Living the Doog Life

Friday, March 10, 2006 7:06 PM

before i play coroner and declare the blog dead, allow me one final post. a bitter ranting about my current situation now. yes, no sentence caps, whilst retaining the formality. just that sometimes i feel bitter, and sometimes is now.

let us rewind and revisit a not so distant past.

just over 75 days ago, i made a promise to myself and my friends around me. i had lost my councillorship - essentially 1/3 of my school life, more if you include my social and spiritual lessons - to my landing up in 3Q. well, being emotional to the point of instability, i made a rash promise. to an extent, as i look back on it now, i can even call it ridiculous.

but whatever it was, the promise had been made. i worked hard and diligently. through the term it became clearer that i was making quantum leaps forward in my class, though i acknowledge it is nothing compared to the rest of the level. i sowed the seeds, and i reaped the harvest, and now i sit on a comfortable MSG of 2.00, topping the class in 3 subjects, two of them with fellow sitch-mate tong hang.

i made an appointment with ms koe, scheduled today. filled up with a pleasant nerve, even excitement. how ridiculous. when she finally returned to a cubicle after a one hour wait, she informed us that she couldn't make a decision at that time, because she hadn't discussed the situation with mr hon, who is currently in malaysia. apparently, they weren't prepared for the possibility that students would show such promise that they can be given a chance back in their own consortium...do they doubt us?

but i shall not digress further. so, with that, she pronounces the death sentence, or at least, an indefinitely extended period of imprisonment. by the time mr hon returns, probably tuesday or wednesday, ms koe would have to make an appointment with mr hon, by that time friday or saturday. with the full assumption that they come to a decision on that day itself, they have a couple of days left to complete the tedious administrative matters. with that, i have a nagging suspicion that they are going to give a convenient excuse to keep us in 3Q, at least until the end of term 2.

and so the tale ends...or maybe, i'm being too pessimistic today. slightly unsure of how to deal with the new developments, i paid a visit to two teachers i've sorely disappointed for long - mrs giam and mr tan. i explained the sitch to them, and unable to find words to express my apologies and disappointments, and perhaps being too embarrassed to admit my fears and uncertainties, i stated my mere hunches and whims to them, with sufficient details to back them up.

today has passed. the aftermath? a detachment from the main run of things, trying hard to fit back in and to procure a decent facade of general well-being while sinking myself into a maelstrom of emotions. training has helped me put my mind off things for a while, but just as majority of things flow, it strikes back with triple the vengeance. i haven't been myself for a few hours. i am moody, depressed, impulsive, and bitter.

even with my explanations, i find it hard - bordering on the impossible - to explain to my friends whom i had made the boldest of promises to. guilt, perhaps, will forever remain something that cannot be remedied. somehow i feel that something inadvertently went wrong that could have had the slightest possibility of being controlled, but i failed to exert a stranglehold on it. even now i search through my mind for something that i could've done to twist the chances in my favour.

and the conclusion? i remember very clearly. i promised to be back in 70 days, no more. how foolish of me. i had an inkling of my chances and prospects, but i pushed them to the back of the continuous chatter of my mind in false hope that i'd be back. and with the current circumstances, which might even be called mini-politics, my chances are probably yanked beyond my pitiful grasp.

some perceive my results as an unprecedented success. some might even be envious at my achievements. in reality, i don't think there's anything to go wild and celebrate about. so what if i get an MSG of 2.00, if i don't return to ortus? i'm already slugging through the exact same syllabus as the other ortus people, and the rest of the cohort. on my result slip, the MSG of 2.00 stands like a mocking jester as it positions itself tantalizingly out of my reach.

and now, presenting the autopsy. the patient had been restrained by the massive poisoning of over-optimism, compounded by the blunt trauma of fate. the diagnosis? another long wait, another grueling term of depression and bitterness. once again, presenting to you the perennial underachiever, promising so much but delivering so little.

to end off, the promised execution begins. adios.

