I have to:

Read all 6 chapters of Liddicoat.
Read the past 2 weeks of 201's notes.
Read chapter 6 of Saeed's semantics after finishing chapter 5.

Figure out dialogue pour francais.
Start on Alec's assignment.
Work on KK's assignment (once he puts it up.)

Funny, I don't seem to be panicking yet. I haven't touched liddicoat since.. Well, I haven't touched it since i bought it. For some strange reason, i think i'm still good.

choose 1 topic and create a 5 minute speech. right...

I wish I was part of the first group. Then I'd totally talk about prostitution and totally agree that it should be legalised and allowed and all that kind of crap. Yup, I like being controversial, but what am I gonna talk about with these topics? wa.

night.

Tis' slightly ironical that I want to delete my facebook page and yet I keep adding to the number of blogs that I own.

On a whim, I decided to check out wordpress. (All Valerie's fault, I tell you.) and I signed up an account and created a blog. Only to realise that I had nothing to say left. This account will be my fourth blog to my name (metaphorically, since I don't use my name at all), and there's nothing for me to add. One's a private blog, the second is this, the third is a book I'm thinking of writing, and the wordpress one? hm. No content to fill it with.

Too bad I don't know how to program. Then I'd just have one blog that gathers all my other blogs into one site. Cos I want pages, free privacy settings for some pages, some pages for blogs and some pages remaining static for my book, and nice themes and pictures. Unfortunately, all these things that I've mentioned come with the different blog hosts.

Oh what am I doing? I'm supposed to be studying.

But you know what's the other irony I hate? The fact that you stop blogging cos too many people are reading your posts, or are able to access your posts. The internet is scary. Things can be found, and things can be pulled up and dug out. I just wish the paper-and-pen route was safer, but I hardly think it is even better.

At the end of the day, whatever you say or do can and will be used against you (in a court of law. you have the right to remain silent, and you have the right to an attourney). But I would love to be able to pick up the threads of my thoughts 20 years from now (another lifetime away), and read through them, because I know I'll forget what I'm thinking.

Can somebody please program a book-like blog host? That'll be nice. Or maybe I'll get somebody to print and bind my blog entries. That'll be nice too.

It's 9 o'clock. i've to read chapter 5 and 6 of semantics.
1-3 of liddicoat.
Alec's readings since last week.

I should have played with my blogs tomorrow, when i have that 4 hour break. used ntu's electricity and internet.

bad choices i make sometimes.

she said:
she's just flabbergasted by the amount of you know what you got into.
mandy said:
hahaha nice way of putting it.
she said:
well, 'situations' would be a euphemism.
mandy said:
i think I would agree with that.

You know you're in trouble when 'situations' becomes a euphemism.

Of course I'm blogging. What else would I be doing when I have a mountain of homework beside me, waiting for my attention? :)

Well, it's not even a mountain. It's currently a hill. 5/6 chapters of Saeed's Semantics for Nala, a couple of chapters of Liddicoat for KK, Alec's readings to do, and "I have a dream" to read by MLK for verena tay. Whee. Oh. And I need to tell an aesop's fable for COW3. I'm calling COM 205 (speech and argumentation) cow3. It doth not bode well. :)

So let's be a good girl and do part of that homework. Aesop's fable:

  The Astronomer 
  AN ASTRONOMER used to go out at night to observe the stars.  One evening, as he wandered through the suburbs with his whole attention fixed on the sky, he fell accidentally into a deep well.  While he lamented and bewailed his sores and bruises, and cried loudly for help, a neighbor ran to the well, and learning what had happened said:  "Hark ye, old fellow, why, in striving to pry into what is in heaven, do you not manage to see what is on earth?'

Well. So now I have to tell my version of it.

(ten seconds goes past)

Riiiiiiight....

I think I'll probably wing it on monday. :)

Wonderful work ethic, have I not?

I wish to write a book. And yet, all I know are my own experiences. But I don't want to take my life to weave a story.

It's now--oh only the--second week of school, and I feel inundated.

Tis' a little early, don't you think?

