mum doesn't want me to go to leakycon because she thinks people will laugh at me

Mum says that I shouldn't go to leakycon because everyone will laugh at me.
If I go every year everyone will laugh at me even more.

I don't know what's funnier. That right now I find this statement really absurd, or now I'm thinking about it, I don't know *who* are the people laughing at me. It is my mum? Does she think, "ha ha, stupid jinjin, ha ha" I mean in which case it doesn't matter, but since she has brought up the issue of "everyone", I think I will try to unpack this statement and understand it better.

Is it my family? My relatives? Will they think "ha ha jinjin is such a dickhead". There are two assumptions to be made here: that they actually laugh at me, and that they actually spend time of their busy lives thinking about how stupid I am. I don't think anyone in my family, especially my relatives, have time in their busy lives to sit down and think of how I'm such a dickhead. It is possible that my mum and my relatives talk about me when I'm not there, which is unavoidable, and it is during those instances that they collectively laugh at me. Which is fine, because I don't give a shit. Is it my maternal grandparents? Honestly in their situation all they talk about is what's going on in the news, what drugs to take, where to go out for lunch. They rarely talk about my mum or my sister.

Which "everyone" is my mum talking about? Is this *everyone* in my mum's social circle? Does she tell her colleagues that I go to leakycon and they laugh at me collectively? That's fine. I'm ok with that, as long as they don't laugh at me in my presence, which is pretty rare since I don't live in singapore anymore. Is this "everyone" my sister or my dad? Which is fine because they laugh at me all the time anyway and I can't do anything about it. Is this "everyone" my classmates in London? In which case,
1. How would you know
2. Why would I even care
3. How would they know since I've never told them

Is "everyone" the people I used to go to school with in singapore? In which case, why would they have any incentive to keep up with what I'm doing? It's none of their business what I'm doing with myself, or where I go. I doubt they even care.

Honestly I have no idea who "everyone" is, unless "everyone" just means my mum and the people she laughs with. It isn't everyone, obviously. I know people who are _jealous_ that I get to go. I feel bad that I get to go and other people don't. I consider being able to go to leakycon a privilege, thank you very much.

Ironically, leakycon is one of the only places in the world that I know for sure that I'm not going to be laughed at. You think people laugh at me *because* I go to leakycon? Mum, people have been laughing at me all my life. When I am with people who respect me, and that has happened in the past few years, I don't feel like I'm being laughed at. I don't surround myself with people who might not take me seriously. I surround myself with people who do.

I don't care anymore what the "everyone" might think. I am done with worrying about what other people will think. It's stressful, at any given time, to worry about
1. What mum would think
2. What "everyone" would think
things that I should be worried about and that I should take care of are on the low on the list.

I can't stand planning my life such that people won't laugh at me. Whatever I do people will end up being jealous of me, hating what I'm doing, or trying to make fun of me. In the end I'm still going to be angry and annoyed at myself because I'm doing something I hate. So why not do something I like and save people all the trouble? hum.

Things I did today

1. Made it to the anth methods lecture, having skipped the last 2 ones.
2. Went to cutty sark to look for MJ's book, failed.
3. Walked around deptford, following deptford creek. Made me happy because I got to talk to people-- classmates, and it was pretty funny. Walked so much, though. I felt so sweaty and poopy afterward.
4. Went to Heron Quay and got 4 copies of NotS! Also left nerdfighter notes in the john green books.
5. Went to the bookswap, and successfully swapped a book. Read books. Felt happy, because world book day celebrates my love/ relationship with fiction and literature. Spent time in new cross library. It was the best.
6. Was door bitch for awkward turtle.
7. Got accosted :P by alex and lauren. Danced to 50s music. Believed in the world again. I'm trying to find out why, though. I was proud of myself being door bitch, because that meant I got something to do. And then when I looked at the full room and everyone enjoying themselves, I thought: this is something I'm part of. I liked the music, too. Also maybe it was because it was a long time since I'd seen the lgbt soc guys-- 2 weeks. Well, relatively.
It's just such a relief and change from the past few weeks, actually. It was nice, even though there were no numbers. It was very much a friendship thing, which was wonderful.

on family.

