you've been had!

[spiderpig]

I think people are starting to realize that I am not me anymore. Or rather, 2001-2007 Tan Min Qi Alicia is long gone and I'm just well, not very robust and lively in terms of anything. How do I convince the people (nearly everyone who has known me for more than 2 years) that I am no longer that person. I lost that brain, that heart, that soul somewhere along the train-tracks while I was speeding into a life which I now, am not very happy with. It gives me untold amounts of pressure. This is what they mean when they say, the past will come back to haunt you. I have it thrown in my face everyday, apple pies of regret. My mother persistently refers to me in the past tense - my future, for her, is cast in a Botero sculpture minus the beautiful balloon-like fullness. I wish I was one. Plump and bursting at the seams with life -- a fruitful indulgence for life that only can remain inanimated, because if it was contained in a more blood-filled vessel, it would rampage about and devour all of God's creations. So it needs to remain set in stone, carved with tart love and sealed in a shiny veneer so that no one can touch it and awaken it from slumber.

What the fuck am I talking about.

I need to set up a timetable to force myself to study consistently. Second week of school and I'm already behind on my readings. Not very behind - just a couple, but still. This will trip me up in the future if I don't do something about it. But I've been too distracted, daydreaming about bouncing babies amongst books, and having tea in heavy porcelain mugs.

Which reminds me, I need to haul up some of my old poems to send them to Moniza. And write a strapping review of Fables for her to put into Infusion too. I don't really want to buy another edition of The Tempest because I went a little mad after the A Levels and bought the Complete Arden Shakespeare but there's no way I'm lugging that to school with the Freud Reader and the 324839423 other books I have to read. My pointer is currently hovering over The Life and Adventures of a Module and thinking of whether I should just post my response without thinking it through. I'm terribly afraid of making a fool of myself but after observing Hemingyay for the past one and a half years, I've come to realize that I must go forth and become utterly ridiculous in order to succeed. I wish I wasn't so afraid.

Comments

[aerianta.livejournal.com]

i know, you'd think we'd be less afraid as we grow up, wouldn't you, considering the pitfalls of puberty and the treacherous terrain of adolescence? but i'd like to think that because we were less knowledgeable about the world then, we could try anything we wanted because we thought we still had the rest of our lives to fail, laugh at our mistakes and try again. now we're all neurotic and scared which is funny because we ought to be more sure of ourselves, know what we can do and what our personalities can let us do - so don't be afraid anymore, just do your best :)

also aren't you crazy-accomplished for a 20-year-old. you seem to be working for a lot of things.

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

now we're all neurotic and scared which is funny because we ought to be more sure of ourselves, know what we can do and what our personalities can let us do

exactly! haahah, i'm slowly kicking away this shell :D

NO. HAAHAH. WHAT? i only have HOOKED, which is dying at the moment because the world of US hosting servers and uncommitted freshies is giving a whole host of problems. XD i hope we survive the year! O_O

[http://users.livejournal.com/tsu_/]

I don't think people grow up away from themselves, people grow up to become more like themselves. Maybe in the 2 years you've changed, but you've changed to become more like Alicia rather than less than.....because how can you ever be any less than your past self? For me; change exists in 2 ways. There's the kind of change which is like dropping a rock into a lake, full of splash and ripples and dramatic. But there's also the kind of change where maybe the lake is filled by an underground pipe, and slowly over the years all the water is changed inside - but on the surface, it just looks exactly the same. Still.

Don't be too hard yourself and just let things happen. Growing up isn't about knowing more, it's about realising how little you actually know and appreciating the vast unknowness that is our world.

[aerianta.livejournal.com]

omg alicia the waseda application form is like 22 fucking pages!! how did you manage to complete it :|

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

YES OMG TELL ME ABOUT IT. it's pages and pages of useless things! actually, it isn't that bad -- most of the pages are instructions. oh oh, remember to print out the JASSO application form from this page (http://www.waseda.jp/cie/exchange/sils/03_download.html) because it's not included in the application PDF!

[aerianta.livejournal.com]

hahahah i stupidly downloaded the whole set of forms in PDF so i have to redownload some forms in Word because I realised they're anal and want the application to be typewritten. FORMATTING IS A BITCH ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I DO NOT DEAL WELL WITH EXCESS SPACES AND AM VERY PERFECTIONIST ABOUT MY FONTS AND LINE BREAKS.

Also, just wanted to check - for the section that says 'Foreign Language Study Other than Japanese (if any)', did you put down Chinese? Or did you just leave it blank because it's not really considered a foreign tongue in Singapore since it's compulsory?

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

same here! i ended up like using this weird function in adobe acrobat to type everything. and THEN i found out that they had word document versions! hahahaa.

ah, i did include Chinese! I figured that it wouldn't hurt to put it in, considering that all the US applicants would have learnt French or Spanish or some other language. ):

[aerianta.livejournal.com]

hahah okay then i will include it in. since chinese is practically foreign to me anyway hahahhaa!

happy chinese new year by the way!

[(Anonymous)]

you don't HAVE to be like "Hemingyay" to succeed. his is just one model which has sort of been put on a pedestal. unfortunately nus is too full of ikan bilis and so it pretty much goes unchallenged.

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

Hullo! Who is this! :D

Well I don't want to be EXACTLY like Hemingyay because that would be a little too creepy for the world to handle but the thing is, being "utterly ridiculous" as I put it, would help in curing my acute affliction of Wallflower-ness. I mean, if people can say that "Anxiety" is a genre (in-class joke. Professor asked the class for a genre that started with A.) then I shouldn't be afraid of voicing my less wtf opinions.

Ikan bilis is tasty!

[(Anonymous)]

ikan bilis are tasty only when they're in some dish you can eat. but it sucks when many of your *classmates* are ikan bilis! it's not a fun ballgame when people just gawk at hemingyay's brilliance instead of truly responding.

then again it's partly his own fault. the guy presents ideas in such a way that automatically locks out those who aren't familiar with whatever concepts he uses. so his stuff becomes more like an exhibit – gorgeous, yes – but not really sth that invites you to touch it and engage with it. x(

[spiderpig.livejournal.com]

Hmm well look at it this way. If every class has a few ikan bilis, instead of being full of... more predatory fish, the discussion would be more varied and lively. But yeah, having a Hemingyay in a class is a double-edged sword. Hemingyays always have things to say but at the same time, no one can get a word in edge-wise.

exactly, he presents his points with layers and layers of embellishments that it's tiring to sift through all his ideas, even though they are probably really interesting. it's like you said, looking at an exhibit. all the ikan bilis are much too afraid of going near and touching the brilliant fish.

but my point is, whether he realizes it or not, he has the guts to just say what he wants to say - which is what i need to cultivate in myself. even if it's for the sake of getting participation marks! lol

BTW I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE!