Saturday, July 08, 2006 // 3:44 AM

why i am __________

i haven't been deprived of people to talk to, lately. even though i expect that much once i start studying. well once i start studying and really get into it i'm astoundingly focused; i just don't know how long i can keep this up for. studying for prelims in sec 4 just about knocked me out so that i couldn't bring myself to pick up my studies again for the o's. yesterday barnard said to me it's a relatively short period in your life, and i keep thinking about that, and trying to look beyond, which isn't difficult, really, because looking beyond involves possibly university life overseas and at very least an 8 month holiday.

it really did surprise me how much i enjoyed talking to barnard, yesterday. i'm astounded by the faith he has in my intelligence, not because (in the true spirit of cockiness) i doubt my own intelligence, but because i don't think i have ever done anything at all intelligent, in his class. rebellious, challenging, subversive, unrepentent, oblivious, maybe. it's alarming to think that he notices that i drift off, and et cetera, i wonder if he knows that i am doodling on my laptop, while he waxes lyrical about the great depression. a long time ago i was interested but now i think i am just fed up, disillusioned, with how badly i am doing in this subject. i don't know whether my failing blocks is an indication of my own hopelessness with the subject or simply an indication of the fact that i did not open my textbook even once for block tests. but. but barnard seems to believe i can do this, (if i put in some work, which he keeps saying, gesturing at the books on the table, along with other things like with you it's a pure discipline problem and i know you can do it, it's just a matter of whether you will. which is actually. a pretty good assessment of my entire situation, i think.) and because he seems so sure of my intelligence, which reinforces my own faith in my own intelligence, it removes a lot of the psychological barrier that i have been having towards econs. that and the fact that he gave me list of a level textbooks i can look into, in my refusal to plow through sloman because it's just got so much extra shit inside that i'm not willing to spend my time on (opportunity cost, my darlings), i actually really, really do think i can do it, now. today i sat in starbucks with xinyi and a cup of coffee and i covered half of national income accounting and i really think i understand this now. when previously just looking at it (granted, now i'm looking at a strictly a level textbook, instead of a mass of information out of which i'm supposed to pick out what is really crucial to the exam taking) induced these suffocating waves of restlessness or lethargy. and i think i'm really going to start studying now, because of barnard, because he seems to believe so much in me (not in the personal way but in a very deadpan, factual, you've got the personality but if you don't have the grades- i'm not going to rank you but if you do well enough for prelims for us to predict 4A's then you've got a shot at scholarships sort of way), and i want to prove him absolutely right. i want to prove that i can get a C by prelims, an A by the A's. is it standard procedure to predict an A for someone who gets a C for prelims? if it is: are the prelims going to be that devastating, and if it is not, does he really think i am that capable? cheesey inspirational-ness doesn't quite fit barnard, but i think it is what is getting me to study.

and he's convinced i like my rebel reputation, which i don't really know how to take, i don't think i have much of a rebel reputation, anymore. i don't think i'm much of a rebel anymore, really. well i actually know some people who would disagree with me: perry, the people who set the 16-pf test, various schoolmates. sigh. but really i think that's only because they have not seen what i used to be, and anyway they see a certain side of me, when i'm under certain conditions that i really just refuse to obey. i can't mindlessly obey rules, especially when i know there's an easier way out. in church God comes into the picture, and even then sometimes i find it ever difficult to swallow myself and obey. in nanyang i forced myself to tone down as a strategy of avoiding trouble, for the same reasons i've learnt to placate authority (even my mom, in a lesser way), because really it doesn't make sense to mess with someone who's got a bigger stick than you. what eventually broke me surprised me: i remember sitting in that room with ms lee and the gep counsellor after getting into all that shit and ms lee asking how do you think your parents feel and i thought about ms dee coming into class so furious that i had gotten into so much shit when she was the only one of all my teachers who had anything at all good to say about me and i thought about ma especially and how upset it got her when michael got into his own shit in primary school. and i remember before that moment they had never gotten me to cry or show a sign of repentence, which was what they were looking for, after all those hours upon hours of interrogation: why did you do it how did you think she felt don't you see anything wrong with what you did. the minute i broke they proclaimed me sensible, left me alone (enough to even not get involved when i got into trouble again later on. geez.). looking back now i can see how that was really all they wanted, and how, it amazes me. i'm amoral by nature, by inclination, or i was, very much so. i can still talk about what i did casually now, because she was never much of a real person to me, (except very briefly, in long emails that said sorry and it's okay and can we be friends and nothing more) it's only after i started getting pinned down to real people that i wanted to take it all back. because it wasn't worth it, it really isn't worth the people you hurt, in the process.

