Things are to be Used, but People are to be Loved.

So here's a little story my mommy showed me the other day... It's really kinda sad...

A man was polishing his car.
His 4 year old son scratched lines on it with a stone.
In anger the man hit the child's hand with a hammer...
And the child lost all his fingers..
The little kid asked "Dad, when will my fingers grow back?"
And the man was hurt and speechless.
He went back to the car and kicked it, and saw what the child wrote...

   

The Talk.

Time for Subject Combination decision-making session. So mommy and daddy asked me which programme I would like to be in, and I told them I really wanna get into the Humanities Programme. Then, as expected, they said, "But you want to be a doctor next time!" Isn't the triple science class a better choice? 

I know it doesn't make sense, an aspiring doctor taking a Humanities course. And I'm aware of my impracticality, but you know what? People always say, 

I know I only live once. And I wanna do it right. Well that doesn't mean that I've gotta take all the right routes and make all the right choices. At the end of my life, I wanna look back and proudly say that I lived my life, had a few regrets, laughed and cried, but much more than this, I DID IT MY WAY. 

Right now, so what if I wanna take on the Humanities programme and still be a doctor in the future? I know this is too much of idealism, being able to juggle all the work, but you see, what if this is the way I want it to be? I mean you never know if you never try. 

Mommy and daddy always told me to be who I am, but now, you are contradicting yourselves. Y'all are good people, I know, and I know too, that you want the best for me, but I want to tell you, 

Mommy, Daddy, 

the best thing that you can do for me, 

is to let me do what I want,

even if it's not the best way to get to where I want to be. 

Cuz only then, 

will I look back and 

thank you for what you did. 

Maybe you guys don't want me to fall, maybe you guys want me to get to the top ASAP, or maybe you guys just don't want me to be worn out. But see, you guys changed routes too. Mommy, you were once working in the TV industry in Hong Kong, being in the spotlight of every night's news. Daddy, you said when you were in university, you wanted to be a computer scientist. But look at y'all now, not doing what you intended to do, but still doing ever so well, being head of department in a top secondary school and president in a specialised school in university... 

You see, all roads lead to Rome. It doesn't mean that if I take on what I like now, I won't be able to do what I want to do in the future... I don't know how, but I know that someday, I'll get there. And I'm not saying that I wanna fail and give up, nor am I saying that I want to waste my time and energy before getting what I really want, but what I'm trying to tell y'all is that I wanna experience this whole thing by myself, not by listening to how you both fought through university and debated with Granny and Grandpa about your future careers... 

So in the end, we left this matter unresolved. But you guys were nice people, like I always knew you two as. And y'all told me to find out more about the curriculum of both programmes, and then we'll talk again. So thank you for giving me space and freedom. I think other parents may not have done the same. 

But please, although you will never read this, and I don't want you to ever read it, please, let me find myself by myself, and let me create who I am with my own hands... 

Perfect Stars

I just came across this story, and thought it was rather meaningful, especially since nowadays, I don't know why, but so many people are being bullied. Why? Why do people do it then? When they know it hurts? Maybe someone was cold to them before, and so they think that this is what they're supposed to do...

But I know, for each of us, there's someone else out there who thinks of us as a perfect star.

So to those who cry themselves to sleep every night because of something someone said to you, stay strong. 

And to those who feel good about making others feel worthless, 

Perfect Stars

                Once upon a time, I met a man. He was old and tall. He was wearing a bright green suit and a green top hat. The hat had a shiny, gold star pinned to it.
                His entire outfit was bright, though everything about him was dark; his hair, his skin, and his eyes. It made me smile inside.
                He smiled and kneeled so he was eye-level with me. I saw concern in his eyes as he asked why I seemed so sad.
                I was a young girl of five and didn't know not to talk to strangers so I answered, "A boy from school said I was ugly."
                He looked shocked and replied, "No!"
                I nodded sadly and looked down, "The other kids said I was ugly so it must be true."
                He lifted my head and looked into my eyes with the most sincere expression I had ever seen and said to me in a soft, comforting voice," You know that's not true. You are a beautiful person; ugly doesn't exist in this world."
                I smiled a little before returning to sorrow, "But everyone at school says that I am."
                He shook his head slightly and looked down as if he was thinking. After a short moment, he reached up and took the star off of his hat. He smiled at me and put it in my hands.
                "No matter who says you're ugly or dumb or mean, I will always think of you as perfect," he whispered, holding my small hands in his big ones.
                He left right after, leaving me with the star, waiting for my mom to say it was time to go. I stared at the star the whole time and smiled.
                Through the years, the star made me smile. When I lost the spelling bee, when I broke up with my first boyfriend, and when I had a fight with my best friend for the first time I would look at the star and heard him saying, "I will always think of you as perfect."
                I grew up, got married, and had a little girl of my own. Life kept moving, but I never forgot about him or that little star; he was always with me.
                One day, my daughter came home from school, crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said that a girl at school called her stupid. I immediately thought of the star.
                She sat at the kitchen table and ate cookies and I got the star. I sat with her and told her the story of the man and showed her the star. I handed it to her and finished with, "No matter who says you're ugly or stupid or mean, I will always think of you as perfect.

Fund Fair 2013 :)

Geez, I just woke up... from an extra long nap...

Today, I would say it was generally quite well done, and all the more better when you came to our booth! :) It was really tiring though, but in the end, all the work paid off!

