Fear ><

"What are you scared of?" 

"I don't know, maybe losing people I love, not believing in myself, and not enjoying life..." 

"And are you scared of death?" 

"I've never really thought of it... Like it seems so far away, you know, but I know that it can come any moment. For all you know, today might be my last, or tomorrow may be your last... It's so unpredictable, so I guess I'm kinda scared of it, maybe too scared, that's why I don't think about it... You?" 

"No. I'm not scared of death. I'm scared about life." 

This I Believe

We are supposed to write about our personal beliefs as a graded assignment. Even more amusing, you people tell us explicitly that you understand that we don't talk about things like that normally, then why in the world do you expect us to reveal so much about ourselves to you? Who do you think you are to us?

This I Believe, is not respecting our personal space.

There are many things that I can tell you, and my personal beliefs is not on the list. Never ever will I tell teachers what I believe, because for things like that, which I don't even discuss with my family, or even my closest friends, are personal, and they are called personal for a reason. And so if I don't want to tell you what my real beliefs are, I can only fabricate one, or perhaps build up on another belief of mine that is perhaps more public. But then if I do that, you say that you people will be able to detect the "fake-ness" and therefore not give me the grade that I would have gotten if I was more "genuine" (by writing about those beliefs that I won't tell you)

This I Believe, is ridiculous.

Personal beliefs, I believe that on this, even you teachers will hesitate to share, so why then, do you expect us students to give you the key to our hearts and souls and let you unlock who we are? Well perhaps some people are fine with that, but what about those who are not? Perhaps you may say that those who are not fine with this assignment is only the minority, but haven't you always been advocating how we are all equal? How we will always, forever have our own rights to make our own choices? This is too far fetched, you may then say, but isn't this the same as the infamous mistreatment of the African Americans for example? Stripping them away from their rights to choose, to live, and to just be who they are?

I don't know about the others, but I think it's forcing me to reveal something that I strongly believe should be kept just for my knowing, which then results in me trying to find a replacement for these believes that I will never share with anyone, which then causes me to lose marks because you people claim to be able to detect insincerity (which by the way I agree that it can pretty obvious). 

So now I find myself staying up till I-don't-know-what-time-in-the-morning racking my brains to solve such a stupid problem, or rather, to find a replacement for the several beliefs that I hold so extremely closely to my heart that I will never, and I mean NEVER reveal to anyone as of now, and figuring out how to make it as genuine and sincere as possible... 

The funny thing is that this assignment in it itself is not genuine and sincere at all, because if it was, then it wouldn't have been a graded assignment in the first place... And just so you know, I haven't come up with any solutions, and for once, I don't really care. 

This I Believe, is believably unbelievable. 

Chinese New Year 2014 :)

It's Chinese New Year again! And it's always this period of time, where people force themselves to not fight, or quarrel, or disagree with each other, because they claim for it to be bad luck, or an omen of whatever evil that will perhaps happen to you in the year ahead. I don't know but I find these beliefs rather amusing... But nonetheless, I respect them, and honestly, I kinda follow them too, since everyone around me is doing whatever is considered "in-the-spirit-of-correctness"...

School celebration today was pretty good, relaxed and festive and harmonious. But of course, the best part wasn't all the festive atmosphere or the colours or the performances (which were spectacular by the way :))

It was meeting you. More specifically, getting a warm hug from you. <3 Many people know that I love you a lot, like A LOT. But I don't think many of them know exactly what it means to me to get something from you, especially when that something is a hug. I remember last year, all I had wanted, except from getting into the HP class, was that you would hug me. And it never happened, until the last day of school, where you gave me 3 hugs. And lemme let you, that was literally the best day of the year for me, or rather, the best day of my lower secondary school life. :p (For those who read this, like Kaixing for eg, you are probably rolling your eyes now :P, and many will probably say that it is so exaggerated, but it's not, or at least I don't think it is...) Although two of the hugs came from pressure from my friends (thanks guys :D) But the last one was so meaningful, and so precious that I didn't even have the heart to write it down even in this very personal blog... THAT is just a headstart of how much you mean to me....

