on my mother, the sorurce of many of my troubles

would you rather be angry or accompplish what you set out to do? or, would you rather satisfy your ego or satisfy your goals?

i don't understand my mother. she takes tremendous issue with things i do that have no impact on her at all. she goes on and on about how i don't shower immediately after i get home. when she gets mad she screams at me about that even though like, what does that have to do with her? is it really that bad?

lately she's been going absolutely crazy about how i sleep late and wake up around noon. like ballistic. she screams at me through the door, makes me brother kick it, and nags at me all day long. she's been a total bitch and refusing to talk to me properly for like a week, just because my sleep pattern isn"t the same as hers. like, what gives? what's it to her what time i sleep?

so this morning she went batshit crazy about it. yesterday i agreed to go to some exhibition with her. she asked me how to get there. the instructions were literally on the website where she got the tickets (under a tab called "how to get there"). i asked her when we were going. she said one in the afternoon, maybe two.

this morning she goes batshit insane. screams at me through the door, the whole deal, everything. i wake up groggily and it's like twelve. what? it's not like i'm late, so why was she being such a bitch? i lie down for a bit more and she goes even more crazy. threatens to beat my ass, you know, the normal asian mom things. this goes on until i finally get up around 1:30pm. 

and THEN she says "we were supposed to go out! at 10am!" what the fuck? bitch, if you don't tell me any of your plans, then you'd better not fucking expect me to be ready for any of them. besides, since she hadn't mentioned it for the over an hour that she's been yelling at me, i thought that it wasn't a huge problem, that maybe she decided to postpone it a little or something.

anyway, she starts going on, yelling at me about all sorts of stuff from the past that she holds against me, like how because my PSLE results were short two points so i couldn't go to the number one elite school, like how i was going to get shitty A level results, then she picks up my basket of face cream/candles/glass miscellaneous things and throws the whole thing at my face.

everything broke and now i have glass shards all over my bed. it's embarrassing. i'm not even going to post a picture. it's so embarrassing that a forty year old woman would do this kind of thing. 

then she threatens to basically kick me out and renounce me as her daughter, then leaves for the exhibition with my brother. like why wake me up and make such a fuss if you're going to go without me? 

anyway, i'm going to get to the root of the whole problem: why does my mother insist on satisfying her anger and ego instead of dealing with issues? 

like she tries to wake me up and i don't hear her, then afterwards when i'm awake, she self-righteously tells me how many times she tried to wake me up. like, so what? you didn't manage to accomplish your goal, which was to get me to wake up ?? then she asks me whose fault it was that i didn't hear her. trying to imply that i was wrong for not hearing things while asleep? bitch as if you can hear things when you're asleep. 

the point is, she chronically chooses feeling good, right, and superior OVER doing things that she set out to do. in fact she chooses her ego over my wellbeing... while using the pretext of being concerned about my wellbeing. 

plus you can see that all she cares about is me getting into elite schools. if she really cared about my grades, she'd yell about my grades way before this. what does screaming at me about me being certain to fail accomplish? why yell at me when it's too late for me to do anything about it? what does it do besides feed your ego and make you feel superior?

i don't understand her. not even a little bit. i don't understand how she can be such a bitch to her own daughter. i don't understand how she can obsess over trivial things for years and years. i don't understand how a grown woman can hurl dangerous objects at people and still find grounds to lecture the other person. 

i don't understand why my mother can't see what she's doing. all she really cares about is being the one with authority. she's not accomplishing anything that she wants to do. she chooses her ego over almost exclusively everything else.

that's part of why i don't trust her to do anything. i don't trust her to get the groceries i want. i don't trust her to drive the car. when she wants to do something, i always, always insist on knowing exactly what she wants to do in case she fucks it up. and she fucks a lot of things up. my father's basically given up because she's like that and won't change, and she takes offense to anyone saying that she's less than what she thinks she is. my father's taking to letting her do whatever she wants and then cleaning up afterwards.

it's so stupid. it's so crazily stupid that i almost don't have any words. the whole situation with my mother is getting out of hand. plus i still don't understand anything about that woman. it all comes down to why the fuck would anyone do anything that didn't forward their goals? why would you do useless things? 

if you tell me "that's her way of showing love" then i'm going to throw it right back at you. it's a shitty fucking way of showing anything. it's probably even abusive. i shouldn't have to deal with her physical and emotional crap because she's my mother and "she loves me".

even when i insult someone, i make sure to insult them on things that are true, and not on speculative things. i always make sure to point out exactly where they're wrong in the hopes that they see it too. i always, always make sure to include something that i hope can make them a better person. i try so hard to do all this because i want my insults to be justified, and i want my insults to do something - i.e. getting them to see how wrong they are, and changing their dickish behaviour.

i try so hard to do all that partly because i absolutely hate people who do things with no purpose, and then can't handle the consequences, and then complain about it as if it's anything other than their own damn fault. in other words, i hate people like my mother and i try so very hard all the time to avoid becoming like her. i try really really hard. when people say "you're like your mother", it's a sign that i'm doing something wrong. 

i'm not saying my mother is a bad person. i'm saying that she's selfish and doesn't think. i'm saying that i don't like anything about her, that she turns my stomach. 

i'm saying that i'm upset that her dumbass behaviour still makes me upset. i'm saying that even though i know exactly why she's wrong, i can't help feeling small, and i can't help crying. i'm upset that i still let her antics get to me. i'm saying that i shouldn't expect motherly things from her after so long, but i still do.

