Friday, July 29, 2005

and one more academic week zoomed past me, one week closer to my Preliminary Examinations, and in the most pessimistic form of expression, one week lesser for me to do my revision. nothing much has been done since the post mortem, despite my extremely high level of awareness. been rushing tutorials, tutorials, tutorials, and blindly attempting some questions that i always thought i had no problem doing(but turned out otherwise). sigh!

im so gonna whine again. recently i spoke, over dinner, to a friend whom ive not known for a very long time. we've not really had such a nice chat before, so it was a kinda in the spur of a moment thing. i was really kinda surprised at the extent to which we share the same sentiments. almost every scenario, every feeling at every point of time that he described to me sounded familiar. and this only goes further to show that the person who's seemingly happy, noisy, cheerful and outgoing on the outside, could well be the most insecure, unhappy, troubled and sad on the inside.

it's just like a clown~ a clown performs for all of us, does really really really stupid things to make us laugh our evening away. that's because it's in a clown's nature to act stupid for the sake of entertaining his audience. behind that clown's mask, we can really never know how much sorrow there is, how much heartache, how much pain he might have gone through or might be going through. the clown's actions during a performance, is no less a facade than his mask and make-up and costume. people walk out of the performing theatre talking and joking over the clown's hilarious actions and stupid moves. it's remembered as a moment of happiness, but nobody really knows who the clown really is. time and again, the clown appears before different audiences, repeating his same old stupid acts, but never once looking tired. it's become so much of a nature, that whenever he goes on stage, he puts on a smiley face, a strong front, amidst tears that he painstakingly fought back.

at the end of the day, you feel stupid. because u did all u could, went all out, felt tired. everyone else feels happy, but you don't. they feel happy because you made them laugh. and everytime they see you, they assume a bubbly appearance would be coming from u, that is probably made up. but they don't know, and they don't care how insecure you are. they do things without considering your feelings just because you didnt say it out, for you care about how the whole group feels and will go to any extent to prevent any form of unhappiness.

but one day, you act a little differently from your "usual" behaviour, like suddenly keep quiet or something cos you really feel like settling down for once, people think you're seeking attention.

feels like an obligation to remain a clown for life, and everytime u see an audience, you must put up a brave front.

okay i sound whiny enough... sometimes it's really sickening to know that you feel this way. not that you wanted it, but yeah, it just comes and never goes.

Preliminary ExaminationS i love you. Hooray!

ok fine... peace out.

Long gone, the comfort i had before.
Never knew i would feel this way... sigh.
It really makes me vulnerable.

Monday, July 25, 2005

oh FUCK. fine. ignorant. ignorant. that's what people assume others to be. that's what everyone assumes me to be. u know one of those times where u go up asking ur friend how's he/she feeling and all? like

"hey, how come u so sad... why leh?"

and all? when ur own mood's already halfway off it's optimum? but you still keep that upset side of u to urself and muster up enough happiness to look happy enough to care for ur friend?

and here's what you get:

"nothing lah. u wont understand... hai."

"never mind...i'm ok. ha. ha."

"haiz.... long story.... but im not about to tell u... never mind me."

"i'm ok."

"sad? got meh? dun assume."

right, WHATEVER alright. so i'm some 3 year old kid who's not up to ur intellectual capacity to understand what you're goin thru ? im not really obliged to squeeze up my last bit of good mood to try to cheer u up okay, and i do so because i really care. so if you're about to take that for granted, so be it. oh! i forgot, im sorry. you didnt take it for granted. all u thought was just that "benny's not going to understand what im goin thru, so why tell him?"

never ever make a friend feel stupid. you either share ur woes with a friend who cared, or dun give that sulky face all day long and drag everyone into unknown depression.

just how much does it take?!