The solution for homesickness is not to move home. What if you don't have a CHOICE? Why isn't the solution to homesickness is to stick it out?
Okay, I feel homesick. I acknowledge the feelings of homesickness. It's not a "cry every night" feeling, but it's just a little feeling that pops us sometimes when I'm reminded of things that are happening at home, and it's nagging. I don't want to go home, though. I want to be able to stick it out and at least finish my degree. I don't want to come home. #defiant I want to be able to say I stuck it out and successfully moved away from home.

Reasons I don't want to go to singapore in the near future:

1. I don't have anything to do there. The last time I went I just spent all my time sleeping or being on the internet and generally feeling like a waste of space because doing my assigned essays wasn't going too well. I got sick and lost my voice and spent days just moping at home and shivering and feeling really sad. It was the kind of flu that gives you a high fever, and getting up gives you a headache, and getting dressed and out of my pajamas was a hard task. I wasn't even making any progress on my essays, and so I felt like shit. I didn't do any of that social stuff that I had planned to do, because I was sleeping due to jetlag, and was justifying it because I needed to work on my essays, which I didn't do anyway.

I spent the time feeling sorry for myself because I wasn't in the prestigious universities that my classmates were in. It was stressful because it was holiday season, and I was supposed to go out and meet family, which meant my maternal aunts and uncles and the paternal side of the family. I'm always stressed out when I meet family because my mum always used to compare me to so-and-so, and tries to answer the questions I get asked. I don't know how to behave because I get treated like a kid, when I'm so used to talking to everyone else of their age as equals. I don't get treated like an equal. I have the feeling that all my relatives are looking down on me because I'm in a shit university doing a shit degree and I don't have myself pulled together. They all have careers-- are lawyers, doctors, accountants, and here I am doing anthropology, having no idea what I'm going to do after I graduate.

I was stressed out because I was living with my family, and when you do that after three months of living alone, it's not something you get used to. I'm constantly reminded that I'm part of something bigger when my grandfather keeps walking in to the room he shares with me (the room I sleep in is his study as well). My mum keeps nagging at me, and I had to get used to living at home. Getting used to living in your own home! Imagine. I liked having people around, though, and I missed tita, and I got to hang around with her a lot, which was good. I missed the security guard and I missed having my sister around, so that was the upside of living at home.

It's not. I don't think the home in singapore will ever feel the same way it used to. I didn't feel like a complete stranger, but I did feel out of place. I don't even know if I can handle living there long-term again because it's so weird. It's nice, not having to pay rent, and having people to eat with at dinner, and being able to be around my grandparents. I like my grandparents. They are quiet people, aren't too judgemental, they try to be as supportive as they can, which I really appreciate. I don't know-- dare I say this-- that I will be able to stay sane living there, though. Having my own room here in london and being able to bring people home was something I missed while in singapore. Also I think there isn't space for me. My sister needs her own room; my grandfather needs his room. Sometimes I felt I was bothering my grandfather too much when I was staying there.

This is something I've said to my therapist, and I know this sounds weird, but I'd like to bring girls (or guys) or whoever home in the future, just like my uncle did. To my three-year-old self, he would bring a different girl home every weekend. haha. Sometimes the girl would have dinner with us. It's just a weird feeling. My parents or grandparents don't even have to like her. They just have to pretend they do, for a couple hours. I would like to be able to bring a girl home should I meet a girl that I'd like to bring home. I just want that option to be available to me.

I want to show my grandparents and parents that "hey, this is my life, and she means a lot to me, and I'd like you to get to know her." I want to tell my grandfather that this girl makes me happy, and she contributes to my quality of life and I love her. I want to have that girl sit with me at dinner and see how crazy my grandmother is and see the absurdity that is my grandparent's relationship with each other. My grandfather jokingly makes fun of my grandmother, and they have arguments over which drug (all legal, they take so many it's funny) to take or what's going on in the news. My grandmother is losing her hearing and a bit of her mind, so she gets a little crazy and likes telling the stories about how she survived WWII and things I should do. Maybe I'll even bring her to dinner with my grandaunts for funsies. (They like having people over and they ask lots of questions and talk a lot and sometimes ask if I have a boyfriend.)

