I am very irritated.

I know its silly to be awake at 5AM. Added to the fact that I'm crashing orientation tomorrow, I really should be getting to sleep. But I am very annoyed with some people, to the point that whenever I close my eyes imaginary arguments run through my mind, and I find myself searching for truths that will hurt these people the most.

Betrayal is betrayal, wherever you find it. By betrayal I mean pretending to be on my side and then doing the opposite. I cannot believe that I wanted to trust these people - the utter stupidity of it all is more insulting than any other damage my reputation could suffer. I am hurt not so much by the divulgence of this, but rather the people who divulged it - people who not too long ago persuaded me that they could be trusted, that they were my friends, and that they would never do anything to jeopardize what I have now.

I have nothing else to say. I just hope I will not have to wade through a pack of lies tomorrow before I can assess the extent of damage and find out just exactly who is liable.

Goodnight.

Oh dear it's been so long since I've last blogged.

There's been so many things to do, I haven't had time to sit around the house and mope enough to come up with an entry!

Oh well tough.

Time is a great deadener. People forget, get bored, grow old, go away.

-Jeanette Winterson

The chapter Deuteronomy in Oranges is perhaps the most comprehensive chapter in any growing up book. Who would've thought that the Nature Of Time would be a concern in the developing stages of teenage puberty? But Time is important. How we make sense of the past dictates our identity - how we force fit it until it looks the way we think it is. In one over-arching chapter she touches on Identity, Voice, and Sexuality.

But this is not a Winterson review. Allow me to expound on my half-assed thoughts on the past. Its nothing new, I know. But they are significant to me this period.

The fact is that the past is a nebulous thing. Airy, gassy, ethereal. The events of the past do not have any real shape, they do not take form and press down on our memory. No, all we are bound to in our reimagining of the past is the physical objects that we are surrounded by.

And even then what are those? Inanimate objects - no mind, no voice. One may say, for example, that an empty glass of water is proof of the previous event of me drinking it, but who is to say the glass was not empty in the first place? Who is to say it was not someone else who drank it?

The person who saw me drink it. We then establish a very important point - the past is dictated by humans, making sense of the objects around us.

Those with minds bend the past to their will all the time. We choose to forget, we choose to remember, we choose to add siginificance, exaggerate, play down. Our power to do this is limited, of course, by the number of people who would oppose our will. If twenty people saw me drink the glass of water, for example, it would be hard for me to say otherwise.

And so in public events, the past is dictated by the collective will of the majority. But what of the private events then - what of those events that occur between two people, what of those events that occur within ourselves?

A question that has always haunted me (and I'm quite sure many others), was that if we were able to tamper with everyone's memory, would we then have the power to change the past? A useless philosophical question, no doubt, since it would be impossible to tamper with everyone's memory. But in the private context it takes on a damning importance.

I know this is old, but the fact is that everyone sees an event differently. When I say the collective will of the majority, then, I mean an averaging out of all the different perspectives. Some may have thought I drank the glass of water quickly, some may have thought I took forever - but all would agree that I drank it. The averaging out of perspectives is what goes on in history books, in diaries and records. "Seraphically free from taint of personality", to quote EM Forster's The Machine Stops.

An event that everyone sees holds no special meaning for me, just as a lecture that everyone agrees on holds no meaning for Kuno. I am not interested in this.

But when events occur between two people - that is where it gets complicated.

I believe that the reason why people often tell others their deepest darkest misdeeds, is simply to establish a stronger hold on the reality s/he perceives has happened. Because the deepest darkest misdeeds hold the most significance for us - the past of the event is elaborately crafted purely by our mind, and our mind alone. In our exposition of this event, then, to a trusted friend or confidante, what we really do is enforce the reality of the situation - we try to make our version the averaged perspective.

But why this insecurity?

