Like a fish bone stuck on your throat.
I just had the last Physics lesson yesterday. The last English, Math and French lessons today.
Mrs. Hammond is transferring to Malaysia, and M. Heusdens is going back to Europe.
The last Economics and Chemistry lessons tomorrow.
It’s hard to swallow the fact that everyone is slowing leaving, fading away. That everything is slowly coming to an end.
Two years.
Two years of thinking, two years of stressing, two years of understanding, two years of forgetting.
Two years of blood, two years of sweat, two years of tears.
Two years in ten minutes. Two years in five pages. Six pages. Seven pages. Many pages.
Two years in four thousand words.
Two years of calculator pressing, two years of graph plotting, two years of experimenting.
Two years, running through the edges of my pen. Two years, fading like the writings on my notebook.
Two years of walking, two years of running, two years of rushing.
Two years, all coming down to sixteen separate sittings.
Two years, like a bubble, disappearing at the gentlest touch of my fingertips…
*
Today, my ToK presentation marked my emancipation from all IB coursework. Now that all of the many small hurdles have been overcome, the time has come for me to sit back, reflect, come up with a plan, and prepare for the biggest and most unnecessary obstacle in nineteen years.
I CAN DO THIS.
It doesn’t hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later. ~Lucimar Santos de Lima
*
*
The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight.
~Samual McChord Crothers
********
On the same day as last year, we went to the same place, to attend the same occasion.
But there was something different this time around.
OMFG I HAD THE BEST LECHON EVER. EVERRRRRRR. FUCK ALL THE BAD CHOLESTEROL, WHO CARES, I WAS EATING THE GOD OF ALL FATTY FOODS – AND IF I DIE DUE TO SOME BLOCKED ARTERY, I’LL DIE A HAPPY MAN, GASTRONOMICALLY IN HEAVEN.
********
And I finished reading A Streetcar Named Desire today! Amazing play. I love all the sybolisms used in the play; they mainly touch on the ubiquitous theme of appearance versus reality. I love how the stark contrast between two different American cultures were immortalized in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. I love how the book relates to the two other plays we’ve already learned for the closed-book written English IB exam, Antigone and A Doll’s House. AMAZING! 
I should be making notes about Streetcar soon and start comparing it and drawing parallels with the other aforementioned plays. I’m already beginning to draw in my mind awesome connections among the male characters Creon (Antigone), Torvald (Doll’s) and Stanley (Streetcar), and female characters Antigone, Nora, and Blanche. The only thing I have to do now is to write them down on paper to make them tangible evidences of my ‘productive’ holiday (and to reduce the load of my incapacitated brain because memory space is kind of scarce these days).
Hahaha who knew that a person like me, known last year for having no interest at Literature at all, would actually begin to embrace and appreciate the subject? Mrs. Hammond will surely smile from ear to ear if she discovers this new-found interest of mine.
Voulez-vous parler?
It’s 11:10 in the evening and I have already written thirteen pages of French notes. I’ve been contemplating on whether or not I should just print my notes since they’re already nicely presented here.
Seriously. This website is one hundred times more effective than going for French lessons in school. I don’t know why, but suddenly the French frenzy I had during the first half of last year has been gradually coming back. Hopefully, I will be able to fully regain my interest in studying French not because I want to re-like the subject, but because I don’t want it to be a nuisance in my IB studies.
You see, I’ve been showing commendable performances for the rest of my subjects – except for French. That’s why it’s painful to see my stagnating progress report here at home, which states that
Rowland has impressed his teachers with the quality of his work, his application and his attitude. He has obviously laid a very solid foundation for his final assessment and his teachers believe that he will perform well, with the notable exception of French. It would be a shame if Rowland’s final grades were marred by one poor performance and given Rowland’s ability and attitude…… BLAH BLAH BLAH AHHH FUCK SHIT
One degree of separation.
I have been contemplating on the idea of… accepting my close friend’s mum’s facebook invitation.
My initial reaction: o.O
Haha. She’s like a family friend, so yeah, I wouldn’t want her to be gossiping about my facebook activities to my parents.