This is a picture taken from Claud's blog... :) I mean, Fla did this by herself. JUST LOOK AT IT.

So we were really in a rush this morning, to do the last minute preparations, and boy was that intense... But in the end,  everything went well! :D

Well, I felt really bad cuz Fla had to bring home a box of her cupcakes... I mean, she stayed up late and sacrificed so much to make those and in the end, we didn't even open the last box... But oh well...

And today, you gave me a cookie and a flower! Although they may not be made by you, but still, it was so sweet! I mean, how could I bear to eat the cookie? And you even said that it was only for your "daughter"... :)

So in the end, our class raised $232, which is not too bad, but the cooler thing is that, our whole school raise $25 000!!! I mean, our goal was $20 000, and last year was our record year, if I'm not wrong, but we created a whole new record again! YAY!!!

So here's the time to thank people again!

Thank you to Fla and Shing, and all those people who were baking, i.e. Lixuan, Zeewei, Qinnie, RachelK, Zhiyan, Lena, Aifen, Eli, Ying and Yuci... If I miss out anyone, or add anyone in, please pardon me. You know I love you! :)

Thank you to those who went to get the awesome toppings, Kaixing, Jingwen and Gracie. :) Hope I didn't get this wrong...

Thank you to the team of elite artists who spent time and effort decorating our booth. Dunnie, Bao, Yuhan, both Nicoles, Kymmie, Jiaying and Gue.

Thank you to those brave souls who volunteered to go around to further publicise us. Pang, Ying, Claud, Yuxuan, Bobo, Yuci, Allison, and the rest of us who pressurised our juniors, seniors, peers, and even teachers alike to buy something from us.

Thank you to our wonderful cashiers, Cheye and Kymmie.

And of course thank you to the core team in planning this activity, Peixi, Claud, Shing, Kaixing :)

Thank you awesome people! Love y'all lots! <3

We can do it! :)

Fund fair is happening tomorrow. Like honestly, TOMORROW.

Gosh, looking back, we only had like 3 days of planning, and everything else was RUSH RUSH RUSH... But that doesn't really matter, or so I think... I mean, look at us, we do practically everything in a rush. And sometimes, in all this "hurry up"s and "faster, faster, faster"s, we forget why we were there in the first place. But well, they always say,

So we shall pray hard tonight, and give our best tomorrow. After all, as long as we have lots of fun,and raise money for the charities, all the rushing and the OMG-ing will be worth it! So yup, like we've always pulled through, let's do what we do best tomorrow, and fight against all odds!

加油guys! I know we can do it!

Birthdays!

Today we celebrated Dunnie and Gracie's birthday. So to prepare for this BIG DAY, some of us actually planned a surprise for them. Cola suggested we give Dunnie a book, from one of her favourite authors. Apparently, John Green. And we got both of them an Oreo cheesecake, which Ying bought. :)

Look at the cake! And the beautiful smiles! <3

And look at Dunnie! Smiling ever so happily! 

My fragile bubble, and the things in it.

I'm just sitting here, at my table, staring into the night. I just read Fla's poems, and they were so deep, so artistic, so beautiful. I don't know, but I feel really tired. Physically and mentally. The poems were so beautiful, yet so troubling, talking about issues like forgotten corners and death.

And so I took a break, never thinking that I would write this post... But thinking back, on the 1.5 or so years that we have been together as a class. Then it just dawned on me that this fund fair, it may be one of the last projects that we ever get to do as a class. You see, we only have Teachers' Day, Founders' Day, and Drama Fest left.

Thinking about it, it's gonna end in a flash. Funny though, it's always times like this, when I'm thinking about things like this, that I get scared.

I don't know why I'm scared, but I know for certain WHAT I'm scared of.

I'm scared of losing you awesome people. The people who laughed with me, made me laugh, cried with me, made me cry. The people who I made laugh, who I made cry. The people who basically made the skeleton, the flesh, the clothing, the accessories, the everything of my life for this almost 2 years. 

I'm scared of losing the precious memories that we had together. The times when we sang crazy songs in class, the times when we broke out into laughter randomly, the times when we worked together to prank out teachers, the times when we... Looking back, I can't pick one moment when I want to remember forever, simply because I want to remember EVERYTHING forever. 

I'm scared of losing myself. Losing who I am, after we separate into our different ways to accomplish more of our greatest dreams, and to challenge more of our limits. You know, I've changed so much since getting to know you people, and I realise, it's not me that changed, it's the change in the people around me that changed me. 

You know, people always say, it takes a lifetime to forget someone... But you know what, a lifetime is a pretty long time, but it's still not enough time for me to forget any one of you. Because for you, any one of you, even eternity is a split second as compared to how much more time I want to spend with y'all. It's just too difficult. Painstakingly difficult. To even grasp the idea that I'll be separating from these awesome people who gave me so much to remember.

I don't want to think about this anymore. I know it's self-deceiving, but I just want it to stay this way. I know sometime soon, the time will come. For us to say our goodbyes and take our photos. For us to go after our bigger dreams and greater aspirations. For us to find our brighter future and even happier days. But till then, I don't want to think about this. Till then, perhaps I will have enough courage to tell y'all even more. So much more. About how I love you. How I admire you. How I treasure you. Every one of you. Cuz as of now, I want to just live in my fragile bubble. And never come out till it's time.