. We faced each other and repeatedly shouted "STRANGER!" over and over and over. The teachers, two of them, one was a caucasion lady with cropped copper-gold hair, came forward and we rushed down the slide to expalin what happened.

Later, back in a class on the the second floor with blue carpeting, the students had to throw away the sweets into the waste-paper basket, saying "I will not accept sweets from strangers again". This is my most vivid memory of my childhood to date. That same boy had to go through the ritual even though he hadn't taken the sweets. I loved those candies and felt a little pang, but I was wondering and thinking up all sorts of poison that a person could put into a sealed sweet. And I remember that I wasn't called up to do it.

My parents say that I was always rather well-behaved and that friends would come and wonder how there could be so many breakable items on the shelves with such a little girl tottering around. In my grandparents' place last time, there was a whole shelving kept under lock full of small, exquisite bottles of purfume. I asked my dad why they were locked up. At my other grandparents' place, I would play dolls and the most long-term plot I had was the circus, where a guy would admire the girl balancing on the tightrope which was nothing but air.

The memories are coming back faster now. Miss Cecilia Lim, my primary school principal asking me to talk to her in the office about the school environment when I was Primary 1 or 2. At the church carnival where I bought the exact same doll that I had to throw away some time ago, just so that I could get those deep purple stockings and touch that golden hair that curled in a ponytail. And me wondering whether or not to buy the stuff toy cat they were selling which was from Barang Barang, that furniture shop. me saying my first testimony in front of the adult congregation when I was Primary Four, where I talked about the coma I had when i was four and how I thank God for letting me live. At the end, I said, out of something in the air or my mind or heart, "Praise the Lord", like so many other people said.

Me and Joni at the cabins looking at the stars in a packet we bought for a dollar, convincing ourselves that we could wish on them. And each of us wondering how many wishes we could make. Me puting them in an age old faded mickey mouse wallet of blue and pink with multiple compartments with mickey on one side and minnie on the other. My dad reading Enid Blyton and Pody (forgot the spelling) books to me at night where mom was working late. I loved the book on texture and I could hardly get through the story The Secret Door. It took us some nights. Me reading The pig with green spots when some irritating girl by the name of Nicole proclaimed it hers and me writing and crying on the pages, my name on every page, because my mother had got it for me. Me cutting myself with Joni's swiss knife when I was in Primary two and trying to make tribal markings on lollipop sticks. Mr Morrias, then a physical education teacher, suggesting elephant glue and then the principal calling my parents with me sheepishly saying that I wouldn't need stitches. Me scraping my knee on the road on the way home with my mother. Jan and Elly enrichment with Teacher Martin and receiving fruity gel squeezing things in tubes like those for glue and the Enormous Aligator by Roald Dahl. Me and Shannon eating and talking about art and hobbies at the staircases and little nooks in the school. Me sitting and blanking out after a good meal when Uncle Steven pronounced food as the thing to keep me quiet and my mother denying it this very night.

Eleven-twenty-two. There's a sad sort of chiming in the clock in the room and the bells of the steeple too, and up high in the nursery an absurd little bird, is popping out to say cuck-oo, we really hate to say it, but we really need to say it, to say good night, to you.

Thanks for the memories, God.
Amen

Reply

I really don't know how to get this through people but please, leave a name. If you've taken the trouble to write an extra long comment, which I appreciate really, please leave a name.

Anyways, thanks for the comment. I just don't really think people ought to find or seek support. I mean, I've hit brick wall after brick wall trying that path so why shouldn't take a little less populated route? I mean, sure, no one's a COMPLETE loner in this world, but I think that having the few loyal friends is more important than trying to get the general school body to like you. There simply isn't time to worry about being liked or not. By the time it comes to that, it'll be your literature teacher worrying about giving you a pass or a fail grade.

I communicate and try to get along with people, but sometimes I feel that their attempts are a bit fake. They talk to you, give you presents etc... Like last year when I was one of the new kids, they tried. But other than birthdays they quite let it slide. I know that because I somehow keep getting left out with the same folks for groupwork. You can try but seriously, maneuvering from last table to the middle of the class is no mean feat. You're already in the "we-have-no-space-for-you-category".

Sometimes, especially when year-end-examinations are drawing near, you've got to cast aside all these sort of worries and let the Lord deal with everyone else's gossip. You can never tell who's talking about you and who's loyal in school,for sure at least. I can't help it if someone thinks I'm not doing my part for a group or the team. When someone wants to go over and above the requirements, I say, go ahead. But you can't expect everyone to follow you. With the bare requirements some people aren't helping, much less the extra.

Me

Explanation

How do I say this? I know some people wouldn’t want to be caught dead with me for a day and some people abhor the way I do things. Some friends think that I’m going to be anorexic or some wrist-slashing girl. Or rather, they see me as the number one candidate for the post of sucking up to people.

Well, all I can say is that those speculations are way off.

Do any of you know me? In primary school I was the person who was the most into romance novels and love stories. I had a fling with classical music when I was in my sixth year. I think I was the only person who carried a novel to school then with a really good kissing scene.

I think I’m the way I am, namely, the girl who doesn’t hang out much or talk to her classmates about stars and Korean dramas or anime or does facebook or dances to good music or join the group in the same sentiments for or against someone, because I’m scared. I’ve been to a point where I could see myself abandoning my old self completely and becoming a cool, popular girl who was always looked up to.