Maybe I shouldn’t accept the invitation. I’ve already ignored hundreds of facebook invitations anyway. Yes, I’m EVIL.
****
Anyway, it’s funny how small the world is.
Today was the Assisi Hospice Charity Fun Day, and guess what. I just met a gazillion faces who all looked familiar in one way or another, like I’ve seen them before, I just couldn’t remember where or when or how or on what occasion – they all just looked so damn familiar.
And it’s funny how you can’t seem to find those people whom you know more than your chemistry textbook and those people whom you would want to know more about, since you find them more interesting than gossiping about students and writing ToK essays and doing Physics homework.
*******
Sometimes you do get the most unexpected and random questions at the most unusual times of the day.
Ricky asked me, “So where do you intend to go after this?”
“House?” I replied.
He was referring to my impending post-IB life.
I started blabbering about me not minding spending another 4-8 years in Singapore studying in a university… but not interested in settling down in this little island… talking about applying for a PR status (but of course I would never do so)… etc. etc.
But I still don’t know where I’m actually going.
Maybe I’ll end up studying in DLSU.
Who knows.
Or maybe I’ll end up staying here because of …
NEVER MIND (:
*******
Happy Labor Day.
Wednesday is Acer Crystal Eye Webcamwhoring day.
tutor group:
ASc is the best!!!
english standard level.
No photo. But Ernest was playing with his condom the whole time.
economics higher level.
No photo. Had a short test on BoP.
higher level chemistry:
We are free radicals. So free it makes us so radical.
french ab initio
You can consider this as a higher level subject too. In fact, it’s a [HIGHER]^2 subject.
How ironic that the background is all in spanish.
Three things.
Nalaka is so cool. He is now my IB Guru.
To be an IB Guru, you really need to have a good sense of what IB does to you.
I think my Guru has turned into an insane being, but he still does make a lot of sense after all.
According to my Guru, there are three key things in your life:
SLEEP, SOCIAL LIFE, and GRADES.
But in IB, you can only have two out of three things.
To put it more simply,
if IB were to be a container, it means that it can only hold two out of three things inside.
You can choose to have:
a. good sleep and good grades but NO social life
b. good social life and good grades but NO sleep
(most people choose to do this. don’t you think so? LOL.)
c. good sleep and good social life but NO grades
hahaha
*********
more Guru insights soon. (:
Windows Live Writer is awesome.
Damn. I’m actually typing this post using
Windows Live Writer.
I can actually see how it’s gonna look like on my blog while typing this awesome post!
SEE WHAT I MEAN??
This is so fahkeng AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!!!!!!! oooooooooohhh!!!
MWHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
********
This school term is finally coming to an end – whew – after 20 weeks or so of non-stop IB madness. By right, everyone in Grade 12 should have died already, but since we’re so cool people we’re still alive. Nevertheless, we somehow have acquired unique – whatchamacallit? – zombie-like attributes now, given the fact that we have not slept much for 20 consecutive weeks. Well, I absolutely have no idea why the school decided to merge two terms together. It was like twenty weeks of non-stop schooling. The grade 12s have been running to and fro almost everyday, like some insanely busy workaholic apparitions carrying stacks of research papers and internal assessments, chasing teachers who appear to be sadistically enjoying seeing them with gargantuan charcoal-coloured panda eyes, half-asleep, half-awake, no one really knows, desperately trying to catch up with a million deadlines. It was basically capital punishment at its most beguiling and dissimulating level, masked under what is conceivably the most humane form of torture possible, school. IB!
Although I love the IB (and the school! )
sense the masochistic aura oozing MWAHAHAHAHAHA
somehow, the long school term has made me sick and tired of doing work. It was simply too draggy. Tsk.
Now, everyone feels like
“NAH DUN WANT TO DO ANY MORE WORK LAH TOO TIRED ALREADY”
“SCREW IT LAH”
“CAN DO TOMORROW, I GOT FREE PERIOD”
“HEY CAN I BORROW YOUR HOMEWORK?!”