... she makes me miserable. i just want to move out and pack her away in a corner of my mind.

edit:

well, even if i say all this, my relationship with my mother is probably the best among all my friends? i mean, she has her phases. sometimes she's ok. i mean, i still think she's dumb and does dumb things but it's not at a level where i'm seriously angry about it? i'm just like... ugh, meh.

generally i just think my family members are too independent to spend more than an hour with each other. we'll just end up irritating each other if we spend prolonged periods of time together. prolonged like... an hour.

i guess i don't treat my mother like a mother lol.

but when your friends' mothers are overbearing, absent, or favours the male kid, you kind of start appreciating your dumb mom who lacks common sense.

on yagami souichirou being a shit dad and the death note drama

drama!souichirou is a bad dad, and it's so much worse because he's being cast as the good guy. we all know light is all shades of fucked up, but the older yagami is a special brand of self-righteous problematic character masked as a good guy.

i said he was a bad dad, but he's actually a great policeman. the problem is when he prioritises work over family. we romanticise and forgive that to some extent, which I think is totally wrong. having a family is a commitment that's so much more important than your work. when you have a family, you take on the responsibility of providing emotional support for those you call "family". to neglect actual humans for work is especially cold and ignorant and all kinds of dickish that i don't even have words for.

i know the work of a policeman is work that helps the whole of humanity. that some people shoulder the responsibility of helping all people, as a human being. in that case souichirou should have reconsidered starting a family. these kind of people, since they love humanity so much, tend to overlook individual pain and suffering. they make for terrible close companions. 

his other major fault is being too bland. wait up, let me explain. all we see is yagami souichirou bending to what other people dictate. to what is "right", the concept created by humanity. he makes some minor objections when L goes particularly far, but mostly it's either matsuda or the other detectives who show any kind of personality in their decisions. 

okay, maybe this is yagami souichirou's kind of "emotion". but he literally allowed society to make him work so hard that he neglected his children and failed to see his wife before she died. it's not like they needed the money from his work. he allowed L to invade the privacy of his family and so many other people with nary a protest. he let the pc definition of "right" kill him, literally. all i saw in the whole drama was yagami souichirou bending to stronger wills.

plus him being an absent dad was a part of light's motivation to become kira. 

pLUS he tried to commit double suicide with his own son. so.

so tl;dr: the basic sin of the older yagami is 

1. being a shit dad

on the death note drama as a whole:

1. tedious
   
2. changes minor things but has the same overall plot. those changes make no sense. i got a bit excited when i heard about an "original plot". haha. ha. no such luck.
   
3. humanises light a little. at the same time, diminishes his "light" so that the overall plot and characterisation suffer and the light/L pull, however you read their relationship, is absent.
   
4. fails to address the larger ideology until essentially the last half hour. even then, it's lacking.
   
5. deus ex machinas the fuck out of L.
   
6. deus ex machinas the fuck out of light's death (because having a killer notebook and two henchmen with shinigami eyes makes him basically invulnerable and there's no way he would've lost in the real world).
   
7. oddly enough, only three actual characters are swayed by light's concept of justice. everyone else are nameless, faceless, anonymous. i am very convinced by it, though. in the right hands, the death note would be a much better system than the current shitty one. so it's incredibly odd that no other character is even slightly swayed. other than L, but even that's questionable.
   
8. on the same note (haha), it's getting boring that they keep making light die an ignominous death, as if humiliating him equals refuting his ideology and ratifying the current system. so pc. why bother setting up two conflicting "correct" ideologies when you're going to deny the the basis of the whole conflict at the end? the conflict is entirely based on the premise that the two ideologies are equally correct. light shouldn't have to die as a "villain".
   
9. disappointing. i expected to like 70% of the drama, but ended up liking about 30-40%, if i'm honest about it.
   
10. pulled up to a bit less than 60% because kubota masataka's light is anime!light come to life. well, the best he could, anyway, given that the writers ruined the original premise and connections. 

the day before my first exam

im so fucked. at the same time i'm wondering how hard it could be. i don't know, i had a good childhood, so i never had to work hard for anything and thus have no idea how i actually measure up against others and consequentially i have no idea no to study or what the real world is like. i mean i speak as if i know what anything's supposed to be like, but it's not like i've ever experienced anything tbh.

my anxiety levels are literally off the charts - off my charts, at least. i've never, ever, ever been this stressed. i can't sleep, my head hurts, my heartbeat feels like it's fucking fluttering with how fast it goes all the time, my hands shake. i ACTUALLY cannot handle this. 

i can't imagine university being any worse, because i'm going to be taking humanities courses so it means no more maths anxiety. plus it's not like i have to convince a total stranger that i know my stuff. i assume my professor is more easily fooled by my knowledge or lack thereof than an impartial stranger. it's always much easier to face a person than an exam script, you know? you get more leeway. and sometimes you can straight up lie and it works.

i did some studying, i don't know how much it counts. like i said, i literally have no idea how to compare myself to others. i thought i was being a complete bum but the other day two separate people told me they took two/three days just to work on one single essay. dude?? what?? but i really, really don't know anymore. and i'm so keyed up that any opinion i have right now is probably just wrong.

