Throwback

There are periods of time where you stare in the mirror and you see yourself. But no, not just the image of the person you think you are, but the real person, the one that lies under the layers of skin, flesh and bone. If the reflection pleases you, then good, there is no reason for anguish. Trouble arises when you don't like the person you see, when you're afraid that someone, somewhere and sometime, will look past your skin, flesh and bone and see you. You, the real you. And he won't like the person he sees.

It's your soul that counts at the end of the day. Only when there are people that you care for around you will this hit you and cause you pain.

I guess there's more soul searching to do.

It's over (somewhat)

Time for a little celebration I think.

Though I have two more papers on Monday, I think they're a little bit off my mind for now. The past few days have gone well, but with a few stupid mistakes being realised a couple of hours after each paper, I must say that I'm a little disappointed with what I've achieved.

Anyway, after prelims will be the mad chionging of application for universities. Why bother applying, I should just try for NUS first shouldn't I? Then worry about the rest during NS if I don't get in.

I'm worried though. So much to do for the apps, yet so little time. Meh.

BUT today was great. Spent time out and it was an awesome day. It really means something to me to be able to steal that couple of hours out of my busy weeks to spend with people I love.

Wish all days were like today.

Chew on this

While a man was polishing his new car, his 4 yr old son picked up stone and scratched lines on the side of the car. In anger, the man took the child's hand and hit it many times; not realizing he was using a wrench. At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures.

When the child saw his father with painful eyes he asked, Dad when will my fingers grow back?

The man was so hurt and speechless; he went back to his car and kicked it a lot of times. Devastated by his own actions sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches; the child had written 'LOVE YOU DAD'. The next day that man committed suicide.

Anger and Love have no limits; choose the latter to have a beautiful, lovely life. Things are to be used and people are to be loved, but the problem in today's world is that, People are used and things are loved.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits they become character; Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Importance

Today, I realised how important someone is to me. To make me feel such anger on her behalf, I don't think anyone else can ever do so again.

Today I learnt how to let go.

Repost - If

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

----

I guess this is a repost to remind me of what makes a person truly him or herself. Not just a figment of imagination, but a reality.

What defines us as human is our common traits. What defines our self is our uniqueness, our strengths, our weaknesses. Something that no one can give to us nor take away.

What's the point in me trying to say anything in this house when someone is just going to butt in and cut me off? I guess this is my conclusion: I don't want to talk anymore, not about things that are important to me. There is no point if I speak and am not heard.

I was frustrated for a while today because of that.

Then I received that email from you. Thank you for turning my frown into a smile.

If only you knew what I'm feeling, what I'm going through right now.

To learn to live, to live to learn.

To live to love, to love to live.

To love to learn, to learn to love.

Praise the Lord!

If You Were Coming In The Fall by Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall

I'd brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn

As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year

I'd wind the months in balls

And put them into separate drawers

Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed

I'd count them on my hand

Subtracting 'till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen's land

If certain when this life was out

That yours and mine should be

I'd toss life yonder like a rind

And taste eternity.

But now all ignorant of length,

Of times uncertain wing,

It goads me like the goblin bee

That will not state its sting!

I guess I should be studying for the final exam of this exam series. It's Chemistry, something that I'm quite confident of, yet at the same time apprehensive about.

Time should be spent doing other things. Life's too short to be worrying about why P=MC is the allocatively efficient point, how complementary base pairing is made use of in gene techniques, how to integrate arcsinx, why can't I use LiAlH4 to reduce alkenes.

As I go through the system (keeping in mind the fact that I should be bound for a few more years of it in university), I can't help but feel more and more disillusioned with the process.

The process is the key, the best people say. The goals are secondary.

But when the process is so wrong, I'm sad to say that the goals are the only things that keep us going.

Will any of us remember the things we learnt in our education? Smatterings maybe. A little bit here and there, with all of us exclaiming at some point in the future "Oh I learnt that somewhere" with a hazy memory of the long gone past of books and notes deep in the recesses of our minds.

I loved the Chemistry Olympiad. Of course, I was surrounded by individuals that made me feel inadequate and lacking, but only so in knowledge, not as a person. That kind of studying was fun. Grueling, yet still enjoyable. Freedom to study what you want, to understand the concepts because you want to, not because you need to. You could fail and not fall. Failure was encouraged, for it told you how to improve, not how you were lacking.