“I DON’T WANT TO GO FOR FRENCH…”
“WTH, I NEED 2 SKIP LUNCH, GTG DO MY HW. BRB. TTYL!”
“I’M SORRY… UMMM… MRS HAMMOND CAN I SUBMIT MY ENGLISH HOMEWORK AFTER SCHOOL?”
And because of that the quality of my IB work is starting to plummet in a similar fashion to an old man who’s beginning to lose his libido as he gets older. SAD! ):
On a happy note,
GAWAD KALINGA IN SEVEN MORE DAYS!
see you Bacolod!
Lapit na lang gid… magkinitaay na gid kita! Kung pwede lang ko maglakat subong, subong na gid ko naglakat!
ROFLMAO!
My life is like your dilapidated rubrik’s cube.
You know, when you buy that stupid cube, it’s already arranged for you.
And then you go screw it up, twist and turn the cube along that inner central pivot, feeling hysterically happy at the same time, as if you naturally find a sense of joy and satisfaction in screwing things up, until everything is in chaotic order.
And then you pause. You try to make sense of what you’ve just done and attempt to bring it back to its original orderly manner.
And most of the time, you can’t, since you’re neither god nor Quang. And then you get frustrated; you get tantrums, you throw the cube on the floor and they all scatter into baby cubes each one-sixteenth the size of the mother cube.
*
I’m just sick and tired and fed up of trying to restrain my human existence by doing what everyone else is doing – going to school, doing homework, submitting projects, worrying over grades, stressing oneself with asthmatic friendships that are in desperate need of friendship-restoration-nebulizers, horrendous canteen and hostel food gaaaaaaaaaaaah.
FML.
I’m sick of learning things which are beyond my field of interest.
I’m sick of writing essays, answering tests, researching in the library, and having nightmares of failing my IB Diploma.
I want to escape from here and never return anymore.
However, if I could, I wouldn’t know where to go anyway.
I was thinking of going for Gawad Kalinga and then escaping somewhere else after building a house or two, never to return ever again.
Iron nails, ferroxyl indicator, sulphuric acid, colorimeter, data logger, pipettes, the spherical rubber that sucks and blows pipettes, test-tubes, and three hours worth of patience
There’s one thing about Chemistry and I. We don’t have any chemistry at all.
*****
OH yeah!! I almost forgot. I specially bothered to update this post just to say that
first draft Extended Essays
have been submitted!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEE!
I submitted 25 pages of economic crap to my supervisor yesterday
MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
ANYWAY!
More things to do and to prepare for:
CHEMISTRY IA write-up
(due on Monday!! >.<)
ECONOMICS IA commentary
AND THE DREADFUL
ENGLISH IOC.
welcome to IB, Rowland! 
A letter of request.
before anything else, I would like to say a few words.
I think I have been too mean to myself and to the person I like (although you don’t know it’s you I’m talking about) or shall I say, liked, and so I would like to apologize to the two of us – if you FEEL your heart throbbing, and you BELIEVE it’s really you, I’m really sorry. If you THINK that you feel your heart is throbbing and believe it’s really you, then you are thinking wrongly, but I’m still sorry anyway for giving you the wrong impression. And I’m apologizing to myself because I’ve basically made my life miserable even though there wasn’t a need to do so. So yeah..
I shall be careful next time. Such emotional rages are sometimes uncontrollable. Once you let them off, and then you go back to your normal self, you tend to think how insensitive you have become to yourself and to the people around you.
My sincerest apologies.
************
NOW FOR MY POST!
************
14344 Diversion Road, Philippines 9500Dear Hardworking Rowland,
The IB workload has ballooned exponentially at the end of the school year, but it is no surprise that almost everyone is still not serious about doing any work. Obviously (too bad if it may not be that obvious to you), that horrifying assumption is under the impression that Rowland’s batch mates continue to give me. Of course, there are people whom I can taxonomize as closet muggers who, in their dynamic exo-skeletal personality pretend to be just as lazy and procrastinatious as me, but hidden beneath their deceptive shells, they have already finished 90% of their EE shit. Or maybe they have completed all their holiday homework.