Because events that happen between two people are terrifying. They are terrifying because they could very well not be happening - an event that you choose to deny, and I choose to deny, could very well not find its way into the world's averaged perspective. If I drank the glass of water with a good friend, I could persuade him to agree not to tell anyone that I did. Assuming I succeed, the glass of water could very well have been empty for all eternity.

People do not like this, of course. My friend is not likely to cooperate. because to bend the past to your will is an exhibition of power - no one likes to know that you're getting your way all the time.

Every event that happens between two people spawns two realities, assuming that these two people have minds. From these two realities, one reality will make it into the averaged perspective, the collective consciousness of the world. This one reality will be the product of the power clash between two realities, the product of the two people making sense of the event. The one with the stronger mind will have more influence to bend this event to their will, of course, the weaker, less.

The reality that enters the collective consciousness is a bit like a baby - it is these two people's contribution to the world. It is showered with love in the same way parents dote on their child as well - in order to gain attention from it.

So the fundamental insecurity over our grip on the past is understandable. Love is a zero-sum gain. If I love you, more than someone else, it is as good as saying I do not love this someone else. Milan Kundera illustrates it in Immortality, I'm too lazy to drag out the anecdote. Suffice to say though that the addition of "more than someone else" is superfluous - superfluous to the point that it betrays the speaker's euphemisms.

And so people will fight over the past, they will gossip, squeeze it into history books, write diaries, letters, videotape and snapshot. Ultimately we want to derive love from the world through our contribution to it. Private events are our babies - that is its significance. From birth, parents fight over what they want their babies to become when they grow up and go out into the world, they say he has the father eyes, the mother's chin, etc. etc. In the same way our perspectives on an event are coloured by our wills - our will to bend the world into the shape we desire, be it utopia or dystopia.

GOD SOME PEOPLE ARE SUCH WORMS.

I think I've said this many times

The most important line in Eternal Sunshine of the Mind is -

"Okay."

It has been a very strange birthday.

Thank you, all of you.

I know I should have more faith.

But as the day drags on the magnitude of this blunder just weighs down on me. I'm very scared. I'm scared of losing all of you.

It isn't a good time to feel dread.

Hmm I just woke up

OH rats. Must toddle down opposite for lunch again.

I am very fedup.

Perspective is an amalgam of interests, nothing more. People only see events in a certain way, from a certain angle, because it interests them that way - perspective is delusion.

I don't want a perspective. I want to know the truth, independent of people's interests, including my own.

Show me.

OMG!

Kingdom Hearts II AND FFXII will be out this winter!

OMG!

The number of holy symbols has increased dramatically in my house. I woke up from my nap today and found another crucifix on the living room table, and a prayer embroidery along the corridor.

I believe my mother is trying to exorcise my demonic presence.

Hmm. My mother is vicious, indeed. I have a sore throat, and every dish on the table has copious amounts of chilli in it.

I suppose it is no secret that I am arguing with my family again, seeing how I stormed into school in very attention-grabbing civvies grumbling very loudly about how I got pseudo-thrown out of the house. (By pseudo, I mean that they will probably call me at night and ask when the bloody hell I'm coming back home, so it's not really counted). I swear my mother is a loony-bin sometimes - women, in general, are irritatingly menopausal twits.

On a side note, I really wish that people wouldn't ask me things like "eh don't you hate your mom" or tell me to report her etc. etc.

Every family interacts in different ways. To quote Leo Tolstoy, "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Since not many families can claim to be happy, it thus follows that most families are unhappy, and hence unhappy in their own way. When you put four people together under the same roof for 18 years, the amount of contact and interaction is simply too much for all four to be happy. Heck, we have trouble finding lifetime happiness between two people, what more four?

But in the same vein, the 18 years has developed a system of interaction, a framework in which all four of us work to minimize the unhappiness as much as possible (Or to maximise the happy moments, but I feel pessimistic today). Me running into school and grumbling and whining is really part of this system of interaction - my mother knows, to some extent, that I have featured her as the Evil Witch Of The East amongst my friends. She accepts it, just as I accept that she will always be a crazybitch at times. In the same way, I accept that they will always impress upon me the fact that I owe them a living, and I accept that they will always pull this up when I argue with them. It cannot be helped, this is how it has always been done. The children will argue, the children will lose, the children will go out and cry boo-hoo.

