flap your wings and try to fly

it’s been a long time since i did real volunteer work. in rgs, it was such a weekly thing that i did not even pause and stop to think about it. it was not long before i took it for granted. every week (almost), without fail, we would be down at some hospital working with kids, teaching and performing magic for them. cause i was so used to that schedule, i never really noticed how much i loved it.

yeah sure, i knew that i definitely loved working with the patients, but i never did knew i would feel so much now that i haven’t worked with them in such a long time. perhaps that is why i’ve been much more generous with my donations this year, perhaps it’s the knowledge that i have not been doing as much. but i’m starting to get increasingly turned off by this “donation” behaviour, i don’t want to do that anymore. in fact, i don’t even want to do indirect stuff like flag day, or like selling some stuff to raise funds for the different charities. it just doesn’t, go well with me. like it makes me feel that i’m doing something that would mean a little something to them, but i don’t really feel the impact on the people. but at least that’s better than doing nothing. sigh! 

i want to interact with them, so much.

in fact, i have never really felt that way. the duty feeling has never come in before, not when i was younger. but now whenever i think of the underpriviledged kids, my mood just goes down, like there is so much more i could try to do, but i’m not doing!

sigh.

overseas cip just doesn’t attract me as much, cause the attachment is not really there. it would make a huge impact on them, but it is not as personal, and neither is it long term.

argh!

the plan now is to wait till promos are over. but i’m so afraid i can’t wait, and just spend all my thinking time on how i could be working with them at the same very moment, and how i’m being so selfish by putting my life before theirs.

but then again, it doesn’t really sound exactly right cause i seem to want to work with them, because there is something inside me that needs to be satisfied. that’s quite selfish as well i think. it reminds me about the end goal and process thing discussed in ki class. hm. but i guess i would take hume more seriously. it’s a feeling that i have no control over, and i just feel like doing it.

besides, it’s a deterministic world.

sigh.

that’s not right.

i think i have always wondered about the perfectly ordered society. like whether it can really happen, or are we already in such a situation. a perfectly ordered society, something that looks so fine and fair, yet everyone is afraid of such a situation arising. but i guess i will never know if we are as such now, or will be in the future. as always mentioned, i am part of the system, so i will never be able to see clearly.

but something has struck me as thought-provoking recently. something that i have never thought about before.

why do people have an obsession with parking their cars straight? like, perfectly parallel with the white lines surrounding the car in the carpark. okay, i would understand if it’s too slanted, it would cause obstruction to other cars who are trying to park beside your car.

but sometimes, it is only slanted to an angle, and yet we complain.

“pop, your parking very lousy!”

it is definitely not going to cause any obstruction, but we just want the car to be perfectly parallel. why? i know, sometimes we can’t be bothered, like we don’t try to really make it super straight cause it will take too much time. but that doesn’t mean anything. we still think, okay, the car is not straight, but i shall not bother about it cause it’s gonna take too much effort. like the thought is still there.

hm. okay sometimes people would also think, “i must park my car straight! or else people will say that i have lousy parking skills”! so that’s where the obsession with parking straight arose from?

but uh, this is like an infinite regress, cause for people to say that you have lousy parking skills, they must think that they should park cars straight. and they think they should park cars straight cause others would think they have lousy parking skills and so on. yeah, my point is there.

doesn’t make much sense to me. but i feel so taken in, complaining all the time when my pop, mum, sis or bro do not park the car parallel to the lines. oh wells.

the feelings of dejâ vu keep arising. it’s been a long time, but those memories from the past, or should i say hallucinations, keep playing in reality. so much so that it is freaking me out. sigh.

i wonder who that special girl is.

flooding your heart; you’re mistaken

jodi picoult is really good. i’m thoroughly impressed. i have never been so caught by words before, not since i picked up a kid’s book when i was 7. i read that book at least 10 times, captivated by the world imagined by the author. it was so close to what i could experience, yet still a distance away.

i have always preferred books to movies. if only books didn’t take so much effort to read, but i guess if it doesn’t, there would be no fun in reading books anyway. i think books give you the opportunity to run far far away with your imagination, like you could almost escape reality. you stage your own show, and go with the flow of your thoughts, only guided by the plot of the book.

but movies don’t give me this kind of chance. mostly, i feel like a sponge watching movies anyway.

so yeah, jodi picoult is really really really good. the suspense, the waiting, the judgements, yet again being doubted. the words tumbling all over you, making you wish you could really be there.