maybe this level of anxiety might warrant actual medication. i don't know, i feel like it does. it's really bad. i can tell it's really bad. nothing is helping(!!) and the anxiety is basically making me effectively useless at studying. 

the education system is really broken. the mode of assessment is all wrong. i hate this. i hate all of this. i mean, i literally don't have any understanding of how i measure up. i could get an A. i could fucking fail. i don't know anything and the system has done fuck all to prepare me. i wish i could tell every single school administrator that. "the system has done fuck all to prepare me for jackshit". thank you. thank you so much.

i just hate all of this. i'm looking forward to post-exam things so much, but if i fail here then i might as well not have a life. am i being melodramatic? probably. but my life is a pretty narrow road which involves getting into a good university (i.e. universities with names that everyone recognises, it's more about the brand than quality) and then getting a good job (i.e. a good salary) and if i fail here, it means that everything i've done before this is meaningless, and everything that i'll do after this just got two hundred times harder.

i can't helping feeling that a good portion of this could be significantly improved if i had a lot of money. i mean, my endgame was always money, which i could then use to make myself happy, so if i had money from the beginning then i would be like, one-fifth as stressed as i am now. i'd still want to score well for the sake of pride and recognition, but it's not like it'd have any practical impact on my life if i, you know, had money.

ugh. i just HATE all of this. in a month i'd be ten million times better, but the anxiety won't go away until i receive my results, and then receive my university offers. then it'd all go away until i have to worry about supporting myself.

speaking of supporting myself, i don't understand why other people involve their parents so much in their education choices. i mean, it's their choices, not their parents'. besides, what could their parents do to them? i don't remember my parents being involved in my education at all?? besides when i ask for their help. which i rarely did, and ever since i turned thirteen... like once, maybe? i didn't ask them when i picked my subject combination at 14, and i didn't ask them when i chose my combi again at 16, and now that i'm picking my university, i don't ask them anything either. i mean, besides finances, but i know they'll support me financially, and i could always get a loan for the parts where they can't help. i don't see why they have to be involved. it's not their choice, and their advice is outdated, plus i could always ask teachers or just email the universities. 

i mean, it's just weird. but if it works for them... i guess?

my mom is like "it's a big milestone in your life!" but i'm like no? i'm just going into tertiary education, what's the difference? maybe when i get a job i'll also be like what's the difference? it's just a job. and ... to be honest... yeah, it's just a job. career advancement isn't something they can help with? i see no point in updating them on the minutiae of my life. as long they know what i'm doing, generally, which i'm not sure they actually do... um. i guess i might talk to them if i ever get married, but i won't be asking for their opinion, i'd just be informing them. and if i adopt a kid... probably wouldn't ask them either. i mean, it's so weird?? to ask your parents about everything?? since it's not their life and they don't know best anyway. and it's not like you can't divorce, or change jobs, or anything - it's not exactly permanent? a kid is different because you're taking responsibility for a life, so that's kind of permanent, but the kid will leave you someday too. i don't see why people are still so reliant on their parents' opinions when they're 18..

then again i'm probably more assured of my parents' unconditional love than others. i could be a dick to them, they could be heartily sick of me, but i don't see them ever not loving me, you know? or deliberately not caring about my welfare, or deliberately endangering me. it's a concept i don't even understand. i could trash the whole house but they wouldn't kick me out or not give me food. even if i don't speak to them for fifty years, they'd still give me money if i needed it. so i guess for people who don't feel assured of this, they'd think it's more important to obey their parents? earn their love? i guess? i still don't understand why, but whatever.

all this writing has calmed me down a little, which was what i was hoping to achieve when i started this post. so i'm off to study a little bit more, i guess. i still hate the system. just because some people are good enough to jump through all the fucking ridiculous hoops, it doesn't mean the hoops aren't still fucking ridiculous.


edit: exams ended on 25th november. am now enjoying life.

the zeitgeist is gone

why is it that you can only write about things when they are gone? when the youth hanging on the precipice is safely past, you remember the thrill and danger of not knowing where you were going, the specific pain of insecurity pricks your eyes when you know that it will never come again.

on an overcast day you pick up an old book and listen to music filled with emotions that you can no longer feel. you fear remembering because every time you remember you risk rewriting the original. the hugeness of the possibilities expanding in your chest is already nailed down. how is it that youth passes so fast? you never thought it would end. every time you understand something, the time to use that understanding is past.

the careless carefulness of the young is something you'll never feel again. the future was bleak, but that was how you liked it. exciting in its bleakness. you looked forward to hopelessness. now it is no longer grey. it is normal, red blue green, you lose your perspective in normalcy.

you think everything passed you by, but it never did. it's locked in the days you spent your whole life living, only you can never bring it back.

i need to study (!!)

okay, life status: 86 days to A levels

i just drew up a rough revision schedule and now my palms are sweating and i'm having heart palpitations because i realised that i've screwed myself over a little.

basically i'm going to have on average 15 days to revise each subject. i'm going to puke.

i'm pretty certain that if i actually get down to it, ('it' being studying seriously) i'd be able to finish revising everything by my first paper. if i get down to it, i'm 80% sure that i'll feel relatively secure in my knowledge before my papers. given my nature (i.e. a lazy bum who hates all kinds of work) i'm like, 40% sure i'll be able to keep to my schedule.

by revising, i mean hauling out all my study material for the past two years and going through the complete syllabus (in 15 days, on average). so, completely relearning the subject.

essentially in the next 86 days i'm going be living my life more intensely than i ever have before in my 18+years.