So today, I was supposed to give you the history assignments, and when I did, you were outside the General Office, talking to Mr Mac and Mr Benson, and I was standing behind, and you turned around.

"Hi Ms Chua, the history assignments are here." (then I talked about Nat and KX's issue which I shall not talk about here)

"Hello my darling! Thank you so much! Happy Chinese New Year!" 

So then I gave you my gift for you, and you asked,
"How come no oranges for me?"

And I replied what I sincerely thought,
"Oranges are so common and usual, so I thought I should give you something different..." 

And then you laughed and asked
"So does it mean that I'm special to you?"

And of course, I said
"Yeah of course!" (and you will probably never know exactly how special you are to me)

And then you gave me a hug. And that just made my day. :) At that point of time, I knew that many teachers were staring at us, especially Mr Mac and Mr Benson (and Ms Tan I think :o), but I really didn't care... And then I heard Mr Mac laughing, and that was all that I can remember, but given that I was literally flying high after that hug, I think it's already pretty amazing that I actually can remember some things and our conversation.

Then we went to do our annual Chinese Calligraphy, and honestly, I'm pretty proud of my masterpiece... :p Then we went for the concert, and I must say, I spotted many of my friends on stage, but I think I was most proud that Yuci was part of the dance. She's worked so hard to even get into this CCA and for a whole year she was behind the scenes, looking enviously at her batchmates shining on stage, and probably fantasising about when her time will come. It came. And it was so beautiful, thinking about where she started, crying about not getting enough recognition in dance lessons, to seeing where she is right now, smiling (creepily) with her batchmates, dancing right in front, shining just as brightly as the others.

And then I went back to NHPS with Lorraine, and that was pretty fun, getting to catch up with my classmates, feeling so old, while reminiscing the good times together. Nostalgic, but amazing how we change so much yet still stay the same in some way. Good to see them. Really good.

And then last of all, reunion dinner was awesome, with like 10 dishes and lots of fun. Geez I seriously need to go running every single day after the holidays or I'll turn into an inflated hot air balloon in no time...

So actually, today was pretty great. :) Pretty pretty great...

Make A Wish

So after you showed me your hiding place, then we went to the Backyard Garden, and the air was so misty, so beautiful, and we walked down that deserted path, talking about everything under the sun. Then we came to this empty bench, (well actually the whole place was deserted) and then we sat down, and looked at the sky, though not as beautiful as it could have been, but still so clear, and we breathed the fresh morning air, and just sat there pretty much in silence.

Then you asked me if I had wanted to make a wish.

"Wish upon a bird," you said. 

I did.

"I wish that I could take things for what they are, and stop trying to change them according to what I hope they will be." I wished. 

You nodded and agreed. I don't know why, but I felt a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps it's because life is so fast, and so technical, that we kind of forget to wish don't we? All we know is to do, not to dream, to strive, not to wish, to achieve, not to hope. And I think though I don't tell people my wishes, my dreams, perhaps fearing that they will think that those dreams of mine are too radical, or too dreamy, or just ridiculous, but when you nodded when I said my wish out loud, I felt so accomplished, cuz someone actually thinks that my wish was reasonable, achievable, and logical.

And then we sat there, and the bell rang, and walked towards the quadrangle. I was in a rush, fearing that we would be late, and you said to slow down, cuz we've got plenty of time. And I guess even though that morning was perfect, I was still caught up in the fast paced and monotonous life that I've been stuck in for so long, but you were not. Stuck in this stinking world, you kept the basics of life, the enjoyment and the pleasure of it all. And you never seemed to rush anything, and I used to never understand how some people can just ignore the sense of urgency and take their time, but now I understand.

The faster society gets, the slower we should move.

And then the next morning, you told me that you brought Shing there, to your hiding place, and to the deserted magical place that existed literally right in our backyard. And you said that she didn't get it, and that you wished that everyone was like me. Do you know how honoured I felt?

In that moment, I wanted to tell you, I wish everyone was like YOU.