i think it's that much that stops me from being a rebel, anymore- i think to be callously rebellious like that you have to have a certain level of devil-may-care-ness, which i can't make a claim to anymore. there are people and things and principles i care about strongly now, there are times when i buckle down and submit for the most smallest of reasons. and i told him that in many ways i am your typical conservative Singaporean. i think fundamentally i can't pretend to myself that i am a rebel anymore, and so i can't even begin to put forth to other people or be proud of having a rebel image - i really do think that the minute you scratch below the surface i'm very little of a rebel at all. and i'm so much less rebellious than what i used to be that to me this surely cannot count as being rebellious. subversive maybe, like in my automatically taking the opposite stance to any argument being put forward by anyone. but i really really really have toned down. to borrow marvin's words, i think once i get some sort of indication that the other party is making some attempt to understand me, i can gracefully put away my claws, or just agree to disagree. i don't think i have been beaten or bought into submission, i think my subversivenes has subverted itself: any main philosophy must have the holes in it poked out and exposed, including that philosophy as well. and even after arguing myself into a hole, you throw in things like believing (and i don't just mean God), you sit down shut up and listen to what people say to you, and you realise that there is some truth, somewhere, people have their reasons right or wrong for believing certain things, so they should at least be given that first chance. and then furthermore start to see that people are people instead of ideas, that people are more than a collection of vices and virtues. i think the softie in me that michael pointed out in my six year old self has survived much active repression from my conscious self, over at least ten years since.

i think i really have changed a lot, in my soft-ness. i think my previous self would sneer at the me i am now, but the difference is that now i am happy, then i was not. i really am happy now, talking to people makes me happy. over the past week i've talked to various people for hours on end each and there is really little else that makes me happy like this. joel was talking about going out today with daryl to buy pa equipment, and i really like doing things like that. even when they're to do with something that i know next to nothing about; i just like the hanging out with people i love. i bummed around all last sunday afternoon with sebbie, talking, not talking, people watching, and i think i realised a lot of things about sebbie. talked to marvin on tuesday, and i think i realised a lot of things about myself. and about him, of course. but the realising things about myself surprises me because they are things that i realise just as i am saying them, and they make the most perfect of sense. talked to xinyi last now after another gorgeous nightmare of a dance lesson, and came to the conclusion that it's liberating, Not Liking People; before getting kicked out of carls junior and onto the streets. these have been major high points of my week, people. and i really am grateful for that much.

by the way, i'm irritated at having to play for main service again this sunday. or not irritated, my heart is not right, and i am such an incompetent pianist because this is a style i can't play at all. i think i'm going to need someone to vent this to, later today, before it builds up into a bitterness, i don't want to have bitterness with piano. joel tried to placate me but somehow it just gets me more and more irritated, and how there's this politics with everything, and why can't we all just get along harharhar, this. this is a stupid, and i wonder, if i am secretly competent, at the end of the day, with this being just another discipline issue. but i really don't think so, i think i've heard myself and geez, the standards should be so, so much higher. i'm not enjoying this at all, but some part of me keeps thinking that's what service includes, so grit your teeth and swallow it, we're all in this together.

goodnight.