i accidentally let the f-word slip yesterday at home. to my mum, no less.
i didn't mean to. i was reading the millenium trilogy and my threshold for vulgarities was way lower than normal.
besides, she did jab me in the knee with a pin.
right. i take back what i said about multiple personalities in different social contexts. they have obviously bled into one another in ways i have not forseen.
-
and now some cocksure old idiot has decided to take my letters to japan and send them off with 55 cents worth of postage when they have clearly been labelled "AIRMAIL".
thus increasing my propensity to shoot my mouth off with some of the more delightful swearwords in my arsenal. those letters meant something to me, you know?
essays don't count.
university is not teaching me how to think; it's teaching me what to think.
and i'm succumbing to it because i'm lazy and it's easy! headaches are caused by too much information instead of unfathomable processes.
there actually are right and wrong stands to take in ethical conundrums. ethics being reduced to mere facts and the application of those facts to situations is kinda sad.
while school provides interesting opportunities other than studying, everyone thinks alike (or seems to think alike, because i haven't entered into deep conversations with that many people. it takes the right occasion to cross the line).
that's where tembusu comes in: it's truly refreshing to talk to people from arts, science, engineering or computing and getting to know them personally in a setting where the goal is to simply have fun and not win something or work to produce something (even though that's satisfying too).
and it's great to be singing again; i feel like my other self has come alive.
giving a tour to japanese students tomorrow and i am so NOT confident about my japanese.
find me on facebook, i'm a camper now. but the silent, stalking observing type.
heh.
Even this does not begin to explain the complexity—for in real life, at least, most people change, at least subtly, when they are with different people. The changes can be pretty major—I remember well my summer as a performer at the Sundance Summer Theatre in Utah. I was a 19-year-old trying to convince myself and others that I was a man, so with the other performers I became at least as profane—nay, foul-mouthed and filthy-minded—as the most immature of them. I worked hard to develop some fluidity and cleverness in my vulgarity, and won my share of laughs from the others. Yet during this whole time I lived with my parents, coming down the mountain at insane speeds late at night, only to end up in a home where certain words were simply never said. And I never said them. Not once did I slip and speak in front of my family the way I spoke constantly in front of the other performers at Sundance. This was not by any herculean effort, either. I didn't think about changing my behavior; it simply happened. When I was with my parents I wasn't the same person.
I have seen this time and time again with my friends, with other family members. Our whole demeanor changes, our mannerisms, our figures of speech, when we move from one context to another. Listen to someone you know when they pick up the telephone. We have special voices for different people; our attitudes, our moods change depending on whom we are with.
- Orson Scott Card (Introduction to 'Speaker for the Dead')
an elegant solution to the search for identity.
the question to ask is not "which is the real me?", because all of them are!
then again, maybe i am only truly myself when i am with myself.
how many of us bare ourselves fully to the world when we deal with the people around us? there are sides of me even my family doesn't see but complete strangers do.
then, how far should we go? too much, and you might find your trust misplaced. too little, and you're a social misfit, or a plastic figure with a plastic smile.
it felt like flying. not just because i was whizzing past all the pedestrians, but because the decision to do so was so spontaneous and i was out of the door and on the road before anyone could say anything. it was liberating! exhilarating! an adventure!
i think i was being a little like one of those irritating cyclists who don't look where they're going and almost collide with people. or jostle for space on the sidewalk.
why have they not built those cyclist paths they were promising a few years back? D:
the country is an ideal one - so small you could bike from one end to another (with a little effort). yet it's one of the most dangerous countries to bike in, because everything's so cramped you can't go at full speed for more than 500 metres.
i wish i were in japan. or holland. where cyclists are widely accepted and not terrorized out of their wits by motorists.
the long wait ended on wednesday and everything falls into place. i think i'm just a very lucky ass.
suddenly, my life has direction for the next, oh, 15 years.
i've met many people who are concerned that i will come to regret it. well, i've made some really bad choices and i've lived with them without agonizing over them too much. every experience means something to me, and the more disastrous it was the more impact is has on how i live and handle my life. (and you can always brag about them years later when you're talking about incredibly stupid things you've done.) i don't think i ever seriously regretted going through them.
so i'll stick with this deal and see where it brings me. at best, it is perfect for me. at worst, i'll still have a place in society to do good work.
the ridiculousness of the bond is thrilling, in a way.
think of it like this: i won't have to make any more major life-changing decisions till 15 years later!
but yes, i am thankful.