whenever i’m reading, i always get attached to the characters, worried that they will get into some kind of trouble (as all good story characters have to) and not being able to get out of it. but there’s always this calming thought at the back of my mind, saying “don’t worry, every story always has a happily-ever-after.” if not for this, i probably wouldn’t continue reading books, cause i’m so scared the characters would never be able to reach that stage, never being able to achieve what they always wanted.

but reading “salem falls” by jodi picoult, this calming thought didn’t seem so sure about itself afterall. doubts kept clouding all over it, but yet i continued reading, cause i wanted to know whether i would be disappointed or not. and also, these doubts kept disappearing once in a while, so i didn’t stop.

it was a really beautiful book. written with so much thought, like telling you not to make your judgements so quickly, cause it doesn’t always look this easy.

yay (: i shall look for more books by her.

hate me all you want.

if only you knew.

have you ever wondered why spiders don’t get stuck in their own webs?

webs that i keep falling into and stumbling on,

just like it,

they don’t ever hit back at their own owners.

you don’t know me,
you don’t even care.
you don’t know me,
you don’t wear my chains.

and it seems this way,

i’m relighting the same tray of ashes, all over again.

no one knows my name.

appreciating that gesture, just wishing i could get over it

uh hm. i just read js’ blog. right. she said she’s unhappy, cause she got uh, 1 A and 4 Bs.

and wy probably got 2 As and 3 Bs.

me. okay never mind, i.. argh sigh.

uh. right.

oh i suddenly remembered.

if a person would choose to take the approach of a humanist,

in my opinion,

the person would probably think that,

he is too rational to be use religion to find meaning in his life.

this probably would mean that he already has a certain fixed view,

of how life can have its meaning,

in his own perspective.

if one chooses to take the approach of the humanist,

doesn’t it become pointless to then think that life is meaningless?

it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

but anyway, the thing on wikipedia says that a humanist not only has a right,

he has the responsibility to find meaning in his life.

i wonder how accurate that is.

oh wells.

i don’t really care what you think.

looking for someone; questions.

seems like a long time since i blogged. must be cause i’m really tired. many people in school have been saying that i looked very tired for the past few days, though i really don’t know why. it’s not exactly like i feel like sleeping or anything, so i do not really know why they say that. maybe it’s the dark rings around my eyes. or maybe it’s my hair. but i thought my hair serves to make me look stressed out.

i’m guessing it’s cause my face is darker. oh, i think it’s cause of the ct results.

anyway. on a lighter note, i walked around barefooted in school for lessons after canoeing finals! haha. cause my shoes were drenched due to the rain, no, i didn’t fall into MacRitchie Reservoir, no matter how tempting it looked. so yeah, i couldn’t stand walking around in “squish, squish” shoes.

something new i tried in my life! (:

hm. i was thinking about why to a humanist, committing suicide might actually be a downside, after crimes and misdemeanors during ki lesson. it was a question raised by my ki classmates, which set me thinking. why would committing suicide be not considered a downside? oh yeah, the word is “counter-intuitive”. logically, it would be yeah, it would not really be something bad for a humanist i guess.

from wikipedia.com:

All member organisations of the IHEU are required by IHEU bylaw 5.1 to accept [11] the IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism:

“Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.

hm. so it says we have the right to shape our own lives, and give meaning to it. so if the humanist decides to commit suicide cause he finds no meaning to his life, it would not be something bad. that’s logically speaking i guess.

okay. in the first place, i think it’s quite sad if you do not find any meaning in your life. if you commit suicide, that’s like acting on impulse. as in, would it not be a downside that you will no longer be able to experience the joy or the meaning of life in the future? (assuming that you don’t take time slice into account, cause that makes all arguments useless.)

no meaning, no life.

it would be a downside, wouldn’t it?

yeah, i think it’s really the impulse thing. one can’t look into the future, and taking your own life is shutting all your opportunities. there is no more chance that you can live the life again, even if you suddenly find meaning in it. not like you will, but just in a hypothetical situation.

hm. okay now i do feel tired.

the music plays, continuously

i was very discouraging, wasn’t i? i know i will eventually tell you one day, but i chose today. no, i didn’t choose today. it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. i never imagined that i would use all those words, and speak so frankly, but i had no idea how to make sure you understand my point of view, cause you are always so stubborn, and you don’t listen to me most of the time.

if you weren’t my friend, i wouldn’t have bothered. did you think i was saying all that to intentionally make you disappointed? why would i want to do that? i have always been blunt for a large part of my life, but i know it works.