As I sit with the same mechanisms, the same reagents and conditions that I studied back in the first term while my fellow students slogged away at their CTs, I don't feel that same sense of elation, enjoyment and motivation I did previously. Yes, I admit that studying the same things now fills me with disgust and dread.

The question then is not what, but how.

When the process was so much fun, it sure sucks to go back to H2.

About time another blog post appeared here.

You never know how stupid you can be. And even when you think you know, even when someone holds your hand and still loves you along the way, you go right ahead and be stupid all over again.

Jumping off a cliff isn't as easy as it looks. The sheer magnitude of what you are going to undertake confounds you, strips you of any courage and any bravado you might have had. You're left there, naked, shivering in the cold, taking small, tentative steps before you finally take the plunge.

Perhaps the tentative steps have been taken. Maybe they haven't. I could be still there, waiting, hoping for some miraculous force to push me over the edge.

I could be. My steps have been in the wrong direction, stupid actions and words causing me to shuffle backwards though I will myself forward.

Yet, when you hold my hand you don't just hold my hand. You're the miraculous force I've been waiting for. You hold my heart, you give me security, strength, peace, courage.

You give me your love with your touch.

The cliff is in front of me. I don't know if there's solid ground below but I know that one day, one beautiful day I'll fall, with you, into this space.

And we'll face whatever comes next together.

I've tried writing posts for this blog.

But ever since my last post, I've no motivation to write anything else.

My posts are fuelled by emotions, sad ones at the very least. Nothing seems to be that way nowadays.

So till I see a need to use this blog as an avenue for my stress relief, I shan't write for a long time to come.

Why are there some people that I open up to so easily and some that I clam up and refuse to say a word to?

Fall

You asked me and I replied. I told you I've got over it. It's been what, close to 4 months?

Why didn't you believe me? Is it really that hard to believe that I can move on with my life?

A long time back, when you first asked me if I was alright, I lied and said yes, I'm fine. Apologies for that lie, but it was so much easier than to tell you that I wasn't and having to explain myself. You seemed to believe me then (though I know you didn't).

Now it's the truth.

Why not believe me now?

Oops, haven't updated in such a long time...

So what's new? For one, the pace of school. It's merely been the first week and I'm tired already. Lessons are going at breakneck pace, teachers are rushing through tutorials and lectures, workload has doubled, no, tripled.

All the stress is getting to me I think. Never felt so desolated in my life.

Ah well, life goes on. Here's to another week of lessons and a SAT test to round it all off.

Smile

Wanted to put a pretentious smiley on the end of the title, but well, the lyrics below are sad enough.

At least to me.

Smile though your heart is aching,

Smile even though it's breaking.

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

If you smile through your fear and sorrow,

Smile and maybe tomorrow,

You'll see the sun come shining through for you.

Light up your face with gladness,

Hide every trace of sadness,

Although a tear may be ever so near.

That's the time you must keep on trying,

Smile, what's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile.

That's the time you must keep on trying,

Smile, what's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile.

Two poems to share today:

Untitled by Anonymous

What can make a mighty man fall to his knees?

What will make a struggling sinner find inner peace?

What, so strong, is able to crush the haughtiest man's pride?

What, so tender, can piece together a broken heart aright?

What can break the stubborn will of men who think they know

The path that life should follow, and what it should hold?

What illumines the star of joy, when darkness doth surround,

Uplifting sunken spirits when hope is nowhere to be found?

What can bond ten thousand men under a common love?

What will make twenty thousand kneel down to reach above?

What would case a man to give off all he can afford?

Nothing -

Nothing but the words of the Lord.

For All The Morrows by A.J. Flint

Has last year brought sadness?

Joy is yet in store.

Has it given gladness?

This year giveth more.

Let your Father measure

All your pain and care,

Let Him weigh the burden

That your heart must bear,

Sending light or shadow

As He deemeth best,

For in His sure wisdom

You can surely rest.

Peace for all the morrows,

Strength for all the days,

These shall be your portion

Through the New Year's ways.

Second one is quite an apt one, considering the period of time we are in right now. Forget resolutions and celebration, I'm just going to trust in my Lord for the year ahead. I will rest in His sure wisdom and put all my cares upon Him.

To the new year. To five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes of life ahead of me. With God by my side, I can do anything.

I just know it.