Tattered and Torn

[Quote of the post] God won’t ask us how many friends we had. He’d ask us how many people to whom we’ve been a friend.
[Song of the post] Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough

What a tangled mess I live in.

There are three ways of interpreting exam results: Absolute, Relative, and Personal. Absolute is the mark itself, its value, whether it’s a pass mark or a fail grade, if it is a 97% or an F-. Relative is your score compared to everyone else’s in the class. You might have gotten a 42%, but if everyone else in class got around 40% – 45% then you don’t have much to worry about. Personal is dependent on your own goals, and whether your results fall short of your expectations or not.

Almost everyone assesses their assessment in this order: Absolute, Personal, then Relative. Say you’ve scored 33% when you expected to get at least a 60%. But then you realize that everyone else got 30% and below, so it’s not so bad. Absolute, Personal, Relative.

The problem occurs once your Personal mark doesn’t satisfy you, but your score greatly surpasses that of everyone else, relatively. And yet you still feel depressed because you could have done better. Maybe it’s because you don’t want to feel left out because you actually got a passing mark while everyone else failed, or maybe it’s because you tend value Personal above Relative, or maybe it’s humility. I dunno. But for people who are in the low ends of all three areas, it feels very self-depreciating and… grah.

Which, in a sense, is very pessimistic. By seeing only failures without seeming to pay attention to successes, it shows a very pessimistic personality. Either that or you push yourself too hard.

Anyways, I realize I’ve been doing the same thing. In viewing my life cynically, I miss out on all the good stuff. It’s kinda like inverse Gold 98FM advertisements, where you only hear the bad stuff. I keep formulating ideas in my mind which takes the worse possible outcome. I’m trying to steer myself away from this, but… it’s not easy.

Then there’s the scenario with KW. Basically we’re in the same MEW Question formulating group, but this weekend I was in one of this angsty-homework-clearing moods and I finished setting the questions and sent them to JK without consulting my partner. Then when he contacted me yesterday I was like, OMG I already sent them. I felt so… grah, like I always hated being left out then I go leave someone out. It’s like, crashing on my own ideals or something.

Then for GEP Camp electives, there's eleven subjects to choose from and I'm not particularly interested in any of them. So I'm going to choose Drama and I don't think there'll be anyone I know and Mr. Ferdi Quek is gonna go like, "Oh no, not you again!" when I step into his class. What fun.

And then today I forgot to get my OEP file. Again. Grah. I had to go the staff room, and I forgot. Grah.

It's been awhile.

[Quote of the post] "You said you'd be my friend, no matter what." -Terra, Teen Titans
[Song of the post] Lean on Me - Rockapella

Hi! Just realised that this is my 119th post. o_O The money should be pouring in soon...

Not much time, so this will be a short post.

Had a discussion with the Permanent Secretary of the MOE today, along with a whole bunch of GEP students from years 2 through 5. Hao Yi kept talking a lot, and Josh was referenced twice, but din't say anything. o_O He basically asked us about the GE programme, about the discrimination thing, about GEP social life, and if we could design our own GE programme, what it would be like, etc. The teachers were relatively quiet, but what was weird was that I knew every one of them. o_O

Workload has decreased slightly since I told Mr. Ng about the stress. Yay! But the 8 Days horoscope for Pisces warns me not to "be deceived by the belief that the work has decreased", or something to that effect. Urgh.

UYO tomorrow. I've been plonked back into the Founder's Day Marching Contingent. Bryan Zhao is getting very stressed. I got gloves!

Trying to be happier this past month. Started laughing more, keeping positive. Hope it can last. ^^

Uh, a parody of Collide by Howie Day.

One More Way to Die
The term is ending
But there's still work to do
You're hardly standing
But they pile more work on you
Yeah

I just can't take it
Breaking under pressure
I worry I won't see your face
Smile once again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the math that fills my mind
I somehow find
One more way to die

A test tomorrow
Fills you with great depression
And then there's UYO for four hours on end

Even the test will fail sometimes
Got things to to, juxt can't decide
And if your brain explodes on time
You somehow find
One more way to die

Don't stop there
Don't understand
I'm so confused

Remember your friends, your family
Hold onto them, they'll help you free
Out of the work that clouds your mind
I finally find
One way to survive

I finally find
One way to survive
I finally find
One way to survive

-----
Very scattered and short post, but it's because my brain has been on overwork for the past 6 weeks. I keep falling asleep on the bus and finding myself in Thomson. o_O

Gonna get my OEP file from the pigeon hole soon. Must keep reminding myself.

Bye!