((just think, if i survive this, i'll be qualified to give studying advice. me!))

i've set rules for myself like

- whenever mama wants to go out (to eat, or shop, or whatever) i will go with her
- i will update the shokura excel sheet within 3 days of the day it airs

to prevent myself from over-exerting my brain and giving myself a nervous breakdown before the exams, and also to prevent school from taking over my life.

i forsee my anxiety levels going WAY up in the next 86 days and my palms are still sweating and my current anxiety level is already making me want to have a little lie-down.

wish me luck.

like, actually wish me luck pls, send me a message

cosfest2015 and cats

cosfest2015 was a special kind of disappointment. the cosplay was subpar. the stage events were non-existent. and the merchandise was all touken ranbu. fml.

i brought my 50mm 1.8 lens because that was the lightest i had, but it turns out 50mm is hell for events because i am always. always too close.

my bus card also died on me that day so i'd say it was a pretty shitty day overall.

i didn't bother to edit any of the photos because there's nothing to edit anyway.

by the way, the kid cosplayer is the one that keeps showing up at events with his mom. i'd like to think i made friends with his mom, but she probably just thinks im creepy af. 

the highlight of the day were the pictures of the cats i took on my way home.

on a related note i went to senpai's house a few days ago to see her 3 months old kitten. she tells me it's a bobcat and that it's called "lucky". i think it should be called "biting monster" because it kept fucking biting me. 

i love it very much and it loves me very much so i think i'll go back to senpai's house soon.

bad parents, it's complicated

i know parents aren't all they're crack up to be. you think they've got their life together, but no. you'd think with how they expect you to go to university, they'd save up for it, but no. you think they'd be logical and reasonable and love you and be nice to you, but no.

to be fair most parents are pretty good, most of the time. but even nice parents can have their shitty times, when they're unreasonable and scarily crazy and sometimes violent. i know that even if your parents are perfectly nice people, sometimes when they're angry you honestly become scared for your wellbeing.

tbh i have no idea why people let themselves be so angry that they can't control themselves, but that's a different matter. i also happen to have a bad opinion of emotional people so whatever.

anyway i wanted to outline what i think you owe your parents. and it's less than you might think.

growing up in an asian society you always hear people going on and on about filial piety. well i guess that's important, but sometimes it's a pile of bullshit. you can't possibly devote yourself to abusive parents, or parents who abandon you, or parents who are obviously, completely terrible.

but i want to say that even if your nice parents act up and make you feel like crap, it's okay because you're not obliged to love them. you're just not. sometimes normal parents are the worst, because you don't really feel entitled to hate them or denounce them because most of the time they are NICE. they are good, regular people who love you, and you feel bad about hating them and stuff.

but you're NOT obliged to love them. if they're good to you, acknowledge it. if they treat you decently, treat them decently back. you need to remember that they are in fact obliged to provide some things for you, because they gave birth to you. you didn't sign up to be born, but they signed up to give birth. i wish all people who gave birth were capable of taking care of a child, but you know. wishes are wishes. and you don't need to love them. it's okay not to love them.

you don't need to do what they want you to do either. i mean in life. and academics. they may mean well, but in the end you should study what you want. how do i say this? you shouldn't feel bad for not following the life your parents planned out for you. you are your own person. you don't owe your parents your life. yes, they gave birth to you. no, they don't own your life.

i think, really, you owe very little to your parents. they gave birth to you - but that's not something you can either condemn or be grateful for. it's just a fact that you exist. what you owe them is their treatment of you after you're born. were they good parents? then you should probably be good to them when they're old. were they just decent? then just be decent to them. were they toxic to your life? then you probably shouldn't spend too much time with them.

i think, in general, be civil to your parents. think hard about whether something is actually your fault. don't hesitate to throw away your guilt if you decide that something honestly isn't your fault/your obligation. sometimes people seem like awesome parents, but they're really tearing you down mentally and emotionally. just recognise it and walk away from the relationship as you would from any other bad relationship.

don't feel like you should give up on being yourself because they're your parents and you have some misguided sense of obligation to them. parents aren't exempt from being terrible people.

the no studying challenge

so this week is hellfire exam week but i have literally not studied anything. it feels super weird to not worry about exams, but also very liberating. usually i feel like complete crap during exam week, and usually fall sick right after (stress, probably) but this time? i might actually be enjoying the whole "you can go home after the exam" thing.

seriously, i feel like i might've reached zen or self-fulfilment or received enlightenment or something. i've suddenly come to the realisation that stressing over exams doesn't help at all - i mean, i knew that, before, that stressing doesn't help, but at that time i hadn't experienced what it was like to not stress over important exams. this time i threw my fucks into the wind and said goodbye, and oddly enough i feel like i could write better essays now that i stopped caring.

i don't think my grades will be any worse than usual, despite me not studying AT ALL (i am not joking about this) but i'll wait until the grades come out... 

of course i'll need to study really hard for the final preliminary exams and the final a'levels, but it's good that i had this experience of a stress-free exam period. i don't mean to say that i didn't take this time's exams seriously, i just mean that i intentionally didn't study or cram before the exams, and took the exams seriously with the knowledge i already had. not only did i not study, i didn't discuss anything before or after the exams, and didn't let myself be pulled into the pit of half-joking half-serious frantic revision right before the exam.

we'll see how this goes, but i honestly think i achieved the same grades as usual, or maybe even better for some essays, since i wasn't half-delirious with stress. plus i felt great the whole time. 

i have to say, however, that the subjects i take are ALL essay-based. i literally only have one subject that isn't - that's maths, and i can't fail any more at maths even if i didn't study. so it's different from chemistry or physics, because i don't think you can not study for those subjects and expect to do well. 

it's pretty lonely tho, because all my friends are studying. that's about the only downside to this.

anyway it's been great, and i can't wait to see my results.

