Hey. All this time I’ve been meaning to post something, anything. There were so many things to talk about! Can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted.

For one, I really wanted to write about about my family trip to Gold Coast, the numerous quarrels we had and the stuff I took away from it. It was really a Little Miss Sunshine moment there, with the rented car substituting for the yellow van. All that GPS, missing roads, lost signals and foggy windows caused so many arguments, yet bonded us so much closer. And I learnt how to read GPS haha.

And about my future! All those thoughts on uni and career stuff that I wanna unravel and organise in words, but never got around to.

Then there’s the cliche reflective note I wanted to do at the end of J2. It got pushed from last day of school to prom night to end of the year and… continues to be pushed. I don’t think I’ll ever end up doing it in the end, but that’s what this post is about.

After a meaningful, yet depressing msn convo I had last night, I’ve come to realise how closeness in relationships can bite, and continue to bite even after they end. The paranoia that comes with closeness is way unhealthy, and I now see that 10oclockgentleman was merely a product of that closeness.

Whenever I tried to post something recently, I kept delaying it and nothing ever came out of that. This blog wasn’t meant to document my life and my thoughts, no matter how much I want it to be. It was set up specifically because of influences from who used to be my very best friend and the density of posts over the course of two years is a pretty accurate indicator of my closeness to her. My posts waxed and waned with the relationship. I wanna keep this blog live in memory of that.

I’m not gonna portray myself as the victim here, I do acknowledge the (rather large) part I played in the death of a perfectly good friendship. But that’s not the point of this post. I just wanna conclude this chapter of my life, which so happens to coincide with my enlistment tomorrow D: Haha well that’s gonna be the next chapter I guess, one I would very much want to write with the lessons learnt from the previous one in mind.

These two years in JC have been a whirlwind and I would admit I was dragged by it. I grappled with issues tougher than anything I’ve ever experienced before and were plagued by emotions I never thought I would feel. Jealousy, rage, frustration, inadequacy, confusion, love, gratitude, joy, peace, the whole spectrum of the human experience. Well probably not the WHOLE spectrum. But it’s gotten me prepared for the future, for more of these issues and emotions on a deeper level and wider scale than what I’ve experienced so far.

I’ve certainly learnt alot from the friends I’ve made, and especially from you, V. Omg I don’t want to do the whole encryptic codenames (that’s lame man) but I can’t think of a better compromise. Anyway this is more of my own remembrance.

I’m enlisting tmr morning, 11.45am. It’s a brand new phase of life! I wouldn’t say I’m prepared for it, but typing this post definitely helped by clearing up excess thoughts from my head. So onwards I go. :)

TL;DR: And thus concludes 10oclockgentleman.

I felt super tired today and slept once i reached home so didn’t get to get any work done. Good thing wednesdays are slack, like really slack. Ms seah started gp class with “I was thinking that today we will do… nothing!” So we did. She’s still an awesome teacher but it does make you worry for your future gp grades…

And i am unsure of the future. I’m more lost now than i’ve been in recent years. Everything in the future seems up in the air. I dunno what uni course i can qualify for, what job i can secure, what friends i will keep, what my whole life has in store for me. Make no mistake, i know what i want. But as the philosopher Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want.

Reality bites down on you hard, and it is at this age when you emerge from the shell of the almighty Singapore education system and realise that you’re not prepared at all. Oh my mom actually noticed my uncertainty and recommended me a short sermon that she burned on a CD for me. That was nice haha. In fact i think God will be my only solution to this.

I used to have this impression that following God’s plan for your life takes all the fun out of it. You’ve only got one shot at life, why would you want to follow a walkthrough instead of playing the game and exploring every secret that life has to offer? But i’ve come to realise this: it’s exactly because you’ve only got one shot that you will want to follow the walkthrough. There’s no ‘last saved game’ to load.

And it’s not exactly restrictive either. I used to think that following a fixed plan, a certain ‘God’s will’, will suck the adventure out of life and kill it. Sure, there will probably be only one perfect course that God knows will fit you absolutely wonderfully perfectly, one perfect career path that was made for you, one perfect person you’re destined to fall in love with. But it’s navigating down that one perfect path, that’s an adventure in itself. God’s will is like a walkthrough you can only read one page at a time, which is pretty darn awesome cos i wouldn’t want to know how my life turns out before i live it.

Life is but an adventure, so i’m just gonna approach it headfirst and see what comes out of it. After all, uncertainty is just another word for adventure, right?

