28 September 2013
It's now 2am on a Saturday night and I should be sleeping. Instead, I just got home from Toa Payoh with my sister and cousin. They wanted cucumber and plum juice, so I followed them, because I felt like it. I haven't started any revision yet. I don't know what I'm doing.
I keep telling some of my friends and my sister that I want to quit school. I told my dad that I wanted to quit school. "Okay," he said, "as long as you become the next Bill Gates."
Wow, dad. Oh well. What does a degree mean to them anyway? I don't want to end up working in some corporate office in the future. I don't know what I'm doing.
My sister tells me to just rough out the last two and a half years of school. But that's a really long time. Come to think of it, that's longer than freaking army. I don't think I can do this. Really. I think I'm fucking up my studies by blogging right now instead of revising.
What do I see myself doing instead? I see myself tutoring kids who need tutoring. At a reduced rate. I'd like to imagine myself telling them that
hey, you can pay me what you like. It's that simple. Some will pay more, and some will pay less, but I think I'll have enough to get by. I'd like to think that I'm a decent enough tutor that they'll recommend me to their friends such that I get more students, and before long I'd be self sufficient. (That reminds me, a friend of mine that I met during army re-service is opening a tuition center. Maybe I could find work there first.) My philosophy is that people will pay me what they can afford, or what they think I'm worth. If I'm worth jackshit, then okay, I'll go back to university and get that degree. I just don't see how getting that degree as gonna make me worth any more.
I'll also coach gymnastics here and there. I guess I'd be working with kids a lot. Maybe it's because kids don't give you so much shit. But like I said, they can pay me what they think I'm worth. If they don't like me they can find another tutor. Anyway gymnastics for kids is pretty straightforward. Just make sure they don't kill themselves while they play. That's it with regards with supporting myself.
While I'm not teaching, I'd like to read books, play the piano, do gymnastics (my coach lets me train for free by the way, big plus!), learn judo, churn out exercises for my students to practice. Maybe even learn more physics and computing from online courses.
I think I'm queer. Or does every person feel this way about school, except that they can't find a way out of it? Maybe it's just me, being weak, unable to take the pressure of deadlines. I don't know why I'm putting myself through this, and paying the university for it. Will it make me stronger? Probably. I could sideline my other hobbies and put my studies as a top priority. Will it make me stronger? Actually I'm not so sure. I don't think I'll grow much as a person like that. I don't think I'll learn much more than some mathematical curiosities and structures. I don't think I'll be living.
I want to put things into perspective. If I were diagnosed with cancer today, would I want to spend the rest of my life doing hardcore mugging, or making an impact on others?
Maybe I can juggle my time and balance both. Really? With all these deadlines piling up, I hardly believe so. I'm gonna end up shutting everything out just to clear those assignments and reports. I don't know what I'm doing.
Anyway, here I am blogging, because I don't want to keep unloading my negativity on my friends and sister. I'll just unload it here. Listening to the Luv(sic) hexalogy makes me feel so real. And chill. It makes me want to relax and enjoy every moment of life. So chill, in fact, that I don't feel very worried about my mid-terms next week. I guess that's what triggered this whole angst towards my studies. Is it? I don't really care about my grades anymore. So I ask myself,
if I don't care about my results, what the hell am I doing in the university? I should be out there living. "The university is for learning." No it isn't. Maybe it used to be, but that's not the case now. Now it's just another separating machine for society: to churn students through it and squeeze them out layer by layer, the good, the bad and the dropouts. I could be learning - outside, on my own time, at my own pace.
I hate society. Do I? I hate cruelty. Am I cruel? I guess. Sometimes. Why? Maybe I just want to be alone, I dunno. I don't think so.
I have work tomorrow at 10am. It's almost 3am. I better head to bed.
I don't know why I'm feeling this way.
Maybe it's a dose of reality. Life seems so empty. I think I'll get tired of everything one day, my books, my piano, my sports. What will happen then?
???