-
anyway, i've been throwing myself into lots of new stuff these past months.
there was the 3/11 earthquake that brought me out from my comfortable apathetic shell; it was the first natural disaster that i watched so closely and felt so keenly for the people. (is it immoral to be so hugely biased?) i remember listening to TBS radio on the very first day when casualty reports were still trickling in - a few people here and there in tokyo - and then news came in that 300 bodies were found on the shore and there was a shocked, grim silence in the broadcasting room. of course, the numbers have soared far beyond that now, but the feeling of pain and loss at the time was equally acute.
被災された皆様に心よりお見舞い申し上げます。
yet i didn't have the courage to step out and help. i could only glue myself to twitter, as if being within the community of fear would make a difference. and argue with my family about radiation levels. pathetic. (i'm glad singaporeans weren't very caught up in sensationalist reporting. )
please continue to support japanese products and don't shun travelling to japan after the situation is resolved! (i hope it will be soon.) i believe that consumer confidence and tourism is what they need the most to bound back at this point, more than donations or messages of encouragement.
only the rest of the world can give them that.
-
then the elections came around. i stopped trying to think and feel like the japanese and found myself, for the first time, relishing being a singaporean. how come nobody told me elections were this exciting! if it had been in 2009 i wouldn't have struggled at memorizing all those political terms in GP; i learnt all of them in a week. again, twitter everyday (i have given up on facebook). i suppose the period was right with all the time on my hands to go for rallies and watch the news on TV.
i am looking forward to the next general election, but i will have to be in a different frame of mind altogether. i confess to spending most of the time laughing at the drama and finding my position on things instead of thinking about the real problems.
-
work is as usual and i'm knowing more and more people by the day. this period of time is the best, when you're getting to know people enough to not be strangers, but haven't been exposed too much to their annoying/ scary/ weird sides yet. i don't think i would have ever completely fit in, due to my age and status, but if i had stayed i could be working with a bunch of fun people who really know how to chill.
the project isn't making much headway, and while my supervisors hope i will be struck with some brilliant idea that saves the day, all i can work at daily is to share the workload.
-
something i just screwed up: electone. i missed the deadline to register for the exam. and i'm ending it here. (another item to add to my list of stupid things i've done.)
it's a huge waste and i am very sad about it, yet i was hanging on to it more for my parents than myself. maybe it's time to let go. but if i let go, what message am i giving myself?
what will keep me going on in everything else?
-
tuition. someone's grades in my hands. it's not just about my own future, now. it's nice to have something to pull myself out when i get too caught up in my own affairs.
progress is slow but I WILL SEE TO IT i swear.
-
also, i've been reading and reading and reading because this opportunity to read good books every single day will never come again. it's exhilarating to fall into the world of one book after another and from fiction to abrupt reality, in and out.
into orson scott card now, i highly recommend. the intensity his writing can achieve even when half the conversations are in ungrammatical or flat-out broken english is amazing.
and thank you to the people who have been pulling me to see plays and movies and joining all sorts of events. or just going out. it's unfamiliar territory sometimes, but i can tell you that i'm glad i went.
damn, i will miss these times.
-
i think i've changed a little.
but, probably, so has everyone else.
two more months of the best time in my life, where i am truly, completely free.
harry potter
artemis fowl
terry pratchett
philip pullman
a series of unfortunate events
the chronicles of narnia
neil gaiman
anthony horowitz
james patterson
eragon
dan brown
the doomspell trilogy
suzuki koji
the magister trilogy
tamir triad
Words
a letter and a letter on a string