(after these exams i'm going to have to study like mad anyway, because this is literally the last time i can accept any mediocre grades -- am going to have to aim for straight As, and then achieve straight As, plus i have to write my independent study paper. so ironically this exam week is my last period of relaxation)

does anyone else have time management problems though? like i always have a ton of time left, but i can't bring myself to check my essays because there isn't enough time to change anything substantial anyway. i'd like to be able to finish like ten minutes before the end instead of half an hour. i want to like spend appropriate amounts of time pondering over the content of the essay instead of just finishing it?? OR they could have this thing where you can hand in the paper early and then go home ;;;;;;;; i wish they'd let me go off early

edit: guess what happened after my last paper (literature). old cranky mr prince said that he saw me just staring into space and would've let me off if i'd finished my paper. then he said "well that's too late now" in his british accent and all that went on in my brain was WHYYYYYYY oh my precious wasted time. i will never get you back.

my phone history

i think i've finally found THE phone for me. like i've never really especially wanted a phone, because it costs a lot, it's a bother to change phones, generally no phone was ever good enough for me to want to face all that hassle. but i've found it.

the lg g4 

literally it sounds like the phone of my dreams, except for the fugly back cover and the ui which i think could be prettier. but whatever i'm getting that phone as soon as my contract ends (which is very soon) and i just want everyone to know that i loVE that phone?? and i'm sure that once i have it in my hands i'll just love it more. 

let's recap my phone history - i got my first phone early, like when i was 7 or 8, because my parents were sick of me not being able to contact them. it was a basic nokia, which we kept until recently. it also worked until recently, although the keyboard piece would fly off whenever we dropped it (which was often). i think my brother finally crushed its spirit though, so i no longer see it around and assume that it's dead. [probably the nokia 3310 or something that looks like it]

the next phone was a nokia, with a snazzy red/white/black design and a black and white pixellated screen. i played snake on it a lot, even though you could hardly tell what anything was, since the pixels were fuckin huge. long story short, i killed it. the next phone was also a nokia (yes my family was a nokia fan) which was white and pretty good-looking. i can't remember what the screen was like though. maybe a colour screen. long story short i think i dropped it in a toilet somewhere and it started malfunctioning so i had to get another one. the next one was also a nokia (i think). it was the one with a full keyboard and was cute af. i think i also killed it in due time. [maybe nokia e73/e72/e63/e71 i was looking it up and everything looks the same?? i really can't remember

all the phones i've had up until then were my dad's old phones, or spares that he had lying around (and my dad always has spares phones lying around). the next phone i had was one of those popular ones that everyone wanted and was the first new phone i had. a sony ericsson, i think. well, i killed it within a year..... [probably the sony ericsson w705 in red and white]

then i got another nokia, touchscreen one with a stylus. which i quickly killed. [probably nokia 5233/5230 in black] the i got a nokia with the slide out keyboard. [nokia n97 mini in black] which i loved a lot, but also ultimately killed by smashing the audiojack area. after that i think i got another nokia? can't really remember - but i smashed the screen pretty completely, after which my dad handed me another nokia of the same model in a different colour, which i smashed in exactly rhe same way about half a year later. [probably both nokia c7, in black and grey] i liked all these three phones a lot, actually, and i wish there were more like them.

then i got an [xperia v], which was actually one of the phones that i didn't trash!! my dad had to give it back to the office or something, so i got my mom's used [iphone 5c], which... uh... just malfunctioned one day after less than a month. my dad took it to the shop and they told him that the chip just died. so now i have a huawei phone with a cracked screen to tide me over until my contract ends. it was either huawei or the s4, which shut down every time we tried to use mobile data, so it was pretty useless to me. in the short time that i had the huawei, i cracked the screen... more.

currently this is probably my thirteenth phone or something. i think i actually missed a few phones along the way, but whatever. i've had more phones than most people, and my phones last on average less than a year. so... wow. i never realised until now. i'm pretty spoiled, huh. 

did my parents ever confiscate my phone? yeah, i think like once. i was caught playing with my phone in class when i was twelve, and they confiscated it for a week. so during the week, i forgot my bus card one day, and couldn't call my parents for help. in the end i just told the bus driver and he just let me get on. of course i bitched about it to my parents afterwards and they never tried to take away my phone again lol. 

incidentally i'm pretty much the number one technology destroyer, and i have all sorts of funny stories about technology malfunctioning the moment i touch it. my friends joke about it all the time but i don't think it's a coincidence that i've wrecked a TON of electronics - once i wrecked a brand new desktop with some of the best specs at that time and everything, turns out i wrecked the MOTHERBOARD like how does that even happen. everyone's just used to things breaking down around me.

