Level 1: All's Black

Bleh... I don't have time to have Quotes or Songs nowadays.

I case you're wondering, the title's from The Wicked, an online puzzle game which Zhang introduced me to but I haven't got the time or HTML knowledge to get past level 2.

It's been another sleepless week, with me falling asleep while doing Chinese homework twice now, and the bus driver's really angry at me because I keep coming late. I have stuff to say but I won't say it here because it's too angsty and it's already in my diary so. And yeah, I now have a diary, where I can store anything I want to say that's too dangerous or too angsty to put here. Problem is, Zhang keeps trying to get his hands on it.

Weekly shooting training has started, and it's very time consuming. Coupled with NP Day training at least twice a week, that's three days out of five I'm staying back for something I dislike. Have you noticed that every CCA in our school has to be competitive or provide service to the school, or it won't exist? In the US they have all sorts of hobby clubs and societies... but here, all they have is Gold-medal winners. Stupid meritocracy.

Something else. I've noticed that whenever I'm good at something I like, I usually get banned from it, but when I'm good in something I hate, I get more of it dumped on me. I like performing, but two days ago Mr Wong banned me from acting in anymore IOPs because I apparently "overshadowed" the other presenters. I kinda knew that too, but I just wanted to do my best, y'know? That's why I didn't ham it up so much with Jason's performace - I tried to downplay it a bit. Hope I didn't ruin anybody's marks.

I like contributing in class, but Mr Wong said, "Not you again, you've talked too much already...!" Admittedly, that was last term, when he was trying to have other people contribute so that he could give them good comments for their term reports. Shouldn't contributing and sharing ideas be more important than a nice-looking term report? Stupid meritocracy.

I hate UYO. But of course, I had to get 88/90 for Classification shoot. And now I'm down every Tuesday for shooting practice one and a half hours from my house. And NP Day training, quite believably, stretches all the way to exam day, because, you kow why? NP Day is 5th of May, which is, oh my gosh!, Chinese exam! So I'll be stuck in my ****** uniform for 6 hours doing Chinese exam.

Life's just weird; you hope against hope that it will get better, but the general trend has declining so far, and with a scientist's mind, it con only be concluded that it will get worse. I want to be like KW; I want to be like Zhang; I want to hope, to dream, to be happy. But, duh, I never get what I want.

Psychiatric Ward 1E

I've finally lost it. Broke down. Gone mental.

I got home at 9 today. Nine. I missed dinner. It was cold. I had cold supper.

My feet hurt. My arms hurt. My abs hurt. My brain hurts. I just came back from Rugby B Div finals an hour ago.

Each day I life through school I hate NS a little bit more. There are enough stories from my parents and everyone else; I don't want to live it 4 years before I have to.

Anyway, B Div lost. RI (not the school; someone else) blames the Prefects for not cheering enough. That's what I think anyway. What would you think would happen if we won? "Oh, yay, cheering was done well, even though you had small manpower, we still managed to win. Yay." It's probably some small subconscious part of the mind that's pushing the blame of defeat onto the Prefects.

And it's not like we didn't do anything. We didn't do cheering well because we couldn't do cheering well. RI doesn't seem to understand that. He just keeps telling Pei-Yi to stop giving excuses. Furthermore, all the excuses he gave seemed very valid to me. They couldn't stand up because the policemen there didn't let them. They were short of manpower. They had to cheer facing away from the audience, sitting down. Nobody was allowed to disperse among the student body.

That's not the irritating part. RI and AT (another person) both gave us talks. They said exactly the same thing. But RI's just gave me a worse impression of him, and AT's one made me respect him a little bit more.

They said exactly the same thing. Same content. RI was lecturing us. Scolding us. Not inspiring. Scolding. The fact that he said "I don't mean to be condescending" shows that he knows that he is being condescending. AT's talk was how much more acceptable.

RI: All of us sitting down in rows while he stood at the front to lecture.
AT: He asked us to huddle around him.
RI: Lectured. Tone of voice was teacher-like.
AT: Talked. Tone of voice was friendly.
RI: Ordered us to improve.
AT: Praised us first, then encouraged us to improve.

I know that everyone is different and that everyone has his own style of doing things. RI's is army-style. AT's is a better style; I don't think it has a name.

So because of our dismayal cheering, we had to stay back until 7.30pm. We made our way to the front gate, and the guard standing there says we couldn't catch a cab there because taxis weren't allowed to stop there. Okay, fair enough; we'll take the bus. It get's caught in a traffic jam on the PIE and we get to the station at 8pm. It takes 40mins to get to Toa Payoh station and another 30 to get home.