Okay no. Anyway this has been strangely therapeutic. I feel much better alr. Or maybe it’s the Glee. That was an awesome episode btw.

First post in 2 weeks hah. I don’t want to sour your mood so click for endless rambling. The following was written on paper just after my mom yelled at me. I don’t think anyone will read the entire thing, i know i won’t want to read it again. It’s like… i dunno, just that i feel strongly about this subject of film that my mom understands nothing about. I was never sure what course to take in uni, but i think.. i wanna aim for communications studies now. I’ll try.

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Just a quick break from mugging (in front of the com)

Let’s see what i have done today. Watched survivor finale for the 2nd time, watched american idol top 3 for the 1st time. Played this fun shooting game lol. That’s 5 hrs spent on the tv and 1hr spent on games oh no. This is not going well.

I’m betting all i have on unemployment and GDP coming out, especially unemployment, in an attempt to cut down on mugging time so i’ll at least have tmr to mug GP. Argh singapore policies are complicated.

Okay anyway on a side note, i was listening to random music on youtube (that’s why i’m mugging in front of the com) and i believe music can be very powerful. The chord progression can directly influence your mood, and when coupled with the right visual stimulus can be a way powerful tool. Music can drastically alter our moods, but most of the time i find myself specifically choosing music that will amplify my current mood. It’s almost as if the artiste understands your current feelings and stuff. That’s why i wanna categorize my music by mood some day, after common tests of course.

I can profess my love for rock music all day long but truthfully i can’t stand listening to purely rock every single day. I mean the foo fighters and ac/dc are awesome and all but sometimes i just want some pop or at least pop rock. Like those feel good tunes that play in rom-coms at the end and just make you happy. Plus i think pop music is sophisticating, especially with lady gaga. Her lyrics reflect the current generation’s attitudes and stuff and i do believe that her songs will go down as the voice of this current society. I didn’t really like the fame, but the fame monster is pure genius. That’s sophistication.

Anyway that’s not the kind of pop that i’m listening to now. On my playlist now is classic kelly clarkson, avril lavigne, mika and the fray. I can’t say i’m a fan of any of these artists but it’s refreshing to hear something lighter than my usual fare. Especially when i’m MUGGING.

K back to aggregate supply management policies.

Birthdays are interesting because they let you see who remembers and how much you mean to them. You get some people who you haven’t spoken to you in months suddenly wishing you a great day (no doubt thanks to facebook reminders haha. but that doesn’t diminish it any more than say, if you were reminded by your phone calendar. like me.) and then you also get some people who you thought would rmb your bday and actually do something about it, but don’t.

I’ve never received a birthday card before this year. No wait, it’s not that sad. I’ve gotten cards from groups of ppl before, but never from a single person. Well, i’m not the kind of person who would personally address cards to people too so i guess i can’t expect the same. But the first personal birthday card i’ve ever received came from someone i’ve overlooked and frankly, did not expect. Come to think of it, she’s been a great help in recent times, and she is a good friend. Thanks a lot nadiah! The card was nice and not-gay lol. I reallyyy appreciate it a lot! Which now makes me feel guilty for not writing you one…

I was actually expecting someone else to be that first person, but that’s life isn’t it? You never really do know what you mean to others. In the words of Jeff Probst, “The problem with trust is, (i’m sure coach will agree) you don’t know it’s gone until it’s too late”. So true.

Nevertheless it was still a pretty great birthday. I had dental in the early morning on the day so i decided to head straight home after that to slack. Which made for a really uneventful birthday, but it was still fun talking with ppl i would otherwise not have a chance to.

Thanks nissi salt 2! They got a bread and calculator for me HAHA, it was really cool! Thanks a lot you guys!

Went out with family on sunday for the traditional birthday lunch at swensens, which erupted into a massive argument. Depressing i know, but it was probably coming eventually anyway. I wasn’t involved in the quarrel btw. It died down after a while, hopefully it’s resolved by now. I dunno, i fell asleep shortly after the quarrel travelled home. It’s emotionally draining you know.

Yeah that’s about all i’ve gotta say about my 18th birthday. Sure it may appear rather dull and all, but i don’t usually do much on my birthday, just enjoy myself in simple ways, like the traditional family lunch which used to be quite fun. :)

Oh by the way, my water heater blew up yesterday! It was shortly followed by an impressive recreation of a horror movie soundstage, no shit. More on that soon. Why is my daily life such an adventure but my birthday not -.-

One thing i cannot stand is people ignoring smses.

Especially sincere ones that the sender expects a reply to.

Some form of acknowledgement of receipt of the message would be nice.