Friday, July 22, 2005

Been quite a few days since i last wrote an entry! and so since it's the beginning of a fruitful weekend (ie a friday night), i thought i'd just drop by blogspot.com to do an update. well technically speaking, i should be burying myself into structure of the placenta, the mammalian menstrual cycle, flowering plants, numerical methods, macroeconomic policies and problems, and perhaps biochemistry. but well, a little rest aint detrimental to my revision schedule...yeah right. denial.

it's been a torturing few days, trying to keep up with tutorials and the revision schedule at the same time, which apparently is not workin out for me. as the whole world gets hyped up about the nearing GCE 'A' Level examinations, i'm beginning to feel the pressure on me to really start studying. sigh. i seriously need to realise that my life, yes my whole life's gonna probably be affected by this very A level results. but as always, no amount of awareness seems to be able to overthrow procrastination.

But this is what ms choo(my temporary civics tutor) wrote on my mid yr result report: Benny is a sensible young man who has a positive work attitude. He now needs to intensify his efforts, consolidate his learning and reprioritise to spend his time more wisely. He has the potential to excel and must now find it within himself to make that commitment to work towards success.

What a nice way to put things! she made it sound like there's still hope. maybe there is... yup. there is, as long as i put in a bit of effort everyday to step up my revision. =)

ive kinda run out of things to blog about already. maybe i should turn into A levels mode and go into a hiatus like what all my seniors seem to have done during their A levels period.

sometimes it's really amazing how a god given thing like "feelings" let human beings enjoy the many many moments of happiness in life, making life so much more meaningful. but it's also this very same thing, "feelings", that seems to be the reason for human beings' emotional suffering, and ultimate pain and misery. who said life doesn't turn out to be like tv serials? it's almost as dramatic, i.m.o... interesting how life becomes drama-mama.

i hope a junior of mine's feeling alright from all that depression.

i hope fabian's feeling better now... he must be really stressed out by everything from mid yrs to council to band to class.

"Band Number 4.......Meridian Junior College......GOLD!"

Work hard, benny.

Sunday, July 17, 2005
g

I just watched this short movie on channel 8 acted by some local actors, Angel Heart, as sponsored by the Spastic Children Association School (SCAS), neighbour of MJC.

The story was about this couple who were florists and they gave birth to a daughter who had a heart defect at birth, and a son who was autistic due to lack of oxygen in the brain at birth. Storyline progressed, showing how they lived together as a happy family, and the older sister An-an, taking care of the autistic younger brother Cheng-cheng, who was psychologically behind other kids of his age.

There were chances that An-an's heart defect would recover on its own as she grew up, but it didnt. One day at school, some of her classmates made fun of her brother and in a fit of anger, she ran and chased them, wanting to stand up for her brother. She felt uncomfortable, as her heartbeat became highly irregular. A week or so later, she followed her father to the hospital to deliver a bouquet of flowers to a customer, where she caught a very high fever. At night, she started panting profusely, and the fever never subsided. She was admitted into A&E. Her heart dilation problem worsened. She required a heart transplant within 72 hours, or she could die of heart failure. But donors were rare... Her parents were devastated.

Cheng cheng, on the very same day her sister was admitted into the hospital, ran out of the house on his little tricycle, without the usual supervision from her sister. At the stairway, his tricycle rolled down the stairs. In a state of anxiety, he tripped over the first step, and rolled down the stairs as well. His head hit the ground; it was a very very bad hit. Cheng cheng went into a state of coma, as the blood clot was buried deep within his cerebral hemisphere, and an operation to remove it would mean a success rate of less than 10%.

The scene where the mother was between her two children on the ICU beds was very very depressing. She was crying SO badly, faced with a situation of having both children born with defects, and facing with the decision to give up Cheng cheng to use his heart for transplant onto An an.

That was what they did eventually, on the 2nd day, when An an's situation got very very bad and Cheng cheng's ECG registered a sudden low in the heart rate.

Of course, during the show there were many events that occured to strengthen the story line but it'll be too difficult to type them all here. Man, i almost cried watching that show. I put myself into the parents' shoes, and tried to imagine how i would have felt if i were the father or the mother at that very point in time. They blamed nobody except themselves for bringing the 2 children into this world, for inflicting such pain and unhappiness on them. They never regretted givin birth to them, but were afraid that the cheng and an would hold it against their parents.

