Shit.
The more I think about my life, the more uncontrollable I become.
I’m panicking right now.
Could it be the fact that I kept ‘taking in’ emotions of my friends’ during Meranti and not giving out some of mine?
Could it be my prolonged stay in hostel that makes me go ballistic now?
I CANNOT STOP PANICKING RIGHT NOW!
Ironically, my weekends in school doing Meranti were one of the highlights in my NIE life. Meranti came and went, good and bad moments, tears and laughter. I really appreciate all my friends’ sharing of life journeys and perspectives. It has all come to me now that I realized I am one of the most fortunate person in my group. I felt really bad when I had to share because I really don’t view life as difficult despite having gone through several tough periods. When I illustrated my life journey, all I remembered at that moment, was about happiness. Despite having drawn 3 tombstones, I guess I had learnt to move on with life. It’s not that I don’t dwell on my past, I do sometimes, but the majority of my time is concentrated on building a future with happiness. To be honest, I really felt extremely heart-wenched when my friends shared their life journeys. I controlled my tears, not letting my gates of defense to be opened up, and carried on being the encourager of the group. I really do empathize with the hardship that my friends had gone through. Though I may not be the ultimate person to help them, I hope some of them can continue fighting for their happiness with a positive outlook.
Getting on to the main point – Monday Blues. Yes, I have just suffered from bouts of Monday Blues. Just ended my Literature Approaches lesson – and the takeaways were immeasurable. Firstly, I realized I didn’t learn much from my secondary/jc literature education years. Then the horrifying realization came after that – I could be teaching the wrong stuff to my students if I had not known the slightest difference between a symbol and a metaphor. I felt bad both on my part and the future educational materials that I could be teaching to my students. This lit lesson just made me feel even more jaded than ever, even less confident than before. I don’t know how I can reconcile my inner struggle with these difficulties. Luckily, Dennis did go through the differences, but somehow I don’t really agree with the standard differentiation. I think I need some assurance 
By far, this is one of my most demoralizing lessons in NIE.
When I was reading through my old entries, I noticed a huge part of them tended to be more emotional than critical. So I guess I’m really a FEELER instead of a thinker. I tried reasoning between the 2 categories – I am both, just tend to ‘think’ according to my feelings or personal convictions. This is my major problem – the inability to draw a clear line between feelings and facts. It’s not that I always have a moral dilemma, but I tend to be sympathetic and most of the time, able to empathize with others. I hate awkward silences, but I will try my best to make my companions feel at ease by finding a common topic. But it’s not like I have so much knowledge at my fingertips that I can just rattle off with confidence. I guess I ‘found’ me today? Though Dennis’ lesson wasn’t an expert-based one, I sorta understood where he was coming from. So I guess it’s more of identifying a ‘clearer’ me.
On a side note, I wish I could do poetry better. Secretly, I’ve always admired peers who can do and love poetry. I so much wanted to do these too, but I’m too tied to my history of writing poetry back in JC. I no longer have any confidence to write a decent poem. Recently, I did a cinquain for class activity. I pitied the person who had to do a peer critique/practical criticism of my 5-line cinquain. It looked so simple, but I felt so much while writing just those 5 lines. While my poem was crappy, I received a good poem from another classmate on the theme Violence. I really like the way she uses symbols to talk about violence. I NEED SOMEONE TO HELP ME WITH POETRY!
Well, I need a therapeutic trip to the bookstore after all the immediate deadlines come to an end.
Having fun in QCE520 class with QR scan now!
Life’s been stressful these few months, buried under the increasingly piles of assignments and deadlines. My social circle has been dwindling too. Talk about social life – this weekends will be spent staying in school for some counseling-like sessions from 8.30-5.30pm. ON WEEKENDS!
I love my smurfs!
My holidays are coming to an end soon, very soon. I don’t know what I’ve been doing. I haven’t been doing anything that most of my peers are doing right now. I haven’t travelled for any graduation trip except 1 Batam trip with my hall clique. I feel as if I haven’t graduated even though I have REALLY graduated! My holidays are really very normal. I wake up late every morning at 11am, spend an hour preparing to lunch with my parents, lunch at Tampines Central (Tampines Mall, Century Square and Tampines 1), afternoon tea with my mom, visit my grandparents at Hougang, home and meet-the-people sessions on Mondays.