Only I don’t want that. I don’t want to lose my love for literature or art or of God. I feared myself walking into a museum one day and finding myself bored. I’m drawn to the pop culture and all, I don’t mind talking when there’s assembly, its just that there’s always this sinking feeling like when I know that someone knows that I’ve read Sabbath’s Theatre by Philip Roth and regretted it.

Most of the adults find me mature and all that. Perhaps it’s just my upbringing. Imagine a single child with parents with her almost constantly. My parents went through the best times of my childhood with me. Those good times weren’t when I played with my friends in kindergarten because they called me a pig. Those good times weren’t during my early primary school days when people on my bus called me an ABC (American-backside-cleaner). I went to them when this happened and I learnt that if you told adults, they could get something fixed, and fixed rather well.

I’ve been to the precipice, where I could have gone on to read every single good teenage romance novel or high school drama. Believe it or not, my mother started me on Jodi Picoult. I could have become someone who could talk about whatever it is people like to talk about when they send notes around the class, but then I didn’t want to lose the other life I lead. If I started to be more like my age, wearing trends and buying magazines or watching weird videos on YouTube, I think I would have lost it.

If I followed that path, I would be playing Maple Story (which I was once addicted to), re-reading parts of stories where the love-chatter was at a high (which I sometimes do), becoming more insensitive to the world, joining a C0-Curricular activity that wasn’t as under populated as debate, and failing. I get drawn into some things very easily and I think I know myself well enough to stay the way I am because I know that I’ll be staying back for remedial because I flunked a test. I had horrible test grades in primary school when my friends broke off from me and I didn’t want that experience again, where people would see me as so utterly desperate for friends and fitting in.

When I was unbothered by the friend-political-cycle, I could write beautiful narratives. I remember two of them most clearly. One was about a raging fire in a high storey office building, of the pictorial sort. I ignored most of it and dived straight into a plot about an aged man who had his office at one of the higher floors. His business was failing and his granddaughter, who hugged a teddy bear, was with him. I can’t remember it all but it was the ashes from the ancestral niche that caught fire, which spurred a fire nothing could stop. The man regretted and tried to save the girl. In the end, there was only a glass bead from the teddy bear reflecting the devastation around it.

The second was about a car accident. A man was drunk and trying to commit suicide on the road. He didn’t feel remorse and simply drove the car into a boy who had just won the top prize for bicycle race. The boy lived, he didn’t. But still, I didn’t want my life to end like those two.

Since I’ve got to the stage where I am, I don’t want to reverse the cycle in order to fit in. People I actually hang out with don’t mind me being that way at all. It’s not like I’m going to be stuck in the netherworld of adolescence forever. I’ve got only this span of years and I can’t add a cubit to it.

But then maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I missed the whole point about growing up.

Liberation

After all's been said and done, I needn't have worried all that much. I'm not a councillor, but I still get the jitters everytime I hear people talking. Anyways, I've got a few loyal friends and that's fine by me.

Fire

If this is the only way I can get the message across, I'll use the last weapon in my arsenal, in terms of "passive" and "condusive" ways.

Right, laying it out.

I cannot take it when people PROMISE me something and not get it done.
I cannot condone sitting at my desktop waiting for an email to come from a friend who was in the same 6 meter radius as me for a good two hours and promised to tell me when she did.
I cannot tolerate it when people are told time and time again by me that I'm willing to help and that I'm just out the door helping the class with something and yet say, "You were there?"
I cannot stand it when people do all the above and I feel like the most miserable wretch and nervouse wreck in the class.

Alright, you've used your arsenal on my emotions and I'm certainly not taught about the various methods of revenge, neither do I have the support of any other person. But for goodness sake, sometimes the onus is on someone isn't it? I'm certainly not going to chase people like that. I am a peer,a student, a friend. Or am I wrong even on that account?

If I was sui generis, I'm sure I won't be what I am now. When I got back home I was fine, ready to face my homework and happy to be with my parents again. But even angels need some recognition and acceptance. I swear that I could possibly function in school without opening my mouth so speak and no one would be able to know the difference.

Okay, snap out of it, you've ranted. It is ten eighteen and you have English and Chinese left to do. And Geography revision for Thursday. I think I'll do devotions though. Can't let the devil take over me. Honestly, it feels like I'm Launcelot Gobbo sometimes. Run, don't run. Devil or Conscience. Self or selfless.

Its like King Lear, and I'm the fool with no money bags to make my friends kind. And I know just the person who is my pretty fool and who are my darrrrliinnnggg daughters.

Oh and I'm sorry, but this post isn't meant to target anyone in particular. Take it as artistic lisence. I'm on a bit of a "self-experimental mode".

Won't be blogging till after the exams if I can help it.

Thanks, Awfully

hey there. thanks so much for the encouragement. I was just depressed these few days but never mind, there's church tomorrow and for the first time since Pierre Brosman for 007, I will be uploading photos of the surprise! Okay, people in my class, hushity hush on this, I'm just so excited about putting the things together.

Oh yeah, and today I used one of the thin cloth with about 5% spandex shirts that my aunt handed down to me. I made it into a bolero cum cape. Just slot your arms through the collar hole then slot them into the sleeves. Use a v-neck long sleeved shirt for this, it looks really nice. But don't expect to wear it as a v-neck ever again because the material will stretch too much.

ha ha. I don't have cash, I low on money, so the only thing left is to stay happy.

signing off today as Knitogether.