[life update: fell sick a couple of days ago. am supposed to be at a mun now, but i feel too crappy and the snot won't stop, so i think i'll just be a bother if i went]

phone update: i got the lg g4 on the 14th of june. dad bought it while i was out doing volunteer work, chucked it in my room, and conveniently forgot to tell me about it. so i went out drinking with friends, reached home a bit past midnight, and saw some phone manuals on my bed - like wtf? i was tired and a bit buzzed, so i went to take a shower. then i came back, turned on my laptop, and saw the phone beside it. i legit like, went a bit crazy. i sat up till 3 fiddling with the phone until i was satisfied. so like, it took me two hours to set everything up and familiarise myself with it. i love this phone. i love the lg g4. i love it. 

if it's not online then it doesn't exist

*i looked at this again and i'd call this a Confused Post


when i first heard the phrase "if it's online then it doesn't exist" a few years back, it sounded pretty ridiculous. but now i see that it's true - i mean, no quibbling about it, it's just true.

does anyone go to the library to look up things any more? yeah, people do still go to the library, but it's more out of convenience than necessity. and when it's out of necessity, it's the necessity to sound clever than you really are, because you cite "real books". let's be honest, no one doubts that the same information is around online. maybe phrased in a different way. under another name. but do you doubt that you'll find it online? probably nah.

you wouldn't, for example, go somewhere for something that may or may not exist (unless you do that for a job). you'd probably check it online. you'd go online to check if a physical thing is there.

i think it's pretty great, actually, that everything exists online. it's convenient as fuck for writing papers, and also conducive for studying. like, i study in a shirt and underwear. i can't go outside to borrow reference books while also studying. and if i ever want to go outside, i can check the bus timing and leave at exactly the right time. also if i need some new information i could just search it up. if i have different devices, i can access the same information on all the devices!! even if i fuck up. because cloud computing just eliminates the need for thumbdrives and physical storage.

it's so amazing, technology is saving your ass every day.

nowadays it's like ... if it's offline, it's ... how do i say this?

like, you know excessive disclosure of information? yeah, i'm totally for that. not information like your physical address or phone number, but less tangible things like your personality, your preferences, your cultural experiences, and generally your existence.

i feel like this interconnectedness shit is making us all more aware of what the world actually is. like a better sense of what it means to exist.

i'm not going to complain if you tell the whole world about your shitting habits. like, so what? it's a funny anecdote, maybe. it lets people know that there are others like them. and if i didn't want to read it, i could always get away from it somehow.

you ... let the world know that such a person exists. i mean, uh, it's essentially the same thing as "if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall" bullshit, like duh it makes a sound, we know physics, but like does anyone know about it? then does it really matter? it's the stupid existential crisis thing about affirmation and sense of self and crap like that. except it's not crap, it's pretty important i guess.

so in the sense that even if you're alone, it's comforting to know that the information is out there, that anyone could find out and reaffirm your existence. i mean, it's for the same reason that people go for fortune-telling things and take personality tests and see a shrink or whatever. existing in isolation is kind of impossible for humans and basically fucks up your brain until you're barely functional and barely a human. you want people to know you exist, to tell you that you exist, so you can exist.

it's trippy, yeah, but everything basically leads to the fact that you create ... yourself??? like you are this kind of person. you want to be that kind of person. you project a particular image so that people think you are that kind of person and treat you like that kind of person, so that you can become that kind of person.

like, let me reword it: if a tree falls by itself, it doesn't matter that it fell. the importance of it falling is defined in terms of people knowing about it. if there's only you, it doesn't matter what kind of person you are. it doesn't even matter if you exist or not. you are defined by other people, who are defined by you.

so if you're raised by animals, you don't speak human language. if you're raised in a box, you don't conceive of things outside the box. so the bottom line is that the bigger the world you grow up in, the more things you are able to conceive of. and this interconnectedness and excessive disclosure just keeps expanding your world, and i think humanity ultimately becomes better because of it.

and that's why i think anything that isn't online doesn't exist. if your whole world is online, you wouldn't need the physical world. and things that exist only in the physical world will eventually just die out and become redundant and useless. not that it's entirely a bad thing.

i think that in the future, things that don't exist online will assume a status of atlantis.

in any case, currently, if it's not online then it will be shortly.

??

you know what really pisses me off? when my brother hits me and my father thinks it's his problem (it sort of is) and takes over the whole thing and wont let me say a word to my brother and even scolds me for scolding my brother...and then i never hear an apology...ever

like isn't that so fucked up? what's with that? are all fathers like that, or is mine especially irritating? 

i love my dad and everything but sometimes he does such stupid things with no reason whatsoever. 

i used to think adults were, well, better than children, but now i realise that adults are actually kind of pathetic - not all of them, of course, but a huge number of them. don't you realise that adults seem to think they're entitled to a lot of things - for no reason other than that they're adults? i thought we grew out of that in primary school. 

haven't you seen adults throw temper tantrums? it's terrible. it's worse than children. at least kids don't know any better - well i'm starting to think that adults don't know any better either.

i can't believe adults get to do important things like run the economy and teach things to small children. it's the same adults who do your banking that make the waitresses cry when their food is slow. 

it boggles my mind that stupid people are more confident, which leads to us putting stupid people in positions of power. it boggles my mind that 1: stupid people are confident and 2: people fall for it. to be honest i'd probably fall for it too, but wouldn't you realise after a while? i understand why it happens, but like... why???? 