Quick to-do list:
*breathe*.
~Com 205 self-intro and read Khaw Boon Wan's speech to pull out points. (by next Monday)
~Read "Manika" for 201 (by next Wednesday)
~Complete 202's tutorial (Wednesday)
~Complete 330's tutorial (by Thursday) and read chapt 1 (by Thursday) and 2 of liddicoat (by next Thursday)

Ok, now shuffle that to when-to-do-this:
~Complete 330's tutorial (tomorrow)
~~~read chapt 1 (tomorrow)
~Complete 202's tutorial (Wednesday)
~Com 205 self-intro and read Khaw Boon Wan's speech to pull out points. (Friday/on train on sat)
~Read "Manika" for 201 (next Monday's break)
~~~and 2 of liddicoat (Friday/sat)

ok. and I'm gonna make sure i stick to this.

It's time.

It's time for me to go back to school.

And I won't use the word again, because this time, it's gonna be different.

Yes, I loved my first year in university, but this time it's going to be better. This time, I'm gonna get clearer. Yes, I'm going to get stressed, yes, I might get behind with my readings and not understand what is wanted with my essays, yes, there might be days when all I feel is swamped and all I want to do is crawl into a ball on my bed and cry, but I'll get through it.

Yes, I've had this dream, I've always had this dream. But I was way more idealistic then. Maybe now I know what will happen, maybe now I'm a little more prepared.

No matter what, this is something that will always stump me, will always question me, will always throw me into the waters without so much as... well, all I have is myself, really. And that's something to go by.

I trust my gut feel. And I trust that I will figure out what I'm doing along the way. There is something that plans my journey, there is a song that is waiting for me to write the melody, any every step I take, no matter how strange or unnecessary, is leading me down that road.

My fire is burning
and light will attract like.
I will play the strings of melody,
I will pluck the strings of fate.
I will hum my tune
among the other stars in the sea
and bring the ones like me close.
I will search for better songs
I will try to sing better tunes.
I will cast my lines in hope of keeping
and catching what is dear to me
close.
In this moment as I am wording,
my soul is above me and singing.
A shining thread connects me
to the being that I could be,
supposed to be.
And I will sing.
I will sing to bring it closer,
I will sing so I climb higher.
I could cough,
and I could stumble.
I could place my feet
on wrong, rough rock.
But so long as I keep my thread safe
so long as I keep humming and believing
then my dreams will never die.
Then my fears will not stop me.
It will guide me, though I know not what it is,
nor can I put a name or an image to it.
It is no more than a feeling.
It is mine, it is me,
and it is also larger than me.

Oh crapaloola.

Me, the undergrad linguist,
         the A1 in English,
            the one taking French when she can't handle Chinese (actually there's no link there)

Cannot tell the difference between "its" and "it's" anymore. GAaaaahh!

Actually, it's not so bad. I can tell. But sometimes when I'm typing, the apostrophe (did I even spell that right?) appears and disappears like it has a life of its own. Gah.

It's - the shortened form of it is, much like 'tis.
Its - something belongs to it.

waaaaaaaaaaa.

One day, I promise, I'm gonna write a book. And people will buy it. I swear.

g'bye.

It seems like I've lived half my life in the last year... I've made at least 5 decisions, all of which could have changed the course of my life for a very long time, if not irrevocably forever.

I sat in the bus with my mom today (nothing special about that), when I saw a semi-familiar book shoved in front of my face. (No, the person holding it wasn't being rude, he was just grabbing the rail for dear life as the bus came to his stop.) It was a plastic-covered, black-binder, black-and-white photocopied book that I used to carry only two years back. JJC Mathematics Book 2.

Then I remembered what Hemma said when I met her and Nan for lunch last Friday. She said that she would be replaced, when the new batch comes in, by one of the new first-years. It wasn't a remarkable statement, it was just a matter of fact, but it made me realise that I've only lived through another year of my life, and it feels like I've lived for half a century. Hemma told me that one of the girls who came to the tea party recognised me from the posters they had there, and it took me a few seconds to remember that not too long ago, I was dancing with an almost complete stranger on a stage, joining and leading the new batch in a mass dance.

And that wasn't too long ago...

Westwood seems like another world away, much like how childhood imagination seems to fade.. It feels like a collection of vague memories, of a place I created in my mind many moons ago, where all I had to worry about was whether the teachers on the third floor would hear if I threw a plastic sprite bottle as high as I could before letting it fall on the stone quadrangle ground.

No, I am not getting jaded. I am far from getting jaded. If anything, I feel more, I live more. I cry more, and I'm glad to know that I've laughed more and did what I wanted more. I've had a good slice of playing and pain.