Where is the Love

[Quote of the post] If you get there before I do
[Song of the post] You'll be in my Heart - Phil Collins, Tarzan

Untitled (Essay)
I open my eyes
I try to think but I'm blinded by the blank space
I can't remember how
I can't remember why
My mind is in a daze

And I can't take the stress
But it keeps coming everyday
Yes it's stealing recess

How could they test us today
I made my mistakes
No time; gotta run
The test goes on
As I'm failing away
I'm can't stand this strife
I just wanna scream
How could this happen today?

Everybody's screaming
I try to make a sound but no one hears me
Just one last sentence sir
I gotta finish my graph
I wanna start this over again

So that I can pass
Into a grade that everyone's proud of
But I can't explain the answer
And I can't blanko the things that I've wrote
No I can't

How could this happen today
There should have been love
Instead we got tests
And a whole bunch
Of chemistry
And lots more homework
I just wanna know
Why did this happen today?

I ask you again
Where is the love?
The night's almost gone
And still nobody's said
The three special words
I just wanna love
Of all days, why Valentine's Day?

I'll be There for You

[Quote of the post] Your prison is walking through this world all alone.
[Song of the post] Desperado - Eagles

Eh... sorry I haven't been blogging for a while. Homework's been piling up so high that I'm afraid it might topple over and wash me away. I haven't even been writing TNN... Sorry if you thought was going to be a OEP post. Those will have to come later when I get back my file and my programme sheet. For now I'm just speaking my feelings again. Sigh.

I'm home an hour early because I had to go for a Campcraft competition briefing. That was a result of the two people who were supposed to go being absent. So I was volunteered to be a replacement. Sounds good, doesn't it? One less hour of UYO, plus no Campcraft training or drills. For most people it would be one of the best things that had ever happened.

Not for me. My body welcomed it; my physical health praised it. But my mind was screaming at me, my heart was hating it... Going all the way to Thomson to attend a briefing for a competition I didn't want to participate in the first place... have teammates which aren't all that... spectacular... having to plan, work, design all by yourself because everyone else slacks...

I swear, life is trying to drag me away from everything that matters to me. Homework cuts off TNN, thinking cuts off my happiness, and school cuts off my friends. You should have seen Juzzie's face when I went to say goodbye to him. He tried to look happy, smiling and all, but I think he was regretting that I had to go, that I wouldn't be a familiar face during the hours of Campcraft training.

There's something else that's cutting me away - myself. My gloomy face and dreary outlook is keeping people away. It's like everything goes in a whirlwind around me and I'm standing there in the middle of it all. Occasionally someone bumps into me, and we chat. But then they're off again, back into the vortex, spinning, whirling... if I try to get closer I may succeed for a while, then the topic changes to something I don't know, and I'm lost again... Know about Darwin's theory of evolution? When a species vanishes, other organisms evolve to take its place. It's happening right here. Gideon has moved out of my class, so I was changing to take his place. My actions, my character... laughing at things only I find funny, answering questions for Lit, being more vocal in class, clapping my hands when I laugh...

Can you be surrounded by friends and still be lonely? I find it hard to talk to people because I don't know the things they know. I know a bit about a lot of things; but I don't know everything about somehting... there's no common topic for long discussion... Demel can talk at length about GG and FF and games and anime and philosohpy with his social circle; Zhang has Japanese and anime and pop music; Boey has his group of friends; gamers, Christians, prefects, St. John's, music, philosophy, math, people who play DotA... I know a bit of each, understand the surface, touch upon slightly, but I don't know enough to understand, debate, converse. I belong everywhere; thus I don't belong anywhere. I'm not accepted, mostly just acknowledged, acquired. I can't even cling onto people I want to cling onto because I know what it's like to have someone cling onto you when you don't want him to.

Am I like Thannappa the postman, mingling with everyone, knowing everyone, an integral part of their lives, yet not crucial, just a friendly face, not belonging to any household but passing through just the same? Russ pointed out that Thannappa was slightly conformist as he went from house to house. Aren't I like that? When I'm talking to someone, some people will come up and tap me on the shoulder repeatedly, not caring about the other person at all. I'd be rude to the person I was talking to if I turned away, yet I'll be rude to the person requesting me because I didn't acknowledge him. And usually when I switch from person to person, the subject changes entirely. I could be talking about quantum metaphysics to the left, and I turn to listen to a lame pun on the right. I don't know if I'm the only one who noticed this, but Thannappa seems to value his friends more that his job. He said it was okay to complain, it was okay if he was dismissed from his job. But I did it to keep you happy. I carry your burden to keep you happy for the longest possible time.

You don't have to read all this. This is as much a diary as it is a public voice. Talking to myself in my head has made me like this; talking to Stripes isn't much better - he listens exceptionally well but he doesn't say anything. OEP memories will probably follow this one, below this post. Those would be happier, since they were happier memories.