The Dysfunctional Pilgrim

1. It is the ache in your spine 2. It is the hollow of your ribs, when your lungs have vanished 3. It is the swell in your eyes, but not from tears 4. It is the stickiness of tears, finally falling 5. It is the blank blue of the late night 6. It is the clear grey of the early morning 7. It is the soft pulsing in your skull, not hurting but ever present 8. It is 9. It is 10. It always is

Story 1: I had lent my student my copy of "Eldest", because he, in his words, "got obsessed with it". I didn't think too much of it. He came back after holidays and said "Miss, I read it like 5 TIMES I CAN'T BELIEVE *spoiler spoiler* HAPPENED. And miss, I can't stop using 'ancient language' (like 'thee' 'thyself', etc)" Ahaha kid, you're cute. You sound like me when I was your age (gosh I'm so old). We discussed some parts of the book together and I had to stop myself from chatting too long to avoid showing favoritism. I'm really grateful that I grew up in a reading environment. Having read widely, I have a small catalogue of books and authors in my head. It's easy now to figure out which book my student would like and recommend them quickly. I've been doing that for a number of my students who told me they didn't know what to read. It's almost like prescribing medicine based on what their int...

Seventeen's made a comeback. I have enjoyed their mini albums so far. There's good funky music there. Also, whoever's playing the bass in their tracks should get a raise 'cause those basslines can make a pianist convert to electric bass forever. I think what I appreciate from this group's music is their layering. There's a lot going in their tracks - chord progressions, melody lines, the vocal harmonies and ad-libs. The sound is always full. Not in this track. I find a lot of new music experimenting with the idea of space. Well, I call it space, but more accurately it's the use of silence. There's a lot of gaps in between the synth chords, a longer pause before the jump into the chorus, a drop with only light beats in the verse, before a stronger bass drum in the pre-chorus. Everything then hits a strong climax during the bridge, and that's when we can hear some of the quintessential SVT layering again. Melodies that have a back-and-...

It seems like every fortnight there is a new trend sweeping the classroom. First it was the dab, then it was bottle-flipping - I'm someone who's sensitive to sound, and the consistent but sudden smack of plastic crunching the floor tiles nearly drove me insane. Then there was that "yee" video, I have yet to be enlightened on what the joke is. I do not wish to be enlightened. I would prefer styaing in the suffering of ignorance. Somehow it moved on to rubics cubes (we're still going through that phase), and fidget spinners, fidget cubes, and now, for some ungodly reason, the librarians thought it'd be educational to sell 'slime' to the students, which of course led to the class flipping their slime, mixing it with more water to make sickly wet slime, spinning, looping it around like professional Italian pasta makers, trying to make their own prata bread and other creative functions. The problem with all these new distractions and trends that student...

I'm reminded of how Jo March in Little Women, when quizzed by Laurie about what she wanted (in the hopes that he could buy it for her) said, "Genius." I desperately want that too. More accurately, I want to become a vampire, so that I can stop sleeping. Of course, we rarely get what we want.

I do like that sentiment of burning your youth for a higher cause. I'm not quite sure what influenced it. Probably from reading stories about Hua Mulan (lost her youth to fight for her country), Joan of Arc (fought for her country and died at a young age) and other sorts. I may be working my youth away, but all I'm getting close to is an acne breakout. Haha. (this was written very briefly, so i might have more thoughts on this. the above quote is taken from BTS 'Dope'.)

I have many incomplete drafts of thoughts, scattered througout my phone, laptop, notebooks. some of them are even audio recordings. I haven't gotten around to editing or completing them, because I don't know how to.  Perhaps i'm at a stage of my life where there are no complete answers; only half-finished sentences, trailing ideas, incomplete closures.  I'm living a day-to-day survival lifestyle at this point. Ideally, I should have time to plan my week during weekends but somehow I get involved in other things. Also, always remember to add in the fact that I'm lazy. Is it possible to be passionate and procrastinating at the same time? My disillusioned brain seems to think so.  I know I've hit a snag when I can't remember when my day ends or begins. Sometimes I like to lay awake counting the number of people who are disappointed in me. That's probably a narcissistic and paranoid thing to do, but I feel that I'm letting a lot of people down...

...that I have terrible work ethic. I procrastinate. That is the be all and end all of my problem. As much as I'd like to think I'm amazing and did my final year project on my own, I know I absolutely didn't. So here's my official thanks (as written in the report) and some unofficial ones (which I could not afford to put in..) Acknowledgements Before all else, praise be to my heavenly Father who through Christ has granted me the deepest of mercies and grace. I am humbled by His continuous favour with Him and with men, even when I least deserve it. Throughout these four years, I have experienced His joy in which I draw strength to do all things.   My sincerest of thanks to my supervisor, Mr. Mohammad Sidik bin Ariffin, for his kindness and graciousness to me, the procrastinator to beat all procrastinators. Your advice and encouragement have been a great reassurance to me amidst the struggle of overcoming this last hurdle of my tertiary education. I am truly appr...