7:06 PM
[doog]

****** Thursday, March 02, 2006 8:59 PM

Urgh. The more I think about it, the more angst, guilt and despair is wrecking my brains as I continue to worry whether I will make it back to Ortus next term. I really want to slash my chest and rip my lungs out because I made such a rash promise whilst I was feeling emotional, (perhaps marring my judgment,) promising everyone that I'd be back by term 2. There's a slight glimmer of hope, though, because Tong Hang and I went to see Mr. Chew today and he said he'll do what he can do about it. No promises, though...

I've been down with the flu for one whole week and I haven't trained/exercised in the meantime. I'm accumulating fats, losing physical fitness and forgetting techniques. Anyone has any foolproof methods to buff up your immune system? I seriously need that, been sick twice this year already. And I think I've been taking running nose medicine for so long I've already developed immunity against the drowsiness effect. Always used to knock me out in 20 minutes but now I can even work after taking it.

Nothing much once more, ciao...

8:59 PM
[doog]

****** Wednesday, March 01, 2006 7:48 PM

I haven't been here for long, but neither have the usual visitors, it seems...

MSG is currently 1.71 but the news is I must complete my ACE or at least get a substantial amount of it before I can return to my consortium, so I've given up hopes of returning this term. Next term would be an ideal target because all subjects should by then hit 10 points, and I can reason that it would be unfair to hold us back another term since PW Semi-Finals are held in Term 3. So the 70 days thing was pretty ambitious, but there's still hope. Only wishful thinking...

http://kevan.org/johari?view=TheDoog
And like everyone else, I've did the Johari thing. It seems that bold is my dominant trait. It's both cool and bemusing to see how differently people respond or select your 6 primary attributes. Then you realize how different you act in front of different people. Incredibly, really.

No other updates. Ta.

7:48 PM
[doog]

****** Wednesday, February 22, 2006 9:40 PM

Today I went to watch the investiture. The theme for this year's Council is Velocity, which basically means speed with direction. Hm, must be that Physics worksheet I was constructing for ACE last night. I bet Yuan Chang came up with this theme because he keeps sprinting everyday and calculating his velocity, blah blah blah. Oh well, it's a good, sensible theme anyway. With magnitude and direction...

Sigh what I regret today was not saying the council pledge. The J1/2 batch all stood up and said the pledge, and I didn't.

Guilty.

Ahhh for those who still regard me as an emotional cretin, well, during the song (Dare to Dream) I was almost moved to tears after having gone through reminiscence during the whole of investiture, and well, once everyone left, I cried again. I should be back in less than 3 weeks though, and there's plenty of stuff to look forward to, despite the fact that I have to study harder, but nothing good ever came without sacrifice.

I'm going to reprimand Yuan Chang tomorrow for not keeping to his promises. Part of the investiture was about ohana, which meant family, and family, which meant no one's left behind (from Lilo & Stitch). Thing is, everyone (except me) left Yao Hui behind at the bag room, flirting away 2 hours while a lonely guy's inside the room, with no girls to flirt with. Not saying I'm a girl, but I stayed back in the room and accompanied him for the most part afte the investiture. Guess I'm THE true councillor.

Oh, and today was the first time I ever sat for something with a good GOH. Youth Forum and SLC ones caused me to fall asleep, but this Mr Calvin Cheng guy rocks. He lived and breathed in secondary school life for council. Hm, that sounds like me. Couple more worthwhile quotes -

"If there was RI blood to be drank that day, we would've done it."
"Hwa Chong is the best, but for the rest, the best is yet to be."

9:40 PM
[doog]

****** Monday, February 20, 2006 9:26 PM

Kk I think it may be time to say bye to 3Q and say hi to Ortus and 3L because amazingly, my MSG has held at 1.8 after getting back my 30/35 Physics test paper. But I should be cautious, because I expect they'll give some excuse like, 'One term is hardly enough to judge you.', and all the crap. Putting those fears aside, I reckon I'll be back soon. LeeKS, Rosalind Lee, Nancy Tay and Steven Su all have a positive impression of me now. Mr Lim and Hon remain fairly neutral.