I have written this letter in the hopes that you would decide to return as soon as possible. There are rumors flying around the town like sex videos, nude pictures, flu viruses and lame jokes, all saying that you may not return anymore, due to some personal reasons that you have failed to properly explain. It may had been a tremendous ordeal, that month of November – I have seen how much you had suffered and toiled, albeit the fact that at the end of the day you unwaveringly admitted to yourself how satisfying it was for you to be able to comply with all the tasks that you had committed yourself to. Sometimes I think that you’re so full of yourself, but worry not, for I have already learned to overlook your distasteful flaw.
Nevertheless, such an achievement has meant something for you, that I am pretty sure of. If you have successfully traversed through the once deemed insurmountable ordeal last month, then the following litany of school work should not be seen as a hindrance to your life. I wouldn’t deny the fact that the next year will be the most challenging yet, but do you realize? Every succeeding year has always been your most challenging year. Some things in life – most of them unimportant and trivial matters such as physics and literature – just get more and more difficult year after year.
Therefore, I am confident, that you will be able to surpass the forthcoming challenges in life next year – after all, you’re not alone. You have your family, friends, and teachers to help you through. I may be of no use to you, that is a fact that will forever remain unchanged, but remember that I am always lying down somewhere thinking of you while sipping a glass of apple juice with Aloe Vera bits, and hoping for your success in life.
Ever present is the veracity of life; but ever constantly changing it is, too. How ironic, constant change. The truths we may hold for now may change as we walk along the pathway of our lives – you may think that through consistency of work and determination one can lead to the fulfillment of his or her own dreams and aspirations – and I may believe that we simply have to be happy-go-lucky, to wait for things to happen, because the future has already been predetermined at the first place, encrypted deep inside the curvatures of the lines on the palms of our hands. Do you believe in palmistry?
Anyway, our friend, Rowland, who happens to have unknowingly committed himself to a detrimental curriculum, needs more of your help than mine – for now. So please, pack your things and get your ass back here. So that I may laze around somewhere more ambient and exciting. Perhaps I should take a trip Down Under? It would be a delight if you and Rowland could come along. But he has work to do. And you have to help him. Shit.
Anyway, thank you.
Yours truly,
Lazy Rowland
Maybe they have already known each other a long, long time ago.
I saw this photo somewhere, and the first ever thing that came to my mind was:
From right: Niko, Celine, Eskor, Nalaka, Padia, and Suraj, ten years ago.
Damn. Ok I know Celine’s a girl but she’s the only one in school with that hair colour. 
*****
I wonder what they will look like ten years from now. It’ll be really interesting to find out.
Good night everyone.
the workaholic’s nightmare.
I finally got all my end-of-year results back.
trente-huit. More than I expected so I am really thankful to God for allowing my efforts to pay off.
Now that my mental acquisitiveness has been satisfied as soon as the last subject grade was given out, I am trying to divert my short-lived attention span to the looming suicidal month ahead of me. I have been anticipating for a month like this to come, because like DUH, I’m in IB, but yeah. But I didn’t anticipate that it would be NOVEMBER this year. Actually, I have been anticipating this kind of moment in my life wherein I would have to choose between (a) committing suicide and going straight to hell, and (b) committing myself to one more year of hell in the IB and then (hopefully) finishing the course with flying colours. After much contemplation, consultation and divine intervention, and a bit of cost-benefit analysis, I have decided to stick with the latter plan.
I love doing work, but with this sudden exponential increase in workload, I feel like my sanity is going down the drain. I feel like bumping my head on a durian shell and going on a naked rampage on the streets. Watch me.
IB work + school stuff = November.
OK BREAK IT DOWN!
NOVEMBER IS THE MONTH THAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.
Next month’s menu!