Just enjoy the moment. Just enjoy the moment. Just enjoy the moment.
I think I'll just lie down and enjoy lying down.
I'm usually better after a night's rest anyway.
27 September 2013
Probably suffering from burnout. I remember that at the start of the semester I was so enthusiastic and hitting the books as early as 8am, all the way till lunch. After a quick lunch I'd be back at work. Now I'm having so much trouble just starting on my assignments. Maybe if I manage to get over this initial inertia and get started I'd be alright.
But I still feel so unmotivated.
School seems so meaningless to me. I don't feel like I'm learning at all.
On the other hand, I found a new song yesterday night,
Luv (sic) part 5 by Nujabes and Shing02. Great song, touching as hell. Doesn't put me in the right mood for work though. Makes me feel a little bit melancholic.
This too shall pass, but reality bit, it says not so fast.
Ok I'll go take a look at my work now.
23 September 2013
Last Friday, I went to a gathering held at a villa at Resort World Sentosa. It was very posh. I'm amazed that one of them would actually book the place and volunteer it for the Mid-autumn festival celebration. Anyway I went there late in the evening, because I was stuck in school working on some laboratory experiment. The best parts of the evening were - eating the mooncakes, learning how to juggle three balls (I can do it for about 7-8 throws before dropping everything) and also hearing my friend share about his life (late at night). Actually everything pretty much happened late at night, later at night and really late into the night.
I didn't sleep.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that my friend juggled fire torches as a performance for us. Real cool.
The next day I shared a cab home with my friend and then I showered and grabbed my jeans and left for school with just my wallet and my phone to do a poster presentation in school. The bad part about it was that people trickled by one-by-one and we had to explain the poster non-stop. This meant we couldn't really go around looking at other posters. The worst part was that I forgot almost everything about the theory behind the experiment so I had trouble answering some of the more technical questions. Thank god my friend was there. Anyway we left promptly at 12 and trashed out poster just outside the room. Not very nice but I've reached the stage where it doesn't really matter anymore.
In fact, though I have to do a lot of catching up this week, I spent the morning looking at snails on St John's Island, the afternoon sleeping, and the night doing gymnastics instead of my work.
Oh, my friend shared about his experiences with the supernatural world, and he's a really genial fellow, so even though I'm skeptical about these things, I'm quite convinced that he ain't making up stories here. Being able to see spirits. What an ability. Anyway some part of me is saying that maybe he is imagining these things and convincing himself it's true, so I asked him how he knew what he was seeing was real. He told me that he checked with people who could see spirits like him, and their information corroborated. Interesting approach. There's always the possibility that there was some mass hallucination going on. Anyway, I still don't discount the possibility that spirits are real and around us. I just will believe it when I see it, kind of thing.
Surprisingly, another friend there also had supernatural encounters, one where he witnessed his grandmother being possessed on several occasions. Anyway, all these stories reignited my interest in the supernatural again.
Why am I so interested in the supernatural? Spirituality for me is like a moral compass. It tells me what is right and what is wrong. If there's no such thing as spirituality, what the hell is my consciousness for? Nothing, really. I can just ignore it and listen to my basal instincts. Spirituality is like a higher calling for me to grow bigger as a person.
Yea right. Actually I think it's very exciting and very cool to explore all aspects of existence. I would try hallucinogens if I had the chance (and didn't have the threat of capital punishment constantly looming over me.) Open up my consciousness.
Being a good person was more or less instilled into me since young by my family and formative years in secondary school. Though my idea of what is taboo and permissible has shifted and blurred over the years, the main principles of compassion and living out my potential has still stuck with me.
Precisely because I want to live out my potential that I want to explore every secret hidden in the crevices of the universe so much. Which of course, includes the supernatural. If it exists.
17 September 2013
I think that it's kind of sad that I don't have any life ambition. I told my dad that I'm going to fade away and be a normal person leading a normal life. By normal I mean mediocre. Plain. Boring. I don't think I'm gonna achieve anything great in life, other than being great at bumming around.