Asked me what course I'm doing. When he heard TESL, he said, that's good, just don't go be like Adam Adli. I thought, ah, not another 'young people should stay out of politics' speech.  But then he explained...He had to quit his studies to fight the communists. Never managed to continue it. He seemed genuinely interested in modern technology, but he said he can't keep up anymore. So don't throw away your future, he advised. Finish your degree, then go and 'fight' if you want.  I wonder how many others have lost the opportunity to further their academic pursuit because of war, disaster, inequality, poverty. Of course success is relative and certainly not defined by a degree. Is it 'throwing away your future' or 'taking a stand'? That's up to the individual to decide. But I think we should be thankful that we are free to choose in the first place. We wanted to go to uni, and we got to. Some wanted to, but never had that cha...

I think I started being truly ambitious when I was 14. 10 years later, here I am. If my fourteen-year-old self were to meet me now, I wonder what words we would exchange. 2016. I can feel my youth slipping through my fingers. Let's go.

I'm not putting off blogging because I have nothing to write. If anything, it is because I have too much to write, and too little time or inspiration to edit.  My dilemma is that I constantly feel like I need to produce the best, most heartfelt post, every single time. For example, those three sentences I just wrote? I've edited it three times in less than five minutes. I may edit it more as I type along.  I have 6 posts stored away as drafts, unfinished, or finished, but not "perfect". It's making me rather pissed off at myself. I mean, if there is one place for me to produce crappy work, it should be in the toilet and here, you know? And yet my own inner critic is holding me back, afraid of making any mistakes.  I'm annoyed, because I shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes, as long as I learn from them. That's what I tell myself, my juniors, my students. And here I am, being a coward, not wanting to write, because I don't have the ri...

I can feel it, that desperation when you realise every part of you is beeping, screaming "low battery!!" and you still have so much more to work on. Scratch desperation, this is panic. Contained panic, that will eventually leak out like a poisonous radiation gas and vaporize everything. I'm getting close to actually believing that I can't do this anymore. I'm not even sure what "this" is. I'm sure I had some sort of clear idea of what all this was perhaps 2 weeks ago? This is...me redoing people's work. This is...me trying to juggle too many things. This is...me making the sacrifice play. Fixing others' messes. Compensating. This is... What was all this?

This blog could easily be a rant blog, if I permit it. There's so, so SO many things to rant about in life. If you're a natural pessimist like me, it's instinctive. I can write 5 essays a day about how the realities of the world want to bring me down. Or how chocolate eclairs are absolutely gorgeous (yes, positive rants are also possible) Or why, why WHY is the grass so green. SERIOUSLY. But if I do that in my blog here, well just look at this entire entry. It's going to be one big fat mess. Life is already a mess, I rather have my blog in a little bit neater. So sometimes I let it rip on twitter. Or in a vague, random post on facebook.  Sometimes, I don't want to hurt anyone, so I'll just type out the rant and delete it. Sometimes, I don't want to remember the moment at all, so I just refuse to write it anywhere. Words will only etch the moment clearer in my brain, and what's the point of that? But life, for now, has great moments, but it ...

Class: Mon-Sat Night meetings: Mon-Fri (8-late ...) Afternoons free: Two (Fri, Sun) What have I done. p/s: Free time to blog: next to none.

Whoo hoo it's July. I am on holiday. so why haven't you written anything on your blog, you lazy chipmunk? Anyway, I am here to tell you that I'll be back on my "trying-to-write-something-good" boat. Or perhaps just trying-to-write-something. But if you have time, read  THIS . It's a good story by a good writer and better friend - Darren Yip! It'd also provide context for what I will (hopefully) post next. I might also return to fiddling around with Coney the Redominator. Do you remember him? No? Well part 1 is  here  and part 2 is  here . I know, it's been over a year since I've posted anything about Coney but I haven't forgotten him. He's my little random bit of nonsense. =] Unfortunately, I can't guarantee anything because I am terrible at updating. So this may just be a troll post and I don't post anything at all. =/ The thought counts, doesn't it? no it doesn't. I'll see what I can do then.

Ok, so why are there ads on my blogger page now? it's irritating. i don't like it. Anyway, here's my Introduction to English Literature Group Assignment. Our play of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the wordsmith William Shakespeare. We didn't do the full play, because each group is supposed to do one scene, and we only had 5 groups. But that's not very important. My group was the fifth group. Below is the link to the first and i think you should be able to find the rest. This was possibly 3 weeks work so I'm really thankful we managed to pull it together. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes experiences that I've learnt from and would like to share but I don't have the time for it (or I am too lazy to think too much about it now). But I suppose I'd put something up about it soon. My own little post-mortem. This sem's finals, BTW, is just hectic. Because as soon as this play was done (which was my final assignment) we had one weekend ...

One of the few moments when a teacher became a friend in my eyes was when my Form 4-5 English teacher recommended "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Tennyson. I went back and quickly dug it out, read it, and fell in love with the poem. I'm not quite sure what happened next but I remember being very excited about it, and I'm not quite sure when, but I did discuss the elements of the poem with her, and I brought up other Tennyson's works like Crossing the Bar.  I think it was because she introduced me to that poem, I became a lot more open and honest with her. If you know me, you'd know I usually shy away from being too open with others, especially if they're older than me and not related in any way. But I actually started exchanging books and magazines with her, and I'd recommend books to her in my Journal (some sort of English work - mostly to encourage writing skills). She'd in turn respond by writing comments, recommending other wo...