i know that apparently the human race is getting smarter, but it sure doesn't seem like it. i am seriously worried that what with intelligent women being less inclined to motherly feelings and having children, and stupid people in positions of power, that the human race will fuck up spectacularly. 

i can't believe that there are still people who think that racism and homophobia and all kinds of dicrimination are not problems. i really, honestly, can't even believe it. when i see people like that, i have nothing to say except maybe "don't you have a brain?" but that would be rude, so i just stare at them, feeling like the world is upside-down. 

isn't it, like, crazy? i know that if you're benefitting from something, you'd want to keep it that way forever, but don't you ever think about things other than yourself? 

there's a difference between my ideal world and the ideal world for me. i know that and i try not to be the kind of person that works for the ideal world for me, but the kind of person that works for the ideal world and making myself a person that can be happy in the ideal world. 

i don't know why people don't like thinking about things other than themselves. isn't that narrow? isn't that boring? doesn't that make you lonely? 

well in other news, i have a problem with almost all of the world. actually, there's nothing new about that. i always have issues with everything. 

what i did in recent months (the last few months of 2014)

*bc i was lazy so this is late

after school ends i actually get kind of busy. yes i actually get a life. so here are a list of things that i did (voluntarily!! kind of) after school ended. i mean, after projectwork ended. goddamn i hated projectwork.

1. i volunteered for some marathon!! ok dont drop dead of shock. i didnt run a marathon. i'd probably die before ever running a marathon of my own free will so. i actually volunteered to help out with a marathon (because there was a volunteer allowance and also for community involvement hours).

it drizzled the whole fucking night and tam was so miserable but i was pretty okay? we were supposed to be stationed by the road and make sure no one died or anything. guess where we were stationed. no prizes or anything lol.

we were stationed outside some hip, cool club for young people. and from 3 in the morning all the way to 5 or 6 people came out smoking and smelling like alcohol and generally being drunk. i think this woman was puking. and i saw someone in cool dominatrix sexywear and stuff but i have no idea if this someone was male or female or anything (i just wanted there to be a dick involved because that person would deserve an award for stuffing a dick in those tiny tiny tight latex shorts)

tam was a bit scared haha and i think someone tried to hit on her. but i was just like "im tired. and i'll fuck up anyone who pisses me off" and that's basically me when tired. i was like giving off "i'll stomp on your fucking dick dont touch me" vibes i think

tam in a trashy raincoat looking good

im just trash
a head attached to legs

2. i went for a law internship!! ok so it wasn't, like, a real internship. i mean, it was legit and everything, organised by some law association and it was actually a pretty prestigious thing for a high schooler to attend. but!! we have zero law training or knowledge, basically. we can't help much and most cases are pretty confidential so.

ok but i think it's mostly because i was assigned to a pretty big law firm, rodyk and davidson. it's the oldest law firm actually. wow!! they have a library of (totally dry) law books and references, and i saw a nautical law book over a hundred years old. and it was all crinkly and going transparent and wow so rad!!

people who got assigned to smaller firms got a lot of stuff to do. i basically did some basic (like i mean really basic) research for my mentor, and spent most of my time reading those law books. i have gained new appreciation for lawyers!! it's damned bloody hard to become a lawyer. those books are actually killer, and i consider myself a pretty tough reader.

3. went for my dad's company's family day. so basically we went to adventure cove and i snorkelled and touched some fish. the snorkel water was so salty and cold like holy shit. i've never snorkelled before so i had no idea what to do. but i just shoved the tube in my mouth like what could go wrong right?? they have lifeguards on standby and the water isn't even deep.

well i was kind of wrong because when i looked down it was terrifying?? im actually scared of heights. it was like i was standing on nothing and i panicked a bit. quietly. and i forgot to breathe through my mouth lmao so that's how i know the water is salty as fuck. i probably swallowed fish shit. anyway i got on with it bc it would be so weird to back off when im already in the water.

and then afterwards i went to snorkel again because apparently i am a glutton for punishment lmao no im joking. i just like cool things enough to disregard my caveman tendencies to be safe. i do things like go on roller coasters precisely because im fucking terrified of them. like. i am an adrenaline junkie or something.

here are some photos. the some of them were taken with an underwater camera. cool huh.

[ugh lazy to upload]

4. i photographed for prom!! again. yeah i did prom last year too. this year was less traumatising and scary. 

but still a pain in the ass because of all the different lighting and shit. anyway i worry less about the details now. or maybe i just worry less. anyway the photography club has dulled my sensibilities and now i am no longer offended by things that are sucky. or, to be more specific, if my photos are sucky. i know they're not shitty. but they might be sucky. but i dont have enough attention to spare about suckiness because.......

5. afa14!!!!!!!!!! this year's anime festival asia has a nico nico kunikaigi stage and if you want to read about my uncontrollable fangirling or see the awesome rad photos i took, you can go to the post here.

6. i volunteered at famfiesta!! okay so im not actually hyped about it. it was some family-bonding thing camp whatever, and i only agreed to go because my friend asked me to go, and i am shitty at rejecting things that i am totally allowed to reject. but i got community involvement hours for it, and it counts towards next year's hours, and im trying to rack up triple digits without trying next year. looks good on the portfolio.

it was kinda okay and i had to talk to kids and stuff. and kids, predictably, were annoying and spoiled and attention-seeking and totally not worth it dont have kids. however i am pretty much a master of pretending to be nice (lol) im joking i just dont want kids to cry on me or anywhere near me in general.