I think I'm quite comfortable with living from hand to mouth, day by day. But, what about taking care about my parents? Might I be able to depend on my siblings to do that job? When I talked to my friend about this, I got the impression that the only reason he was in university was to get a degree to ensure that he could secure a decent job to support his parents. Life and all its obligations really tie people down. I want to run away from it all. I don't want to be responsible for anything other than my own self. I just want to live free. When did I become like that?
I think it'll be pretty cool to tutor kids and coach gymnastics as a source of income. I don't mind doing those. Pretty fun, if you ask me. My mum says that I need credentials first in order to survive - no one is going to hire me. Actually I think people will still hire me. And if I'm good, they're gonna refer me to their friends. Honestly, I can teach better than my one of my professors in school. Teaching isn't about how highly qualified you are, anyway. Why are some people so blind?
Anyway, my dad laughed at me and asked me what I was and what I've done, implying that I was already a nobody.
15 September 2013
I should be viewing my quantum mechanics webcasts right now, in fact, I should have been watching the webcast for the past two hours or so instead of going to exercise, bathing, clipping my nails etetera. Then, nowadays, I simply do what I feel like doing at a given time. And now I feel like blogging.
My birthday has come and gone. I don't feel any different, but I guess that's to be expected, seeing as to how indifferent I am to special days. The past two weeks has been stranger than most of my life though. I realised that I'm ready for a new relationship, that I'm just waiting for the right person to come along.
Also, I intended to write longer than this, but I got caught up with reading a synopsis of a movie, and now I feel like there really isn't a point in blogging. For some reason I have Ordinary World by Duran Duran playing on repeat.
I think I'm trying to find meaning where there isn't any. I think I'm trying too hard. I think I'm trying too little. Why do I feel so ambivalent? Why do I feel nothing at all?
I think I am becoming a ghost, fading away into obscurity. Not that I mind. Do I? Maybe I do.
"I'll see you soon, then."
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28 September 2013
It's now 2am on a Saturday night and I should be sleeping. Instead, I just got home from Toa Payoh with my sister and cousin. They wanted cucumber and plum juice, so I followed them, because I felt like it. I haven't started any revision yet. I don't know what I'm doing.
I keep telling some of my friends and my sister that I want to quit school. I told my dad that I wanted to quit school. "Okay," he said, "as long as you become the next Bill Gates."
Wow, dad. Oh well. What does a degree mean to them anyway? I don't want to end up working in some corporate office in the future. I don't know what I'm doing.
My sister tells me to just rough out the last two and a half years of school. But that's a really long time. Come to think of it, that's longer than freaking army. I don't think I can do this. Really. I think I'm fucking up my studies by blogging right now instead of revising.
What do I see myself doing instead? I see myself tutoring kids who need tutoring. At a reduced rate. I'd like to imagine myself telling them that
hey, you can pay me what you like. It's that simple. Some will pay more, and some will pay less, but I think I'll have enough to get by. I'd like to think that I'm a decent enough tutor that they'll recommend me to their friends such that I get more students, and before long I'd be self sufficient. (That reminds me, a friend of mine that I met during army re-service is opening a tuition center. Maybe I could find work there first.) My philosophy is that people will pay me what they can afford, or what they think I'm worth. If I'm worth jackshit, then okay, I'll go back to university and get that degree. I just don't see how getting that degree as gonna make me worth any more.
I'll also coach gymnastics here and there. I guess I'd be working with kids a lot. Maybe it's because kids don't give you so much shit. But like I said, they can pay me what they think I'm worth. If they don't like me they can find another tutor. Anyway gymnastics for kids is pretty straightforward. Just make sure they don't kill themselves while they play. That's it with regards with supporting myself.
While I'm not teaching, I'd like to read books, play the piano, do gymnastics (my coach lets me train for free by the way, big plus!), learn judo, churn out exercises for my students to practice. Maybe even learn more physics and computing from online courses.