One of the last few scenes was the couple preparing a little flower basket and laying the coffin with flowers, and a balloon full of Cheng cheng's pictures, preparing the death bed for their beloved son. The mother looked so tired and sad, crying silently to herself. It must have been really really painful, to prepare your child's death bed. Can you just IMAGINE that? i can't.. it's too difficult to.

From these, ive seen how precious children can be to their parents; how the parents live in much much more agony when children are injured or unwell; how painful and devastating it is when faced with a decision to give up one child to save the other; how much parents go all out to love their children. I kinda got THAT close to how our parents feel when we're injured or ill. It's really very very strong, i should say, but we seldom notice it because they don't show it. They need to be there to calm us down and tell us that it's alright, when they're probably 1 million times more anxious and worried than us. They'd definitely hope that the person injured or in bed are themselves instead of us.

Love our parents more, while we still can. And let's all be happier about life, cos we're mostly not born with serious birth defects, and we've got loving parents, and we've got a school to study in, and we own many things that perhaps many people in different unseen corners of even Singapore will never even get to own in their lives.

Love, such a wonderful thing. Be it parental love, family love, or mutual love between people, it always seems to be the best thing given to human beings. but it's also always the thing that creates misery and pain that're often unbearable.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

I picked myself up from everything people left me with last year. i told myself i wanted nothing of that to happen again because i needed to feel happier in school.

i tried. and i tried. and i tried.

but i failed, terribly. again.

"Feel happier..."
"Don't be so upset lah..."
"Talk to me if you need to..."
"Cheer up!..."

how much more stupid can these phrases get? don't even try saying them to a friend. because you're seen as ignorant, and lousy, and nonsensical. you don't know what's going on. you try to act smart, and you end up feeling all stupid.

and YES, you ARE ignorant. because half the time you don't know that everything is nothing but a pack of lies.

if you ever take pride or pleasure in making someone else feeling worse off, think again. in simple english, this is being extremely selfish, inconsiderate, unthoughtful and harmful.

quit trying... it's useless.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

2 seats away.

Emptiness, the feeling,my heart will hold.
Like a pail without water,a house without a soul.

This is a poem writing of my pain,
a person living this life in vain.
I'm your son hiding my depression,
your brother making a good impression.
I'm your friend looking like i'm fine,
but a wisher wishing life now weren't mine.
I am a boy who wants to fly,
a teenager pushing tears aside.
I'm a student who doesn't have a clue,
your good friend who wants to sit next to you.
I'm the one asking you to care,
your best friend hoping you'll be there...

time and again things HAVE to turn out this way.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

I was halfway through my November 2002 Biology paper when i decided to take a break. happened to see that CD tucked away in the sleeve of my organiser for a long long time. it was labelled "Band SYF 2005", and i remembered somewhere in time mr kelvin tan passed it to me.

it was a collection of pictures taken by the college photography club on the day of the presentation of our SYF pieces to the school. there were pictures of the whole band, some sections, some group photos and some soloists.

this picture brought back so much memories, again, like how the sodium ions rush into the axoplasm when the gated sodium channels are open during depolarisation. was all so fast. so i sat down and read my blog archives of january this year, the post 2 days after Juxtapose! and i saw yet more pictures. i smiled to myself as memories got pieced together in my mind. it was all so enjoyable, fun, beautiful, magical. what would life in mjc have been without these people? without trumpet section, without the exco, without AGA.

time flies really quickly. (damn i feel so handicapped. if only i can blog in chinese!) i yearn for nothing, except that we'll spend our very last moment in our jc life together, in Genting! i really hope everyone's going.

it's amazing how a little thing like that made my night ten times happier.

thanks.

Somewhere back in memory i heard some story about the candle.

Ever wondered how a candle feels?

Isn't it painful, with that fire burning it's body away into dripping wax, light, heat and nothingness?

It's manufactured to perform this function so i think it doesn't mind being burnt.