i just didn’t want you to make the same choice as i did. the choice that will make you face up to the reality that not one, not two, but lots of people think that you’re inadequate. and inadequate in the way that you can’t change it. there are a lot of things you can change in life. you’re not doing well academically, you can work harder. of course, if you’re not inclined towards it, you won’t be able to do exceptionally well, but you would perform better. but there are just some things that are so difficult to change, and these some things aren’t even worth changing just cause it might open opportunities to you. these some things are the ones worth keeping, only because it’s part of your personality, part of what you are.

everyday i have to face the choice that i made, sure, my choice was different from the one that you made, but i have to face the consequences. the consequences are painful. painful enough to make you think everyday, shut you out of the world, and painful enough to change you.

but nevertheless, you still made the choice. i wouldn’t be one to give up without trying either, but i guess when i’m not the one making the choice, it’s easier to stop you from making it. i might have reacted in the same way if someone said the exact same thing to me, but now i’m the “someone”, so i might as well make sure you know what might eventually happen in the future.

there’s no use saying so much, now that you have already said you’re not going to change your mind. but at least understand that i had my reasons for saying what i did, and perhaps you might face the consequences better than i did.

i’ve said what i wanted to say

i know brazil lost. i watched the match. yes, hardcore.

i watched 3 of the 4 quarter final matches live, and the one i didn’t catch was italy vs ukraine. uh. i expected the match for italy vs ukraine to be not very entertaining, besides, i wasn’t interested in any of the 2 countries. according to life!, the match for italy vs ukraine is “the boring vs the more boring”.

and yes, i knew at 5 am that brazil had lost, and it was very disappointing. the game was very nice to watch, probably because of the final desperation of brazil, but no, the result was not at all what i wanted. brazil was obviously not playing their best, but the game was exciting nonetheless. i don’t know what happened, overconfidence is the reason i’m guessing. the “magic quartet”… hm. i don’t know what to say about it. even if it hadn’t been dismantled, i think the game result would still be the same. it was obvious that the players were not performing to expectations, and tactical changes would be useless anyway.

sigh.

ARGH BRAZIL.

but i cannot deny that zidane was like, god. his skills were the reason why the game was so entertaining, and as mentioned by the commentator, “zidane seems to be magnetizing the ball”. oh wells.

and i shall put it on record as well, i believe that wayne rooney did not stomp on ricardo’s groin on purpose. it was obviously accidental! evidently not very obvious to the referee, but everyone’s saying that the referee gave him the red card cause he pushed ronaldo. like whatever, it was just a slight push, like trying to move him aside. i mean like, it was a move that i would have made in normal and daily life! it wasn’t even a “confrontation push”, it was more like a push from the side, like moving him away from the crowd. besides, ronaldo had no damn reason to be part of the crowd surrounding the referee anyway.

ARGH BRAZIL.

now that brazil is out, i just don’t feel like watching the matches anymore. there’s no more samba, no more ronaldo. i don’t think ronaldo is fat. but his stamina does seem not as enduring as before. but come on, people get old. there’s no reason to keep calling him fat just cause of that.

ARGH BRAZIL.

the display is off

argh england, you make me cry. but i know brazil won’t disappoint. i shall hope very hard. argh ENGLAND!

anyway, yesterday was biology ct – my last paper! which means that cts are over! (: haha, initially i wanted to go to the zoo together with js and wy for their class learning journey, but in the end, they did not even want to go to the zoo, even though learning journey is compulsory! haha. but cause like many people in their class were not going anyway, they decided to skip the zoo trip too. oh wells.

i was looking forward to it! even though many thought that i was kind of crazy to want to go to the zoo. but it’s just different. cause i have never been to the zoo without like, the school? i think it will be quite fun to go to the zoo with friends! haha.

so we went to dhoby ghaut plaza singapura PIZZA HUT! we used to go there all the time after our exams in rg. great memories. when we were still in rg, we always sit at the same table whenever we go to pizza hut. but oh wells, we did not manage to get our usual table yesterday, so it was different. but great all the same! (: cause of the people! haha.

oh i forgot, before that we went to j8, and js bought 2 voodoo minis, i bought one, and wy bought one after much persuasion. she did not like them very much even though they were ALL DAMN CUTE, but since js and i both got our voodoo minis, she was like, okay. cause if she did not get one by herself, i was going to get one for her. but she insisted that she was perfectly capable of getting a voodoo mini herself, so she bought one! lol.

my voodoo mini is called screwie!

screwie – isn’t he really cute?!