1. CAS Reflections, Meeting with your respective CAS supervisor by 7 November 2008
2. Theory of Knowledge Essay about the future of History as a Science
3. Submission and consultation of the second Economics commentary (for IB assessment)
4. DEADLINE OF THE EXTENDED ESSAY OUTLINE ON NOVEMBER THREE! and I bet 90% of my batchmates don’t even know this!
5. Memorize lines and songs for Act 1 Scenes 9 and 11, and Act 2 Scenes 1, 5 and 6 for the Sound of Music school musical
6. more DREADED and DREADFUL REHEARSALS for the month
7. Grade 11 Camp, 21-23 November (WTF #$%$#^%^!!)
7. SOUND OF MUSIC, 24-25 November
8. Music concert on 26 November? (to be confirmed)
9. French Student Idol, 29 November (oui bébé, nous allons chanter des chansons françaises!!!)
see I can’t even count properly!
GIMME MORE, GIMME GIMME MORE!
This coming month is so fucked up.
Three years. and counting.
I have long surrendered myself to the fact that my memory sucks big time; that the only things I can remember in life are those things that I find absolutely necessary for school examinations; and that memories that are worth to be cherished could simply just disappear like a piss on the roadside – it evaporates like water into the atmosphere, but leaves a mark and a smell just strong enough for me to trace out its mere presence.
It didn’t even occur to me that today actually marks my third year of existence in Singapore until my friend sent me a message. As far as I could remember, I was crusing 30000 feet above the earth inside Singapore Airlines with four other Filipino students I have never met before, and then after three hours I found myself stepping into a new country. The day before that, I could remember my mother wailing and crying outside the airport as if she was going to lose me forever. It was also the first time EVER that I saw my dad shed some tears. My brothers were still young at that time, so probably they did not really have a bit of inkling how that separation meant for mum, dad, and I.
It was hard to adapt. I was so young, and I was already living on my own. I gained freedom and power over myself, but I lost the comfort of home and the company of my loved ones. It was a lopsided trade-off that I had to bear. I had to wash and iron my own clothes. I had to wake up to the tintinnabulating cries of my alarm clock. I had to eat boarding school food. I had to do my own grocery. I had to travel on my own. It felt as if the whole world turned upside down.
My secondary three and four years were a cornucopia of horrible, wonderful, and memorable events. It was such a perfect blend of emotions and experiences and a homogenized mixture of happiness and sadness that I can’t really say if there were moments were I felt only one of the two at a specific day. I went to an exciting school filled with students filled with so much enthusiasm, team spirit, joy and happines. Yet I never actually remembered myself in that institution feeling the same way as my classmates and schoolmates. The school has this culture that has the power to make those who want to be cherished feel truly cherished, but I was wondering why I did not feel that way at all. It was a good two years, just that it wasn’t exactly as memorable as I hoped it would be. But like what I said, those two years were a perfect blend of emotions and experiences. I stayed at a ramshackle boarding school that in itself, is a useless, lifeless concrete structure standing atop of a small hill, a building that exudes an aura of despondency and disconsolation to anyone who observes its lonely majesty over the horizon. Nevertheless, it was a place that was filled with the most exciting and interesting people I have met in my life. From a distance, it was an amazing sight to see these people gathered together, interacting with each other, eating together at the dining table, sharing unified and opposite views. From a distance, in the eyes of a local student, most of them were simply geeks and nerds, people who didn’t have a life aside from studying from dusk till dawn. As a living testimony, living with them has proven this conception to be a misconception. Each of them was such an interesting human being in his or her own way that made the boarding school such a colourful place to live in. Some of them were indeed geeks and nerds, but they weren’t just simply geeks and nerds. They were unique and interesting. I don’t know. I just felt very exuberant and jolly and satisfied at the company of my hostel mates. And that has made my two years worth remembering.
And now, I’m on my third year, and life in Singapore has gotten better. I guess my mum was always right. It takes time for anything to settle down. Well, I knew it would take time to settle down, but I never expected that it would take me only until now to keep myself calm amidst the unrelenting storms in life. Life in my new school is so much better. I have finally felt a sense of belongingness and pride within my new school. There are so much more privileges in my new scholarship that sometimes taking a time off from my studies to do less sensible stuff makes me feel awkward and guilty. School has been so much stressful and fun at the same time. Boarding school life has lost a little bit of euphoria since i’m now living in a condominium and I have less companions in the house. Well, I believe everything has to be balanced out. And God does it really fairly.