But how many of us will understand how the candle feels after it's burnt out? Lost? useless? unappreciated? weak? inferior. because when the candle burns out, the light bulb takes over. and how will a candle compare to a light bulb in terms of brightness...

Like a precious diamond when they needed you.
But nothing more than a speck of dust when they no longer need you anymore...

Everytime it happens, i feel the same way.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

I'm feeling a mixture of melancholia and sadness now, for whatever reason.

===============

There was this once, Little Ben walked into this toy store and saw a really really nice toy car. It had really beautiful wheels and nice blue doors. Little Ben was never interested in toy cars, but this toy car was really nice. Little Ben wanted it so much! Then the price tag caught his eye, and it said "$15.00". He set his mind on buying that toy car and so he reached into his pocket for the week's pocket money; his heart thumping against the material of his school uniform, part of him praying hard that he'd have enough money to afford that toy car. He was prepared to forgo lunch for the week just to get that toy car.

Just then, Little John came into the shop. Little John was Little Ben's schoolmate, and he was tall, good looking, popular, and most of all, rich. That gorgeous toy car obviously caught Little John's attention too. And so Little John stood looking at the toy car. In less than 5 minutes, Little John called for the shop assistant, paid a 20 dollar bill as if he had an abundance of 20 dollar bills, and walked out of the shop with that toy car happily. Stout Little Ben stood rooted to the ground, filled with jealousy, holding $9.60 in his right hand, watching Little John leave the shop. His left hand was desperately digging into his pocket for more shillings, but to no avail. Little Ben fixed his eyes on the rack again, after Little John disappeared from sight.

But the toy car was no longer there.

"He's bought the last one already! We only had 15 of this limited edition toy car. So you might want to look at other toy cars, my boy?", says the shop assistant.

But Little Ben knows that he'll never like other toy cars anymore.

===============

Sometimes you just don't get the better things in life... but everything's not going well for me. They say, once you've reached the worst part of ur life, it can go no where but upwards. Theoretically speaking this IS sound. but it's the length of the down part of your life that matters.I look back at my life, and i realised that ive accomplished nothing at all. I've never been able to rule a department well, learn music properly, explain things well, lead a life without lies, make good friends, get good grades, perform my duties well, sing, draw, be a good listener, be a responsible councillor. NOTHING at all. I've felt inferior and lousy all my life. I know it's bad but i just can't seem to do anything about it. I cant even organise my thoughts properly and talk to people i wanna talk to. I blabber nonsense like some unserious asshole. So nobody will trust me for the rest of my life. I want to help, but i'm always blamed for helping wrongly.

How many of you really know what i've gone thru in in my teenage years?

All the best for Parent Teacher Meeting. smile.

Friday, July 08, 2005

And it's my first day back at school after the 2 day MC, all's well and no signs of running a temperature, though i still have a slight eye ache around the ciliary muscles area. sigh. i'm glad it's not developing into any more post secondary symptoms of viral infection. and i certainly hope that im excused from the blood test already.

sat thru for the last hour of mjcsb's first rehearsal after the mid yr examinations and i thought "Noah's Ark" didnt really turn out that bad, considering the fact that they've had nothing but books and lecture notes for the past 3 weeks or so. i see the leaders trying their very best to keep the band together and getting everything started and going. not an easy job, i would say... so all the best to them =)

i realised that there are certain things, once they're gone, they're really gone. no matter how hard you try to get it back, how much effort you put in to salvage the situation, how often u try to re-enact the scenarios, how far you go to try to relive that kind of feeling and emotion, it will be to no avail. because people change, and people meet new people at different points of their lives. and at every point of their life, they feel strongly for different groups of people. and everytime they move to to a next point, it seems difficult to feel similarly strongly for the previous group of people. i wonder if life works this way... nevertheless, there's still a part of me that believes in something called initiative, and that initiative will keep people together.

these thoughts were really random... as i'm reduced to nothing but one who grumbles all day long about everything and anything. hmmm i shall quote somethin from my previous blog someday and expand on it. but it all seems so meaningless now...