Career/Studies Charm – With screws embedded in his head, Screwie will assist you by absorbing and locking all wisdom, intelligence and knowledge in. Additionally, he also prevents you from further screw ups.

HAHA. i think screwie is super hilarious!

at j8, js suddenly suggested that we should go to escape theme park cause it is so boring in singapore and there’s seriously nothing to do. and i was like “YES!!! i haven’t been to escape before! and there will be very little queues cause it’s a weekday! okay let’s go escape!” and so we spent the entire journey from j8 to plaza sing trying to convince wy to go to escape with us, but she refused to budge. (nothing unexpected though.) oh wells. but we kept bugging and bugging, until wy gave us a reason that we cannot not accept, so we just had to stick to her decision.

so after lunch, we took neoprints! wow. it has been a really long time since i took one. i think it’s my first neoprint in the year? haha. but wy, js and i don’t like giggle like crazy while taking neoprints, so it’s quite different from like almost all the girls there. we just laugh damn loudly, cause we had no idea what the machine was talking about, but never mind. we got our photos!

oh and js kept saying “i have a camera in my bag! why are we taking neoprints?!” (she brought her camera cause she thought we were going to the zoo.) neoprints are just different! besides, if take photos with camera, have to use photoshop to edit, then it is not as fun as instant editing! (:

hm. after lunch, wy abandoned us to meet her parents, and js and i decided to make our own way to escape! hm.

we went to pasir ris park and waited for some shuttle bus that comes even though we had no idea how to get to escape. after asking around, we found out that there’s a shuttle bus going to costa sands at downtown east in about 10 minutes, so we just took that shuttle bus. and that’s even though we had no idea how to get to escape from costa sands. oh wells.

then at costa sands, i chose to turn right cause i thought escape was there, but after walking for 15 minutes towards the right, we met this uncle at the carpark who kindly informed us that… escape is like, on the left. like 100 metres away. “?! 100 metres?!” … i thought js and i definitely walked more than 100 metres to that carpark.

so yeah, we took his advice and we did find escape!

but it was kind of like, 1 kilometre away.

…

and the thing is,

we realised that…

escape does not open on weekdays.

-.-”

sigh. it was super anti climax. =(

but js insisted that we should go and play some stuff, so we decided to walk ALL THE WAY to pasir ris children’s playground. oh my, i think we walked for about 30 minutes in the hot sun. haha. and in our rj uniform.

at the playground, we played on the swings and the cannot-slide-down-metal-slide, and i helped js to climb to the top of the giant space net. cause she has never played on the giant space net before (apparently her dad is not so keen on putting his children in danger, unlike mine, who told my brother, “never mind, climb! you won’t fall, cause even if you do, there will be so many ropes that you can hold on to!” and my brother told me that.), so i had to direct her up! haha. (: yay, and both of us sat at the top of the giant space net for a long long time. hm. js was stuck about 5 times during the journey up and down the space net. hehe.

the first swings that we went to were a bit weird, cause the 2 swings were connected and they don’t seem to be able to swing very high cause the top bar kind of rotates together. js insisted that it was conservation of momentum initially. oh wells.

then after the space net, we went to the good swings, and being an expert “swinger”, i could swing myself up very high. and js seemed very confused cause she could not do that. so i tried to impart my knowledge of swinging yourself on the swing to her, but that did not seem to work. yeah. i don’t know why she couldn’t swing herself up, but i think it has to come together with experience. cause swings are my favourite playground stuff. (:

and here’s the climax! after getting chased off the swings by some little kids who asked to use the swings very politely, we went to drink coconut juice! WAHAHAHA. 

the coconuts were really really really good, though expensive. it was really good! (: and this was our almost-romantic moment, except that we were not gazing into each other eyes, according to js. hahaha. (: i love to drink/eat coconuts!

yep, and then i had to go home, but not before we stopped at mcd to buy milkshakes! i asked for banana milkshake and the woman gave me a vanilla one. and js got a banana milkshake. but she preferred the vanilla one, so i got to exchange with her! (: okay this part is so irrelevant, but whatever.

haha. i think it was a great way to enjoy ourselves after the common tests (: people should come up with novel ways to spend their time after exams instead of just going to a movie, kbox-ing or kpool-ing! (: the playground is always great!  

oh yay! brazil is going to play soon. please don’t disappoint me!