7. probably going out with the german group again. yay. did not go out with the german group bc i was lazy and stuffs and no one could make it bc they were doing homework and stuff. the last time we went to gladys' house and drank lots of varied and good alcohol and sat up until 3 in the morning waiting for people to get drunk but nobody did. and i got the best sleep of my life that night wow alcohol is good for sleep. (and then i truly understood "beer is shit")

7. went to gabrielle's house for gift exchange and her mother cooked awesome food again!! yay. i got jiayi's present, which was weird as hell and totally nsfw. it was some shoujo manga and on the cover there's this girl being held down by a guy and her shirt was open and her rainbow bra was visible and it says on the cover "not suitable for children".

8. spent new year's eve staying up until 3am again...probably watching some sexy zone shit... i discovered sexy zone a few days before christmas, and oh god, my life is ruined. i struggled through 22 episodes of subless sexy zone channel the dedication is real. on a less important note i didnt do any of my homework

so that sums up my last month or two of 2014

as usual i was very lazy so this post is very late

(fic) to dream, perchance, to

- kurobasu, akakuro. bc i feel bad for not posting

-----------

He dreams of an endless blue.

:

When Akashi wakes up, it is just only six in the morning. He blinks at the vague sky, turns off his alarm. Ten minutes later he is dressed in a neatly pressed uniform and drinking a cup of green tea.

The apartment is silent, and the silence echoes. There is no one to greet, no one to welcome, no one to say "tadaima" to. Not that Akashi Seijuuro had ever had that habit, having been raised in a westernised family by a foreign nanny for the first five years of his life.

He picks up his bag, leaves the half-empty steaming cup on the table, departs for school.

:

There is a blue at the edge of his vision. When he turns around sharply, there is nothing even remotely similar to blue anywhere in that direction. But he is used to it. He turns back, takes another step, continues on his way to school.

:

School is tedious, monotonous, Akashi answers questions and recites poems word for word. He waits for the blue, but in his nondescript building in a nondescript campus there are only grey walls and grey railings and he leans against those railings, breathes in the air, sighs into the blue.

:

He dreams of an endless blue, an eternal blue, an all-encompassing blue that shrinks suddenly to a single pale iris. Then he is staring into a face, a face with eyes that slowly blink and a mouth that parts open "sei-juu-rou".

:

Another day at school, another day watching wisps of blue blow through his fingers in the wind, Akashi Seijuurou thinks about his name, thinks about his family, thinks about winning, thinks about blue irises in a Japanese face.

On his way back to his apartment he finds a blue flower in the drain. He lifts the heavy metal cover, takes the plant, roots and all, and goes back to his apartment to put it in a little flowerpot.

:

He dreams of an infinite blue, a thousand years of existence in between one blink of those two eyes and the next. His hands are wrapped around a slender neck and he is looking into blue eyes and the eyes blink and a mouth says "sei-juu-rou".

:

Often he wonders why he had been given the name "Seijuurou". Often he thinks about the name "Tetsuya", and an expanse of edgeless blue.

Sometimes the blue grows so huge that he has trouble comprehending anything else, rendered incapable of movement and speech, and there is only blue, such an overwhelming blue, a beautiful blue, painted behind his eyelids and imprinted on the inside of his skull, a blue, such a blue.

Then, always, there is the name "Tetsuya", "Tetsuya Tetsuya Tetsuya" over and over and over again echoing in the emptiness of the huge blue taking over his mind, and there is only blue.

:

He dreams of a small little blue dot, and a pink mouth that moves, and "Seijuurou, kill me" runs through his mind in a neverending line, and there is so much blue, so much blue that it is bursting out of him, spilling out of his skin, and everything is blue, there is only blue.

There is only one blue.

(and he opens his mouth at last and what comes out is "tetsuya")

:

I touch the blue.

i missed my january post because i was doing homework

yes, i can't believe it either. school started and i started doing homework every day like a robot. me. homework. it's almost an oxymoron.

it feels like the rest of my life's just going to be me going "well it's got to be done" and blankly doing work. that's terrible, that's like soul-crushingly terrible. i can't even remember what happened for new year's or anything because nothing really did.

i was going to say that i'm glad it's february, but i took that back immediately because that only means the 'a' levels are nearer. ew.

though i honestly think doing all the required work will get me four 'a's, definitely. i've only been getting bad grades because i've never actually bothered to do any of the required work. then again, if i don't start doing my required work soon, it'll be too late to do anything.

ew

i really. really do not like school.

also i find myself losing absolutely all my patience for idiots. there is no patience. i give no fucks. this year i might actually punch someone. i know i've been saying this for years, and i've never actually punched anyone, but this year i'm just so stressed and ready to let go of all my frustration on the first misogynistic dickbag i see.

nothing interesting has happened since my last post. and i have nothing interesting planned in the forseeable future. and so i think i'm going to have a terrible, funless year. it's going to be joyless and i'll probably cry myself to sleep over my homework.

the most terrible part is that the lessons go so slowly that i end up being so bored that i fall asleep and learn nothing. we could probably just have self study rather than general paper lessons. it'd be more useful too. you can probably tell, but i'm really not made for school.