Admittedly I have been unfair to them, demonizing them does little justice to the care and concern that they have, at times, shown me. Unfortunately, care and concern is never really appreciated by the children. As my mother often says (in hokkien), "sometimes feeding dog is more worth it than feeding children." It is a hokkien proverb - I think that in itself should say something about the system of interaction in most chinese families.

I hope you see that at the end of the day, all this childish provoking of each other is simply a time-worn drama that we have been playing out all our lives.

So I really wish people wouldn't ask me to hate her or report her or do other things that would tear down this delicate framework. I'm aware that this would appear to be the logical thing to say, but it simply shows that they don't understand. To do so would truly be ungrateful - not just to the effort my parents have spent bringing me up, but also to this constant system of interaction that we can always fall back on. You may have different ways of interacting with your family, and in the same vein so do I. If I don't stand on the moral perch and go "tsktsktsk" at my mother, I don't see why you should either.

Sigh I wish Suwee were here. She'd understand.

Randomly,

I don't think anyone can claim to fully speak either the language of self-sacrifice or self-interest. Some of us lean to either side now and then, but I honestly cannot believe that anyone thinks absolutely in either terms.

Oh no!

Maplestory is down!




Oh no!

I'm running out of distractions.

What is this sudden influx of jap-trance on puroeuro.com?! There's this song that goes Du-Du-Di-Da-Du-Du-Di-Du?!

Nevermind it sounds quite trashy, I like.

I am also slightly distraught that they won't play trance at onyx for post-prom. But I suppose, for the Greater Good, some personal sacrifices must be made.

Oh well. Cooped up at home studying and reading books in-between. Reading John Sloman Economics 4th Edition, attempting AJC Math Paper 1, Copying out Home Burial and reading Old Man and the Sea. Sounds very productive, yay.

Du-du, Di-Da!

You know when you write testimonials, characters blend into each other, and sometimes it feels like you're writing about yourself.

Or maybe I'm just Kookoo.

Any old how! Prelims have been encouraging, although not spectacular. Under the perhaps presumptuous assumption that my Lit is an A, (which pwns that livejournal-intellectually-pretentious-loser upside down nyeheheheheheheh) the grades that sit in the bag are now ABBC. Which is nice, but can be nicer, of course.

To the two J1s, good luck for promos and go get those As! Or Bs. Whatever. You shouldn't be reading this anyway you should be studying.

Life has been - what do you girls call it again? - Peachy, as of late.

Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love
Maeks teh world go round!

Public Statement: I am ambivalent towards my results.

All too often, I want to be the knight in shining armour.

Unfortunately, I tend to come across as the damsel in distress.

Oh well. Two-for-one lover for hire.

I don't understand how anyone can love rainy days.

How do you appreciate the gloominess that comes as thunderclouds gather? As they block out the blue sky, garnering darkness that becomes so oppressive it weighs down on the trees, birds, edging in on everything, rushing towards the inevitable point: self.

The rain comes and the cold, the cold. Being caught in the rain is all fine and dandy, the feeling of submitting oneself to the elements. But in your four-walled apartment, when the chill enters the room and the flip the switch for the florescent light, while the rain is outside tapping on your window. The chaos outside, trees dancing in a wild frenzy, flowers tossed by the wind, the man-made landscape in a rebellious fit of vitality.

You, inside. Cold, and alone with your dry desk and an empty picture frame.

When it rains, the heavens part and shed life-giving sorrow to the land. But I feel more isolated, more alone. I can only sit at the window-ledge, knees tucked in, and gaze wistfully outside.

The cold, the cold. It oozes through your every pore and sets in your bones, reminding you that your body alone is not enough to keep you warm.