Ortus council general elections are over and it's
1) Yao Hui
2) Jing Bo
3) Jia Yun
4) Jun Hao
5) Kai Jian
6) Dominic
7) Dun Yang
8) Charles
9) Lian Seng
10) Tse An

Yao Hui, Jing Bo, Jun Hao, Kai Jian and Jia Yun are all solid, dependable choices. Tse An, Charles and Dun Yang are only kind-of good. Lian Seng is the popular character we need a Dominic is sort of a wild card that I don't really approve of, but meh, I can't do anything now that it's settled. Just hope they'll do good. Oh, and I'm feeling like sitting in for investiture on Wednesday. Anyone wants to come with me?

Sighhh I've been tracking the news on the 11pm thingy. Oh well, it's very lame, really, but that's just another thing we have to live with. Although I would be extremely pissed if I'm just hanging out after a late movie with my friends and all of a sudden this police officer walks over and bombards an innocent group of teenagers about what you're doing. Or maybe, next time, I'll just drag an 18 year old senior along with me or something. I mean, Singaporean kids need to be resourceful to survive the global competition, so let's be resourceful starting from now and drag seniors along with us next time.

And Pink Man sat next to me on the 156 bus like omg. And I had a wicked thought about spontaneously (ha ha) jumping up and yelling for the all the passengers to hear, "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TOUCH ME FOR?" and then you can clobber him! Sad to say that I don't want to be the one to test it out, though.

Counterstrike is such a devil.

9:26 PM
[doog]

****** Saturday, February 18, 2006 9:53 PM

Our flurry of tests is FINALLY over with only one A-maths test next week and one more chinese test the week after, which is quite insignificant. Quite slack, but otherwise I'm bogged down once again with project work, maths statistic poster and...I'm not sure, an increased volume of homework that teachers might give, using the absence of tests as an excuse.

Today was quite a relaxing and fruitful day. I trust Qi Han won't disclose a portion of it. Science tuition was cool today. We did Newton's 2nd law. Then Mr Chua asked us what the third law was.

Mr Chua: Anyone can tell me what Newton's 3rd law is?
Me: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
*Mr Chua walks up to me, and punches me in the shoulder, HARD. Everyone laughs.*
Mr Chua: I applied 10N of force on his arm. His arm applied 10N of force on my fist.

*Mr Chua pauses for a while, looks around, and punches again. Everyone laughs again.*
Mr Chua: This time I applied 20N of force on his arm.
*Amused, I proceeded to , er, apply 5N of force on his arm.*
Me: Now I apply 5N of force on your arm!

God, he's strong for such a frail figure.

Next went with BX to library for pw meeting. It was untypically short and sweet where we managed to churn out a very basic methodology and timeline which seems much more realistic although I'm dreading the part where we have to create an interactive website because, hell, none of us have any sort of computer expertise. Oh well, I'd better start sourcing for experts like Jevon to help me. For the rest BX came over to my house and we gayed (metaphorically), did physics and maths, gayed, played computer, and gayed some more.

During the night I just took my sister's laptop, put it next to me, sat at the piano, and played Clocks by Coldplay and Bad Day by Daniel Powter. Spent a solid one hour doing that and it felt good. And that includes churning out the left hand too.

9:53 PM
[doog]

****** Thursday, February 16, 2006 8:00 PM

Valentine's Day was romantic for me because I spent 1 hour playing the Beautiful Game!

Cross country was alright, I guess. I ran quite leisurely during the competitive run and I think I've lost much of my longer distance stamina, though medium distances would still be no problem (power makes up for endurance). Went to my house later with YH and ZH, the latter having fallen down during the route and getting cuts on his knee and on his eyebrow. That was some incredibly nasty pus. Did crap for about an hour.