I’ve been wondering if these three years were worth it. It always comes into my mind the fact that if I didn’t leave the Philippines at all, I would have been in my second year in university by now, and in no time would be graduating and getting a decent job and earning a decent pay to repay my mum and dad who have almost immolated themselves just to raise up my brothers and I.
I hope these years have beeen worth the time and money sacrificed. Because I’m not like many young people in this country who are so much blessed in life that they need not to worry much about what lies ahead in the future. Though I am one of those I would considered privileged to savour much more of any successes they achieve in life, because for them, reaping the fruits of success would mean the whole world for the people whom they love.
Happy three years, Rowland.
********
I can’t possibly post every single picture I have, but, oh well, here goes some of them.
Oh yeah, and this may be of interest to you:
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. ~Mary Jean Iron
Waiting for my dinner to arrive.
I swear, I’m really, really excited now.
Ok this may sound really nerdy and horrifying to normal human beings who might be reading this, but i’m like an electron excited by this weird wavelength of joy and euphoria and hope – and perhaps a little bit of delusion and disillusionment – but, yeah. As uncertain of its own position and existence, and as repulsive towards its own species, I feel like I’m this electron being excited from some awkward transition between two Day-orbitals (pun intended) which split into two different Day-levels by some wavelength which I have already described in the first few lines of this note. It seems like today and tomorrow were originally intertwined as one, but somehow it was split by a phenomena no one knows or will ever know, and now I’m in this electronic transition from here to there, from mugging to sitting for exams, from Today to Tomorrow. It is a good feeling, knowing that this litany of exams is finally coming to an end. I’m sure that not everyone feels the same way but who cares.
I have gotten the hang of circling around this gargantuan nucleus I call IB for almost a year now. But to be excited a bit further from it is quite cool. Anyway, I don’t know if electrons do feel happy about jumping around from one energy level to another, but from this presumed analogy, I think they do.
Anyway, dinner’s here and I’m going to stop blabbering now.
And it’s maths paper 2 tomorrow. Not chemistry. Yeeehaaa
*********
Anyway, here are some random pictures taken at some random morning
Aftershocks.
Hi. I’ve been getting bored updating this blog – perhaps oversimplified wordpress templates can’t really wholly please dirty, perverted, muddled and imaginative human minds for so long. Anyway, these past few weeks have been relatively more stressful than any other week I’ve had so far this year. Firstly, I had to extract the essence of 500 pages of my maths textbook and drink it like chicken essence – you know, when you position your index finger and thumb in the shape of a clothespin, and squeeze the nostrils tight to prevent the olfactory nerves from working along with your taste buds as you swallow liquified cock (male chicken), or hen (female chicken), - in ten days, in order to do my IB Maths Internal Assessment. Okay, I know typical human beings should not be doing these kinds of things, but I guess being atypical is typical within the IB world. And then secondly, EXAMS. End-of-year exams. The good thing about these examinations, is that they’re not a dreadful as the JCs’ promotional exams (since the shit inside you won’t be scared out of you by the prospect of being retained in JC1) or as hyperventilating and exhilarating as the counterpart IB school’s – you know which school I’m talking about.
Anyway, to summarize my oh-so-enjoyable week:
Sunday – Tuesday: STUDY STUDY STUDY!
Wednesday: English SL paper 1. Wrote two pages of literary crap. I think I did quite well. Essay wasn’t so much well-organized, though.
Thursday: Mathematics HL paper 1. Disaster. A cataclysm of undecipherable questions. As expected.
Friday: Chemistry HL paper in the morning. Chemistry rocks. Economics HL paper in the afternoon. Comme ci comme ça.
More exam papers next week.
Anyway,
there comes a point in time when everything you have written inside an exam hall seems convincingly worthy of getting the allocated marks. And then, at the moment you grab that precious time to meditate about the swift chain of events, where a year’s worth of learning had been mercilessly compressed into a 2-hour 20-page examination paper, you begin to think, “Oh. Damn. Oh well.”