Thursday, July 07, 2005
New Skin

It seems like new skins are on the hot now... heh, so i decided to change my 1000 yr old skin. this new one's a little simpler compared to the previous one. frankly speaking, i dun exactly LIKE this skin, probably cos i'm so used to the old one. but yeah, nothing new comes if the old doesnt go. quite nice for a change.

hope u guys will like it. =)

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

It's been a few days since i last typed an entry after the exams... so i thought i should do some updating, the tagboard's losing life!

I've been kinda ill ever since the chemistry and the maths papers on tuesday, having consistent eye aches and intermittent fevers. And so the doctor says "Benny, all you need is a good rest. let's see... you shall take the next 2 days off from school and sleep well at home. Let's all hope that this is a common viral fever, cos if you still feel too weak or tired to do anything after 2 full days of rest, then it's not so good....might require some blood test."

My goodness. BLOOD TEST. It's been so long since i last heard these 2 words. (recalling Dengue fever in primary 1). I remember vividly how that Tan Tock Seng doctor would threaten to put me on drips if i continued throwing out everything ive taken in; how the nurse would force me to eat fruit jelly cos i was too weak to eat anything else; how i broke the thermometer in the middle of the night cos my arm was too powerless to hold it in place; how i wished i could sleep and never wake up again cos it's SO painful... sigh. pray hard that it's not another one of those.

And the mid yr results are dashing at us with great force, like how the sodium ions would rush into the axoplasm during depolarisation, when the gated sodium channels open. Sadly, my seemingly (or self presumed) "best subject" which happens to spell B-I-O-L-O-G-Y, came back to me with nothing more than disapppointment. at least for paper 2. sigh~ and for chemistry and mathematics, it's almost hopeless i guess. Thankfully, something saved me from suicidal thoughts and that was Economics Paper 1 with a marked score of 25/30! **confetti*

and so, i spent my weekend fruitfully(ok not exactly) with some of the year 1s at suntec+marina. wasted time at swensens and had a whooping great time reliving my DDR days, only to realise how much stamina i've lost and how much i've deproved! i actually felt like puking after the 1st game, and had almost no energy to carry on playing. argh! i'm getting old. pictures soon to be posted, as long as i get them from huikoon.

and the wonderful youth day holiday was spent with my fellow, dearest yr 2 bandits. rickson, junyang, baolun, justin, juling and zheng hong! we had lunch at the marina square foodcourt, followed by games of pool and bowling at the newly developed entertainment storey @ marina. all that was followed by "Batman Begins", which happened to be quite a nice movie, apart from the fact that it had a really really long introduction. anyway, it was a really really fun day out. i wonder when's the next time we're gonna have an opportunity to go out like that again, throwing everything behind us and totally enjoying ourselves... sigh~

The five guys at the outing... from left to right: me, zheng hong, rickson, jun yang, justin...

And now with the girls Baolun and Juling in...

And this marks the start of a new school term, the end of long sleeps and periods of rest, the end of enjoyment. Term 3's gonna be the final lap to run before we arrive at the ultimate A levels. im definitely glad i've met these people in these 2 yrs of torturous education life... they've reduced the misery i would have faced.

Thank you...

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Attention CCHSM Band Alumni: Pls do check http://cchsmalumniband.squarespace.com for updates on the first Alumni band meeting... as updated by Cheng Xi. =)

Friday, July 01, 2005

And the war cries are over once again, and all you are left to hear, is the sound of the dead. Soldier Benny braves through the war, suffering from major burns and cuts.

I'll probably get the worse results for this mid yr exams, as compared to my march block tests, promotional exams and jc1 mid yrs. Shall not elaborate more, since it's all over... the hectic examinations season ended with Economics Paper 1 for me this afternoon. Finally, i do not have to sit in that cold college hall with my wind breaker, trying to force things out of my brain anymore. As it is, i'm already sick enough.

Oh well, i'm goin to sch tomorrow to help out with the notice boards, and after that im goin out to SUNTEC... miss DDR and those days. sigh~

peace out. check back again.