Sighhh I seriously wish our teachers would speed up in teaching and I wouldn't mind if our tests got harder because right now, they're ridiculously easy. Believe that my MSG now is 1.833? But we're lagging behind other classes incredibly. While 3L has already gone past logarithms; we're still doing surds. And we're still stuck way behind with acids, bases and salts for Chemistry. Once I go back to 3L, I'll expect to lag backwards to 3.??.

Sabbaticals are coming up, and Bing Xiang landed in Leadership Theory and Practice, which is good. I always secretly thought that Bing Xiang would be a good leader (the interpersonal sort) but he's too busy Mapling or playing court. So would Jun Lin. It's good to see that someone actually keeps track of those people and do something. And I always had a facsination with people who actually have massive potential to become leaders but don't actually become one.

'ENFPs have what some call a "silly switch." They can be intellectual, serious, all business for a while, but whenever they get the chance, they flip that switch and become CAPTAIN WILDCHILD, the scourge of the swimming pool, ticklers par excellence. Sometimes they may even appear intoxicated when the "switch" is flipped. '
http://www.typelogic.com/enfp.html

I thought I was weird, but there you go. Sometimes I think I have a minor behavorial disorder (maybe I'll uncover tons more) but there's an explanation for it.

Some fears are killing me. Some already know why.

8:00 PM
[doog]

****** Tuesday, February 14, 2006 7:45 PM

I was thinking at school today and came up with the conclusion that we're just a bunch of <3-less n00gs. =/

School was cool today, physics and english tests kind off threw me off my feet although I can expect to do fairly well for both of them. Other periods flew by in a daze of sleepiness. Court was cool today because I played fairly solidly compared to my usual stuttering performance with about half a dozen blocks on shots on goal. Oh and my calf muscle 'pull' is only a false alarm which I'm extremely grateful for. I'll be going for x-country tomorrow.

And it's so disappointing that in the end no one's coming over. =/

7:45 PM
[doog]

****** Monday, February 13, 2006 7:10 PM

I don't have plans for Valentines' Day. If anyone's interested in knowing, you can ask me personally or something but I probably won't tell you. To those two who I've told, you'd better keep your bloody mouths shut or you'll regret you ever lived. I still can't believe I confided in the 2nd person last night. Insanity.

Anyway, away from that. YH, Jevon and DAJH are confirmed coming over to my house to sleepover tomorrow night because we're all love-less =/. We'll probably mug a couple of hours (from the legendary mugger class, 3I!) after that we'll probably rape each other upside down (take that metaphorically, not literally), go to sleep for x-country, wake up, go for x-country, go back to my house and gay each other upside down again. Isn't too bad of a plan.

LeeKS caught another 4 people for copying today (Cao Yue, Jhun Boon, Brendon and Zhen Yu) and he gave them a choice of punishment: the whole class copies homework 4 times, or they themselves copy their homework 22 times. Of course they chose the former, the latter would receive incredible despising from the others and I'd probably slug all of them and rip their guts out. But no hard feelings.

Life in school's good, but the pace of the class is incredibly slow, and I wish it'd be faster. We just started logarithms and 3L just finished them. And that doesn't even include mugger 3I. Stuff has been going on well and I'm quite confident of scoring in tomorrow's English and Physics tests, probably because my expository got 22/30, and I've already had ample preparation for Physics. But I do have to stop my bad habit of leaving my files/textbooks under the table the day before the test, or I'll be GGed soon. Chemistry test was fairly easy.

I think I'll continue piano without a teacher; I've picked up 2 new Grade 5 exam pieces in the past couple of weeks, so I'll try to find some way to get the past few years' Grade 5 exam pieces and once I think I'm ready, I'll move on to Grade 6. Piano just seems so much more pleasurable without a teacher. I remember hating piano back in primary...three, or something.

I'll be a bit different here and post a bit of religious stuff here so any non-Christians, you will forgive me or stop reading here. Sighhh I've to do a little bit of thinking after yesterday's message of putting God at the forefront of your life before all else. I can't decide. Friends seem of the utmost importance to me and...asking that is quite a big task. I don't think I'm ready for full-blown commitment just yet.