I think I'm queer. Or does every person feel this way about school, except that they can't find a way out of it? Maybe it's just me, being weak, unable to take the pressure of deadlines. I don't know why I'm putting myself through this, and paying the university for it. Will it make me stronger? Probably. I could sideline my other hobbies and put my studies as a top priority. Will it make me stronger? Actually I'm not so sure. I don't think I'll grow much as a person like that. I don't think I'll learn much more than some mathematical curiosities and structures. I don't think I'll be living.
I want to put things into perspective. If I were diagnosed with cancer today, would I want to spend the rest of my life doing hardcore mugging, or making an impact on others?
Maybe I can juggle my time and balance both. Really? With all these deadlines piling up, I hardly believe so. I'm gonna end up shutting everything out just to clear those assignments and reports. I don't know what I'm doing.
Anyway, here I am blogging, because I don't want to keep unloading my negativity on my friends and sister. I'll just unload it here. Listening to the Luv(sic) hexalogy makes me feel so real. And chill. It makes me want to relax and enjoy every moment of life. So chill, in fact, that I don't feel very worried about my mid-terms next week. I guess that's what triggered this whole angst towards my studies. Is it? I don't really care about my grades anymore. So I ask myself,
if I don't care about my results, what the hell am I doing in the university? I should be out there living. "The university is for learning." No it isn't. Maybe it used to be, but that's not the case now. Now it's just another separating machine for society: to churn students through it and squeeze them out layer by layer, the good, the bad and the dropouts. I could be learning - outside, on my own time, at my own pace.
I hate society. Do I? I hate cruelty. Am I cruel? I guess. Sometimes. Why? Maybe I just want to be alone, I dunno. I don't think so.
I have work tomorrow at 10am. It's almost 3am. I better head to bed.
I don't know why I'm feeling this way.
Maybe it's a dose of reality. Life seems so empty. I think I'll get tired of everything one day, my books, my piano, my sports. What will happen then?
???
Just enjoy the moment. Just enjoy the moment. Just enjoy the moment.
I think I'll just lie down and enjoy lying down.
I'm usually better after a night's rest anyway.
27 September 2013
Probably suffering from burnout. I remember that at the start of the semester I was so enthusiastic and hitting the books as early as 8am, all the way till lunch. After a quick lunch I'd be back at work. Now I'm having so much trouble just starting on my assignments. Maybe if I manage to get over this initial inertia and get started I'd be alright.
But I still feel so unmotivated.
School seems so meaningless to me. I don't feel like I'm learning at all.
On the other hand, I found a new song yesterday night,
Luv (sic) part 5 by Nujabes and Shing02. Great song, touching as hell. Doesn't put me in the right mood for work though. Makes me feel a little bit melancholic.
This too shall pass, but reality bit, it says not so fast.
Ok I'll go take a look at my work now.
23 September 2013
Last Friday, I went to a gathering held at a villa at Resort World Sentosa. It was very posh. I'm amazed that one of them would actually book the place and volunteer it for the Mid-autumn festival celebration. Anyway I went there late in the evening, because I was stuck in school working on some laboratory experiment. The best parts of the evening were - eating the mooncakes, learning how to juggle three balls (I can do it for about 7-8 throws before dropping everything) and also hearing my friend share about his life (late at night). Actually everything pretty much happened late at night, later at night and really late into the night.
I didn't sleep.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that my friend juggled fire torches as a performance for us. Real cool.
The next day I shared a cab home with my friend and then I showered and grabbed my jeans and left for school with just my wallet and my phone to do a poster presentation in school. The bad part about it was that people trickled by one-by-one and we had to explain the poster non-stop. This meant we couldn't really go around looking at other posters. The worst part was that I forgot almost everything about the theory behind the experiment so I had trouble answering some of the more technical questions. Thank god my friend was there. Anyway we left promptly at 12 and trashed out poster just outside the room. Not very nice but I've reached the stage where it doesn't really matter anymore.