And yay, when I get home, my mom tells me to "not show me this tired face. It's like you're angry at me". And then I basically collapsed entirely. I started laughing. Laughing maniacally. Tears started streaming down my face. But I was laughing. I couldn't stop. My abs hurt. But I couldn't stop. I laughed and cried for 20 mins.

And I miss American Idol and they were doing Queen songs. My stupid Singtel connection is horribly laggy even though it's a 100MB/sec Wireless Broadband. I've three projects due next week, OM Nationals on Saturday, two church invites (Juz and Mr Wong) and I've to get a haircut and new shoes. Stripes is a great help, but the only problem is that he doesn't talk to me.

Thanks Shaun, Xi Min and Darren for keeping me company. :)

Consequences of Overwork

[Quote of the post] You wouldn't want to walk a mile in my shoes. They're too dirty.
[Song of the post] So Happy Together - Purple Alert

There once was a young man who went away to another country for a long time to study. He was out of touch with his parents and friends for four years. When he finally graduated he made a phone call back home.

"Hello? Mum? Dad?"

"Son! You've graduated! Oh, this is wonderful! You'll be coming home now?"

"Yes, but before I do, I need to ask you a favour."

"Go on, son, anything for our university graduate."

"I have a friend here. Can I bring him home as well?"

"Yes, of course."

"There's something else. He's not what you would call the best person in the world. He's lost in his own fantasy world, cynical, sarcastic, and doesn't help out much. I want him to stay with us."

"What? Dear, how did you make friends with that sort of person? We can't have that sort of person living in our house! Forget him, and come home."

The young man hung up, and made another phone call to his friends.

"Hi! Long time no see! How are you!"

"Good. Listen, I have a favour to ask."

"Wait, this calls for a celebration! When you get back, come over and we'll throw you a big party!"

"Great, great... but I need to ask you something. I have a friend here, and I want to bring him over."

"Why, by all means! A friend of yours is a friend of ours!"

"But I have to tell you something. He's depressed and overworked underneath, but he shows a positive exterior. He helps people not because he means it, but because it's the right thing to do. He's two-faced, cynical, and confused. I want to introduce him to you."

"Huh? Your friend sounds like a real troublemaker! What type of person is that? Come home, lah, forget about this 'friend', and we'll celebrate like there's no tomorrow!"

"There might not be," said the young man, and hung up.

Two days later, the body of the young man was lying at the bottom of a cliff. His family and friends were called over to identify the body. "Yes, that's him," they said over snuffled sobs.

"We think it was suicide," the police said. "Did he say anything to you before this?"

"Nothing, only that he had a friend that he wanted to bring back home."

But... he never had any friends," a teacher from the university the young man studied at was at the scene as well. "He never had any friends. Everytime I saw him, he was always by himself."

-----

There once was a soldier who returned from the Vietnam War. He made a call from his camp in San Francisco to his hometown in Chicago.

"Hello? Mum and dad?"

"Hey son! You're back from the war! How's things?"

"I'll be coming home soon, dad. But I need to ask you a favour."

"Go ahead, son!"

"I made a friend here. I want to bring him home with me."

"That's fine with me, son."

"There's something else. He's lost an arm and a leg. I want him to live with us."

"No, son, we can't do that. We can invite him in for a short time, but we can't support him forever. Do you know how hassling it will be to take care of a handicap in our house? Come home, son, forget about him, he'll find his own piece of heaven somewhere else." The soldier hung up.

Two days later, they found the body of the soldier at the foot of a building. The police suspected suicide. His parents were called in to identify the body.

They did. But the soldier only had one arm and one leg.

3 Killed in Crane Disaster

A crane and its 185-tonne load collapsed at 10am yesterday morning, killing 3 people, including the supervisor's uncle. The supervisor's relatives now blame him for sending his uncle to his death.

"If I supervised your father at work and something happened to him, who would you blame? The first thing they would ask is, 'my father worked for you, why didn't you take care of him?' Now that he's gone, how do you explain?"

"I wanted to tell them that I did not cause his death. That's why I'm here. It was an industrial accident. No one knew the accident would happen."

"I want to use my heart to try to explain to his family. I am his nephew and his supervisor.
"I sent the best man for the job."

"One doesn't only cry for his mother and father. I have known him for over 30 years. He's my partner at work.
"This morning, we were joking, now he is dead. You can't have him back. Do you understand?"

"He doesn't smoke. He doesn't drink. He didn't even have to work. He works hard, and goes home for dinner everyday. How can a good man die so young? All his children are married. He didn't even have to work and could have retired. He was just passing time."

-Taken from I Didn't Send Him To Die, The New Paper, 5th April 2006.