It doesn’t have to be long or fast.

Just do not disregard or dismiss me.

I just had my last orange session for the year.

Ok you know what, my last session was actually 4 days ago, but i was just too busy/lazy to do this post and now when i do wanna do it, i dunno what to write anymore.

Ah here this goes. Ok if you didn’t know, orange is this weekly thing that i do as part of interact club, where we go down to play with some kids and plan stuff for them occasionally.

I found this programme a real eye-opener, and i learnt a lot through it. I saw how innocent children can be. I saw how they can be yelling at each other one minute and hugging the next (and yelling again the following minute haha). I saw how positive and fun their outlook on life can be. I saw how naive they can be.

There was this pair of brothers, their father passed away from cancer recently and i don’t think they could fully understand it yet. They described his sickness, his passing on, their relatives’ reactions and tears so… naively.They didn’t understand why he didn’t have the strength hold the phone, why he didn’t have the breath to speak, why everyone else was crying.

They were obviously grappling with the concept of death and boy they were having a hard time. The younger one even had to be ASKED to cry. They refused to tell their classmates about his passing, simply because he was a “scary person” and they still wanted to use the name of that “scary person” to stop their classmates from doing bad stuff to them.

And yet, they had this certain honesty about them. They were surprisingly open about this and i think that’s the most crucial thing that children lose as they grow up, this implicit trust in people.

Everyone was a child once, and i believe no child was ever born bad or evil. Even the most hated person you see was once as innocent and pure as a child. Thank you orange (i know, weird. i think the last head of this scheme chose the name randomly) kids for showing me this and thanks you God for giving me this opportunity.

It is envy.

But i dunno why. After a whole week of House, i suddenly see everything reduced to something else. Like there is nothing simple anymore. Or rather, EVERYTHING is simple now.

Science has reduced emotions to logic. The inexplicable can now be broken down and accounted for, logically. I can analyze my feelings now and find out cause and effect. And i think that diminishes emotions and it just disgusts me. We just turn into machines.

Technology of today will seem like magic of the past, and emotions of yesterday are just dissected experimental subjects of tomorrow. Emotions make us human huh. But it is the mysterious unpredictability of emotions that make us human. Emotions give us that random element, that ‘ghost in the machine’, and we should keep it that way.

But somehow decontructing your emotions helps if you’re experiencing undesirable emotions. It helps to rationally explain something like say, envy, cos then you somehow FEEL like you’re in control of this thing.

And perhaps that is one merit of this newfound wizardry. We can choose to dissect only unpleasant emotions and retain the mystique of happy ones.

“It is a universal and most unfortunate aspect of human nature because not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but also wishes to inflict misfortune on others.”

It’s Thanksgiving today, or yesterday, and i’m thankful for many many many things this year. I think i’ve been rather ungrateful at times. Like at the DVD sale my parents and i visited today. I kept thinking what i could have instead of what i already had.

I think comparing what we have now with what we could be having spurs us on. Comparing what we have now with what we could be lacking helps us appreciate what we have and remain content.

The trick is balancing between the two ends of the spectrum. Contentment and ambition.

The more i learn and mature, the more i realise there are things out of my control.

Like i wouldn’t know what i would do without God. We’re like mice squabbling with each other, while giants look on. No, wrong, just one Giant. We’re like mice fighting over petty issues, while greater issues hang just overhead, with an even greater giant hanging over everything. And the mouse that prevails will be the one that knows the giant. There are so many things bigger than us, and we can’t see the full picture of everything.

I’m at the stage where i’m not wise enough to know all the answers, but not naive enough to think i will ever know all the answers. It is fast becoming apparent that no one person can solve, or even understand what this world throws at us. I’m beginning to recognise how unpredictable life is and how little i can do to change things.

So much is out of our hands, simply because they’re just too big to fit in them. I simply have no idea how to live without God anymore. Once you realise the enormity of the problems in this world, you’ve gotta turn to someone bigger. My parents made me realise this IS an imperfect world, and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact so suck on it, and turn to somone who can.

You know i find it hard to detect sarcasm sometimes. I can tell it fine in literature and stuff but when it comes at me on msn or in real life, it goes right over me and everyone else gets a kick out of laughing. Not that i mind of course, i just find it weird, like everyone else knows this secret code that i don’t. Sarcasm is supposed to be obvious! Or else it loses its impact, doesn’t it?

Please EMPHASIZE your sarcastic remarks. Steve Carell did an excellent job of it in Little Miss Sunshine haha.