In fact, though I have to do a lot of catching up this week, I spent the morning looking at snails on St John's Island, the afternoon sleeping, and the night doing gymnastics instead of my work.
Oh, my friend shared about his experiences with the supernatural world, and he's a really genial fellow, so even though I'm skeptical about these things, I'm quite convinced that he ain't making up stories here. Being able to see spirits. What an ability. Anyway some part of me is saying that maybe he is imagining these things and convincing himself it's true, so I asked him how he knew what he was seeing was real. He told me that he checked with people who could see spirits like him, and their information corroborated. Interesting approach. There's always the possibility that there was some mass hallucination going on. Anyway, I still don't discount the possibility that spirits are real and around us. I just will believe it when I see it, kind of thing.
Surprisingly, another friend there also had supernatural encounters, one where he witnessed his grandmother being possessed on several occasions. Anyway, all these stories reignited my interest in the supernatural again.
Why am I so interested in the supernatural? Spirituality for me is like a moral compass. It tells me what is right and what is wrong. If there's no such thing as spirituality, what the hell is my consciousness for? Nothing, really. I can just ignore it and listen to my basal instincts. Spirituality is like a higher calling for me to grow bigger as a person.
Yea right. Actually I think it's very exciting and very cool to explore all aspects of existence. I would try hallucinogens if I had the chance (and didn't have the threat of capital punishment constantly looming over me.) Open up my consciousness.
Being a good person was more or less instilled into me since young by my family and formative years in secondary school. Though my idea of what is taboo and permissible has shifted and blurred over the years, the main principles of compassion and living out my potential has still stuck with me.
Precisely because I want to live out my potential that I want to explore every secret hidden in the crevices of the universe so much. Which of course, includes the supernatural. If it exists.
17 September 2013
I think that it's kind of sad that I don't have any life ambition. I told my dad that I'm going to fade away and be a normal person leading a normal life. By normal I mean mediocre. Plain. Boring. I don't think I'm gonna achieve anything great in life, other than being great at bumming around.
I think I'm quite comfortable with living from hand to mouth, day by day. But, what about taking care about my parents? Might I be able to depend on my siblings to do that job? When I talked to my friend about this, I got the impression that the only reason he was in university was to get a degree to ensure that he could secure a decent job to support his parents. Life and all its obligations really tie people down. I want to run away from it all. I don't want to be responsible for anything other than my own self. I just want to live free. When did I become like that?
I think it'll be pretty cool to tutor kids and coach gymnastics as a source of income. I don't mind doing those. Pretty fun, if you ask me. My mum says that I need credentials first in order to survive - no one is going to hire me. Actually I think people will still hire me. And if I'm good, they're gonna refer me to their friends. Honestly, I can teach better than my one of my professors in school. Teaching isn't about how highly qualified you are, anyway. Why are some people so blind?
Anyway, my dad laughed at me and asked me what I was and what I've done, implying that I was already a nobody.
15 September 2013
I should be viewing my quantum mechanics webcasts right now, in fact, I should have been watching the webcast for the past two hours or so instead of going to exercise, bathing, clipping my nails etetera. Then, nowadays, I simply do what I feel like doing at a given time. And now I feel like blogging.
My birthday has come and gone. I don't feel any different, but I guess that's to be expected, seeing as to how indifferent I am to special days. The past two weeks has been stranger than most of my life though. I realised that I'm ready for a new relationship, that I'm just waiting for the right person to come along.
Also, I intended to write longer than this, but I got caught up with reading a synopsis of a movie, and now I feel like there really isn't a point in blogging. For some reason I have Ordinary World by Duran Duran playing on repeat.
I think I'm trying to find meaning where there isn't any. I think I'm trying too hard. I think I'm trying too little. Why do I feel so ambivalent? Why do I feel nothing at all?
I think I am becoming a ghost, fading away into obscurity. Not that I mind. Do I? Maybe I do.
"I'll see you soon, then."
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