Generally, I think I did way better for Chemistry and Economics than for Mathematics, which is like, umm, expected, since Mathematics was written in Greek. or Latin. Maybe French?? I wasn’t really sure. There is something about this subject which frustrates me so much. No matter how much similar the math questions you practice are with the exam questions themselves, when the paper is set in such a way that the questions are twisted in a slightly different way, your brain refuses to twist along the same degree of insanity. And to think that I practised maths every single day for the past two or three weeks…
Well, perhaps the best possible explanation was that I sat on the tenth chair of the second column from the left. Whatever that signified.
Voulez-vous manger?
I don’t really miss SJI independent, but I do miss the canteen there.
Because, number one, the food generally tastes nice. Number two, there is a wider variety of food available. Number three, the canteen is HUGE and there is plenty of space to eat while lying down, or while you’re doing a pile of homework, or while you messing and gaying around with your classmates, provided that no H.O.L.s are around. And most importantly, for scholars like me, number four, the food is cheaper.
The canteen in my new school kinda sucks, not because the food is bad – it’s just mediocre, but it’s not bad – i like some of the food stuff actually – but because the space is too small. I feel like a hungry chicken stuck in the middle of all other chickens in a chicken coop. Back in any other school canteen I had been, I never experienced the need to ask people to move their asses for me to maneuver my own ass in a labyrinth of tangerine and lemon-colored chairs and rectangular tables in order to find a decent place to sit down and do my lunch ritual. Three hungry schools (the baby IB, the very Singaporean secondary, and the all-expatriate elementary) are jam-packed inside one campus, fighting for seats and tables every recess and lunch time.
And because the food is expensive.
But like any other sjii student, i still <3 my school.
It’s a beautiful day.
It’s a beautiful day, and another term has begun on this very beautiful day. o.o
Do you know that feeling, that feeling when you can’t seem to give a shit about waking up and taking a bath and eating your petit-dejeuner? I doubt anyone does anyway. But do you know that feeling? That you just can’t stand the fact that you’re waking up early in the morning to go to school. Why do you even need to go to school anyway.
But once you reach school… do you ever get that feeling, that feeling when you see everyone’s smiling at the sight of everybody else; at the uniformity we achieve by wearing the same, horrible uniform, knowing that no one is alone in that very awkward and unglamorous fashion crisis.
I am sad and happy at the same time. Sad that challenge week has come to an end, sad that I haven’t gotten the chance to unwind, relax, and enjoy the beaches of Phuket, but happy to be back in the company of the people that I have left for a week.
“And yes, Jose, you look glamorous – like, totally” is what’s running on Jessica’s mind. d:
Headband courtesy of Danusha.
Physics test tomorrow on simple harmonic motion. DIE.
United Nations.
1 x Filipino
1 x Indonesian
2 x Singaporeans
1 x Malaysian
1 x Norwegian
1 x Nigerian
Finally.
17 August to 23 August 2008. This week was simply crazy.
I am so glad it’s over.
Anyway, this is so cool.
Choices.
One famous person said that there is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life’s point of no return.
I don’t believe him.
***
A few months ago, the foreign students in school, including me, attended a pot luck in school with our foster parents here in Singapore, and I happened to stumble upon one Indian mother who said this: “I don’t think time management was a big deal back for me then. What I found difficult about the IB was that I had to do subjects which I didn’t really like.”
Well, good for her, I thought. I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with such a problem, a nuisance, a conundrum. I thought, at that very moment, that I would be satisfied, happy, delighted. I thought that I would be happy with my textbooks, my notes, my timetable . I thought I would only needed to fight time, to keep up with time, to chase time. I thought, at that very moment, that the choices I made were right, manageable, appropriate. But now it seems that I, like the flowing river, have no choice but to flow downstream. I, like the fighting salmon, have no choice but to fight the undercurrents. I, like the carried away pebbles, have no choice but to be carried away by the gushing water.