As shown, I seldom go out even though I’m very free. There’s no one else (except my mother) to go out with me. I have gradually lost my interest of exploring Singapore because I’ve developed an inhabitation; not willing to venture out far. Honestly speaking, I’m very upset with myself for losing this streak of adventurous side of me. I get more upset as the days pass, and this emotion has becoming worse when I know holidays are coming to an end. I’m left with less than a week to ‘enjoy’ whatever that I can seek. The only time I interact with people has become only during the MPS. I feel much more alive whenever I speak to people, I feel helpful when I’m able to extend my help to the needy people, and I feel so fortunate when these people really get help from the respective government agencies.
Despite living in such a fortunate scenario, I still cannot help feeling disappointed with certain things. I am not spoiled or pampered, but I really feel disappointed. It seems like my feelings are not understood. And I’m expected to be understanding whatever circumstances I am given. If I’m not understanding, I’m unreasonable? So how can I express my feelings in clarity and at the same time, not deemed as unreasonable? I feel trapped, totally trapped in circumstances. Facebook has become a tool for mental torture. Every time I log in to Facebook, I’m greeted with happy pictures of graduation trips, happy outings with friends and whatever happy things that happened. I feel like I’m lost in time. Yes I know I know I know, I cannot go anywhere because of circumstances and I’m expected to be understanding because of ”why this and why that”. Even going out together has become so rare. And yes, I must be understanding as to why we cannot go out. A big SIGH for you.
Now that my holidays are coming to an end, I don’t know how in future can I make up for this loss of time?
I woke up so early at 7am, and started writing at 7.30am today. Fell asleep here and there, tried on my clothes, bathed and ate breakfast with coffee – TADAHH I’m now in my last HL333 seminar. 9.30am lessons are troublesome. Not really awake, but my brain is forcing me to be awake.
I will meet my FYP prof later at 1pm. I pray and hope for the best that he 1) doesn’t think I’m a moron. 2) doesn’t scold me upside down left-right. 3) gives me some encouragement. And lastly, 4) praises me for some effort I’ve put in.
You know, the probable situations I will face later, would be 1) and 2). I’m scared to death now. My word count is only 4k? The minimum word count is 9k. PRAY FOR ME!
And the deadline is 29th April, 2011. (not 2012)
Notice the red dot on my nose? I don’t know what the hell is that. ):
I <3 this new layout. It’s just NICE.
Anyway, my fyp prof just dropped a bomb on me. I cannot dedicate paragraphs to autobiographies of authors! There’s goes my word count, it’s steadily decreasing (so is my mood). I’ve been stuck in hall the entire day (doing work & napping) the moment I officially woke up at 9.20am. FYP submission is due faster than you can process the words in your mind. I’m officially dead meeting this most important deadline in my entire life in NTU.
NTU FML TTM. (some youth angst here)
I’m so determined to finish writing this piece of philosophical writing on various writers like F.R. Leavis, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams and Paul Willis. I know it sounds a bit cheem just by looking at the names. I’m READING their critiques, which makes it 1000000000000 times worse. Culture is always understood like what we would like to think – Singaporean food, language, fashion, mannerism and etc. However, these writers give a depth of culture, so deep that I begin to look at culture in a totally different way. That’s why I always feel that people should read more – newspapers, books, magazines, articles (commercial and scholarly), and etc. to gain greater insights to issues, so that one would not be stuck with the superficial level of reading of certain issues. As a university student, it’s best not to make a fool out of yourself on social mediums (aka superficial comments) if you haven’t read enough. Hope it doesn’t come across as elitist here. But I do hope for people to read widely. You don’t have to read purely literature books or fiction books. You can always surf the great world wide web to gain more insights. BUT, you have to be critical of what you read.
Always question, don’t read blindly. 