7:10 PM
[doog]

****** Saturday, February 11, 2006 12:36 PM

A WEEKEND A DAY KEEPS SCHOOL AWAY!

Urghhh I really need to control my anger at people who complain but never realize how much worse the guy next to him is doing.

I'm thinking of joining soccer as a 2nd EP3, but it will drastically worsen my schedule even further and I think I might die under the physical strain and the time constraints. Not to mention once I get back to consortium, the workload will probably tripled and I'll be gunning for councilorship again. Considering I got 3.67 last year with just studies, track & field and council, I'll probably fall to about 5.00 or something.

Let's assume I join as a defender. Goalkeeping no longer interests me, my ball control's too poor to be a striker and the midfielder is experiencing constipation with like 15 good players from my level. Anyway, self-assessment coming up, please forgive any narcissism.

I think I'm very good technically and physically - I can usually get the ball from a striker who's coming in at full speed, and from strikers whose legs are dancing everywhere without actually touching them or getting fooled by their incessant amateur play. Physically, my long legs naturally help. My speed is good to track runs and follow strikers while my stamina will let me go the distance. Furthermore, if I'm really angry, I can always hack a striker down violently at my own leisure.

Bad things. I don't fully utilize as I don't really like to head a ball - I only do so when I have to man mark a player who's very tall and can jump incredibly high during defensive set pieces. I also have to get working on my ball control which is very poor although I have embarked on a couple of successful runs at defenders lately. So far, though, my adventurous instinct has been held under control which is fortunate, because I'm sweeper.

I'll be facing competition from Minjian (Brilliant but inconsistent), Iype (Composed but unfit), Gino and Luke (haven't seen them play, but I heard about their magnificence in positioning and reading the game), and Wilson (versatile but without specialty).

Sighhh training was CRAZY. We had to run (nearly sprint) 300m and walk 100m, 3 repitions, 2 sets of that. And I'm the second slowest Sec 3/4 sprinter/jumper, and I tried to pace myself with Timothy/Jun Lin/Yikai because it would be the only way I improved. Bad. I pulled my calf muscle, I suspect. I don't want my back pain to worsen, my knee joint to snap from shock absorption, my calf muscle to aggravate further from a suspected pull or my shin to snap from pressure.

OK I realize I've been living on a short fuse for a couple of days. If someone suddenly jumps out of a door in front of me or pretends to strangle me for fun, or throws a derogatory comment at me, I have this burning temptation to grab his arm at the elbow, haul it behind my neck, lock both his legs, snap his arm in two, and throw him over my shoulder. Although I haven't actually hurt anyone, it's come pretty close to that with a couple of people, with all the limbs in the right place for execution of all the aforementioned steps if my temper really blows.

I really need to work on controlling my violent impulse...

Kk went for cell yesterday night, with the sudden realization that I only did one exercise out of the six in the book. Oh well, another $5 down the drain. 'What don't you do that you'd like to have the opportunity to do?' Ahh I love this question because I really want to go to a disco again and I have to wait like years before I'm of age. 18 years old, I think, which means 3 years more.

I also need to reconsider my interest areas for possible jobs in the future because Matthew told me yesterday during supper (after cell) that research in psychology would require a doctorate which would take...10 years? Which means I would be thirty-something by then. Forgot the rest of the details, but just that getting there is bloody difficult. And psychiatry is depressing. I mean, you go to work everyday just to hear about other peoples' problems. Throughout your normal 10 hour workday there's not anything to cheer you up once. Eventually you'll need to see another psychiatrist too. It's a conspiracy.

And Yao Hui has this ridiculous but cool plan for council that I shan't tell anyone. Besides that it's l33t haX, I shalt not reveal the idea. He's agreed for me to be AOS if the plan really comes to fruition, though.

12:36 PM
[doog]

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