Superheroes. They are the cliché-st of all clichés. They always have choices. They always do. They always will. Comic writers always give them a choice: to be or not to be? They always go around emo-ing, contemplating, self-reflecting, upon their roles in the society, in the world, in their inner selves: should I save them? Should I use my powers for the good? Or should I stay around doing nothing?
I may not be spider-man who’s gone emo, but actually, I did have a choice. I once had the opportunity to flow upstream, to embrace the undercurrents, to resist the gushing water. But I chose not to. Because I was afraid. Ironically, not choosing the things I wanted to choose was itself a choice that I consciously made.
And now, there’s no turning back. As one famous person said, “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
PHUK ET.
Phuket.
We were discussing about joey’s rantings over challenge week.
rowland. BUSY ;] says:
ah. now, je comprends.
.rowland. BUSY ;] says:
it is ok, my deer.
[Lin³] joey says:
DER
.rowland. BUSY ;] says:
oh sorry
[Lin³] joey says:
DEER
.rowland. BUSY ;] says:
my dear
[Lin³] joey says:
HAHAHA
[Lin³] joey says:
Deer.
[Lin³] joey says:
You are my COW!
See what challenge week does to people.
If challenge week is a challenge, then the challenge week proposal would be more or so in the ranks of what we can aptly describe as insane. A few months have already gone into waste and my group is still merely on the verge of typing our title page. Add to the fact that we had people coming in and out of our group, Celine’s embassy problems, Tanya’s dilemma, the Nalaka-John-Rowland financial crisis, and Amanda’s last-minute inclusion into the NLK fraternity.
We have encountered so many problems along the way, while the rest of the other groups have started dialing agencies, typing itineraries, pressing calculators, booking airline tickets, reserving rooms in orphanages, twittering about orangutan sanctuaries, dreaming about mountain climbing, thinking of the dangers of Cambodian landmines, rejecting my lovely country – the Philippines – because of a capsized ship vessel. No, I’m not criticizing them. When it comes to traveling, I also value safety above all else. Although I would say that whichever place you go, if you’re meant to be in danger, you will be in danger, if you’re meant to be kidnapped, you will be kidnapped, no matter where you are. If you are in a dangerous place, let’s say Iraq, if you’re not meant to get shot by some terrorist, or some uncanny extremist, or some drunk American soldier, you won’t get shot. Even places like Singapore, where danger and crime are as ubiquitous as chewing gums, these places are not 100% safe. But, don’t get me wrong – I’m not being a lunatic, crime-freak patriot who worships the idea of people getting hurt. I don’t even play GTA or any other violent computer games. I love war movies though. haha. Like I said earlier, when it comes to traveling, I value safety above all else. Let’s all stay in Singapore for Challenge Week then. (:
And I’m not going to say that my country is a better destination. I’m not going to say that it has more beautiful coastlines than Thailand, or more talented people and prettier faces than anywhere else in Southeast Asia, (too bad the Pinoy government is just as bad as Nalaka trying to keep himself awake during Sunday masses) or jungles as marvelous as Borneo, or mountains as prestigious as Kota Kinabalu, or food that spells VERY DELICIOUS (with the absence of intolerable spiciness) – No, I’m not going to say them – haha – I’m just.. um… being biassedly patronizing?
See? This is just as nice as Phuket.
Ok, never mind.
Anyway, our group -FINALLY- without my presence, made up its mind. When I was told that we’re going Phuket, Thailand, I was initially o.k. with it. But as soon as I heard of the estimated budget, my eyes exponentially enlarged, shivering, shocked. I enlarged my eyes some more in the hopes of getting a clearer picture of the current situation. I resigned to the proposal because I had no choice. After a discombobulating litany of probable destinations,
from Bali, Indonesia
to Miri, East Malaysia
to Bali again,
then to Sabah, East Malaysia
to Cambodia
to Vietnam
to Laos
to Sabah again
we finally fnally finally agreed on Phuket, Thailand.
Yes, we’re going to Phuket.
And the trip will be outrageously extravagant and expensive.
We have no choice. Time is running out.
I just really hope it’s worth the money.
I so badly wanted to go to Laos though.
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rowlandanthony
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