The Perfect Friend

The Perfect Friend

Today I found a friend
Who knew everything I felt
She knew my every weakness
And the problems I have dealt.
She understood my wonders
And listened to my dreams,
She listened to how I felt about life and love
And knew what it all means.
Not once did she interrupt me
Or tell me I was wrong
She understood what I was going through
And promised she'd stay long.
I reached out to this friend,
To show her that I care
To pull her close and let her know
How much I need her there.
I went to hold her hand
To pull her a bit nearer
And I realized this perfect friend I found
Was nothing but a mirror

You talked about this poem today, and I don't know but I feel like if you were to write a poem, it would be this one. Every single word of it just screams you. And I can't say that I know you really well, but I think I can guarantee that I've talked to you about many many things, and you have told me a lot too, and honestly, actually we're really similar, in many ways.

Honestly, I'm really honoured to be your friend, and after your presentation today, I know for sure, that you were the perfect person to tell all those things to. And yes, there are no perfect anything in this world, but when you love someone or something, they'll become perfect to you sooner or later. :)

I hope you stay forever this way, and keep being you, cuz at least to me, you are Perfect. <3

Hiding Place

The world is a scary place, mommy and daddy told me many times, and it's literally the survival of the fittest, they added. That's why you have to constantly be the best of the best, and never stop pushing yourself to be the best that you can be. Even Ms Chua tells me that. And they are absolutely right. But I guess that probably everyone is so tired of life that they just comply to pushing and pushing and maybe in that process we forget what we are really here for. What we are made to do.

Enjoy the life that God has given us. That's what we were meant to do.

And because the world is so toxic now, perhaps many of us are infected by this influenza, and it's gotten so bad that you can literally even smell the "toxic-ness" in the air we breathe. And maybe that's why it's so important and yet so forgotten, to have a place of your own in this scary, domineering, ominous world. And maybe that's why when you showed me your "hiding place" in our school this morning, I was so... let's just say pleasantly surprised that there's actually a pure soul out here, right here in front of me, and in that moment when you told me that you were going to show me your hiding place, I felt so relieved, as if all I needed to do to escape this stressful world is to be with you, and soak up all your purity and pray that it will somehow penetrate the layers of poisonous rubbish in my heart and mind and save my unfortunately already polluted soul.

And though that hiding place is not technically secret, or personal, or intimate or whatever, I felt like I had found the solution to all my problems -anxiety, stress, insecurity, and everything else- to just find a corner in the universe that I can call my own, and share it with the people closest to me, and then when I need some refuge, some comfort, or just some serenity, I can just run into that somewhere only I know, and be myself, and not bother about what someone else thinks, or what the world hopes I was gonna do, or anything at all.

Then after we went to your hiding place, we spent some more time together, and you influenced me some more, by just being you, but I feel that the second part of our "pilgrimage-to-escape-the-horror-movie-called-life" should be saved for some other post some time else, cuz though you always give me lots to think about, I felt like today was different. Like today was just the two of us against everyone and everything else in this world, and I think that something so precious and rare should be saved, and shared among a few posts.

And just so you know, I haven't had such a beautiful morning in forever, literally. And thanks to you, I saw for myself today, what a beautiful morning really is, and trust me, it was indeed beautiful...

Your name

"Sorry did I get your name wrong?" 

"Haha yes I believe so..."

For some reason I find this tiny incident during yesterday's Language Arts lesson extremely amusing. I've spoken in that discussion, and people have said my name many times. And for some funny reason you didn't catch that... And that's just a tiny incident.

Don't you think that as students, regardless whether or not you like a teacher, you should at the least give them the respect they so deserve?  

"Does that mean that you haven't done it yet?"

"No that just means that I have a sore throat..." 

I mean are you serious? NicT is right. "No" is a response, but when you say that, no matter how funny and witty you think you are, it is incredibly rude. And perhaps you could make a little effort to go back to where we've all started -learning how to be human-, and learn the first thing that your parents teach you -manners-.

I don't know what you guys think about that lesson, or how you guys felt about how you behaved, but just as a by-stander, I would just like to say that you ought to be ashamed of yourself... I don't know how your parents taught you or how you've changed through the years, but if you don't realise that you need to change, one day you'll regret it. It's probably too early to say this, and even though I don't know all of you, but I can guarantee that none of you would like your legacy, or the impression that others have of you, to be one of "disrespectful, class-joker, immature..."