And yet I still realise that I am a baby. I cry when I'm frustrated, when I don't understand, when I want to control my body and I can't. I don't know some things, I forget some things, and whatever that has the ability to catch my attention does. I'm likely nowhere near closer to taking care of myself as I was when I was a child. A child can take their own food and water, and can let their feelings out as they laugh of cry. Or run to the toilet when they have to. A child can get it's own clothes, tell someone when they're ill, the same way we just go to the doctor and wait for some magical panacea.

But I hope that I've not just grown in size. I hope that I've made the right decisions, made my choices ones that I can live with.

I look back at this past year, and I don't feel any regret. They're all simply memories now, memories to keep, and some to reject, to keep in that little cardboard box at the little corner of my mind that I clear out with good energy every once in a while.

Everything, I guess, is a lesson to be learned. I hope--I know that I've made the right decisions so far. Except for one. That one, only time will tell, as far as I can say. I still believe in an infinite energy. The infinite planning and charting, influenced by our thoughts and actions that translate into vibrations as much as it's vibrations affect us. With every road, there are paths. There are junctions and rivers to cross. Some paths take us away from where we are headed, and some paths place us back just a little further down the road we left.

I don't know where my road is leading, really. And I think only a select few of us do. I can only see the short term of where I'm currently headed. It's simple to guess when you're on the highway called "University". I'm currently on the exit route to "Undergraduate Ave.", but there are other exit routes too. There's "Postgraduate Rd." and "PhD. Dr." I think they're nice places to visit, but I think "Dropout Corner" is a bit dodgy to go. It's not exactly a dark little cul-de-sac, but you never know what you'll get when you turn the corner. Some people make it better than the ones on "Undergrad Highway", but there's also the bunch who end up in there for quite a while, before turning to "Poverty Alley". I almost headed there once though. "Dropout Corner", I mean, not "Poverty Alley". I was a bit blinded by the people I met. Actually it's not all their fault. I was more befuddled by their effects, really. "Dropout Corner" is pretty much a spin on the wheel of fortune really. And even though I could have landed on the "bankrupt" slot, it became pretty enticing when the road got bumpy and I didn't see any way to change lanes. Drivers start sending strange signals and driving strange ways and the moment I noticed that both the suspension and engine were going wonky and sputtering, I figured it was time to turn out before I got into an accident. I mean, it's one thing to slam into the street lamps yourself, but I didn't want to take anyone else with me.

I don't regret things, really. Maybe it's because I have a funny memory. I also have a wonky sense of time. Sometimes, when I'm late for class, my brain does this flip, and I think I'm not late for class anymore. I guess I'm slightly delusional, but all these years of my mother setting the home clocks 20 minutes early might have something to do with it. Because the feeling of rushing to a place only to get there way too early is quite familiar to me, just that it's backfiring on me now, because I come into class actually almost believing that I'm not late at all. Gosh, if I need to set an alarm to get to class on time, my phone would be ringing off the table.

But why am I explaining myself here? Some perceptions hardly change, and some memories resurface as much as I try to hide them in the little black box that lies in the cardboard one. Some words hurt more than others, some friends are strange to understand. Don't expect apologies because everyone had a point anyway.

Why do I feel this way anyway? Going back to ntu was warm and fuzzy, but the closer I got to the north spine bus stop, the more I felt cold and dread, and I didn't want to go back. When the bus pulled in to the south spine bus stop, a little thought came to me and asked if I just wanted to ride this bus out and back to a place that wasn't so strange.

You know what's my main problem with university? I have no idea if what I'm doing is right. In all the other places, knowing that you knew 90% of the information was good enough to let you know that you're likely going to pass and be okay. But university? No idea if what I'm writing will make sense, no idea if the amount or quality of research is okay, no hard and fast rule that says "If you do ... then you will get an A", and no book that goes "so here's how you do ... " because there isn't going to be a book that says "Here's how to do research on taps and rhoticity in Singapore". There's not going to be a book that goes "Here's how to write a research paper that focuses on an individual (or group) with these influences and here are the good papers for examples and reference." I'm probably making excuses because there are books out there that help. Bee put up an extract of a book that teaches how to write papers last semester, and the Profs are there when I need help. But I can't be hand-held forever.

There is so much uncertainty swirling around me in this life that I wonder if, or when, I'll go mad. Or maybe we all are. Mad, I mean. I mean, we're going through university without knowing what we'll be, and kind of really just because someone told us that it's a good thing to do.

One thing I am certain though. I am hungry. *goes off to cut an apple for a snack*