I don't know if that ever will be possible, though. Oh well.

I don't think I have a family like chloe does, though. I don't know. In recent years I've never brought my friends home. I didn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend that I wanted to bring home, so I don't know how my family would react to my friends. OH now I remember. That time I brought my dad to see martina and lidewij was weird because he kept trying to say things and he was very perfunctory and I didn't say much. Mostly my dad did the talking. On hindsight, he was very open to the idea of meeting people he didn't know at all, and he was so nice to come with me, even though I sprung it on him last minute, and he was so okay with me going to Breda alone.

I can't change the way my family is, and I don't think I want things to be different. It's just a weird experience to encounter an american family (which I'd never encountered before) and to feel so welcome in someone's home. Chloe's mum, too, even though I've only kind of spoken to her once on skype, is so friendly and nice. I really should meet people's parents more. I have such a skewed perception of them. I've met avariel's parents. They were nice singaporean parents. haha I don't know how to describe it but the culture is different. They're a little like my parents in that they don't get too involved in what their kids are doing; they check in periodically to see if we're okay or not. They acknowledge and accept avariel's obsession with the LHC and other space-related stuff and leave her to it. Like my parents, how they acknowledge my obsession with harry potter and reading and just accept that I am a nerd. Well not really. My dad said I had no social life once and I got so mad that I got up and left the restaurant we were eating at. But that's a long story.

With singaporean parents, you're taught to be very polite, so you are, and they are polite back. They're nice to you and offer you tons of food (I remember this with felicia's parents) but they generally leave their kid and their friends alone. They just stay out of the room or out of the way for the time that you are with your friend, and you never see them unless to say hi or goodbye or thank you. With chloe's dad, it was different. I watched doctor who with them, ate ice cream with them, had dinner with them while her dad engaged me in conversation. I even got to feed chloe's little brother pancakes, which I thought was a privilege haha. So I guess that's how singaporean and pacific northwestern parents are different.

I can't I feel poopy I honestly feel poopy I don't know what to do
I can't do this I can't
grahh yes you can nicole
I honestly don't think argh
I have class in
I've

I'M IN LOVE WITH HER.
SHE SAID THE WORDS. SHE SAID THE THREE WORDS fuckkkkkk
SHE SAYS THAT TO EVERYONE
BUT I STILL AM IN NERDFIGHTERLIKE WITH HER. A LOT
(they say in girl/girl relationships it moves too quickly but I DONT CARE BC I WON"T BE SEEING HER FOR 7 MONTHS; TAKE THAT, "MOVING TOO QUICKLY".

I don't know if we'll be the same in 7 months. sigh. I don't know what we'll be in 7 months. #realisation
#help #dear BUT I'M IN LOVE WITH HER I NEED TO TELL SOMEONE

coming out to family

arrrgh.

haha every time I watch an episode of My Transsexual Summer, I need to take so much time out for it, and for thinking about it.

Anyways. So on episode 2, Sarah, an MTF transgendered person, went home to tell her mum that she was transgendered. She's in her late 20s, I think. The whole show phrases it as "she hasn't told her mum" or "she hasn't told her mum yet", as if coming out to her mum was something that had to happen. Other FTMs on the show have told their parents, and this MTF has told her parents, and their parents are okay with it. Coming out to one's parents was basically depicted as something one *had* to do.

Obviously being transgendered and being cisgendered but queer are two very different things, so I can't compare their coming out experience to mine. Gender, rather than sexual orientation, might be a more important aspect to one's sense of personhood, and it merits telling one's parents.  However, this episode made me consider coming out to my mum, and I had a very intense, negative reaction to it. When I thought about it in my head, about how it might turn out, it made me think that if someone made me tell my mum now, I would run away and protest-- basically I don't want to come out to my parents now.

I can't. I really really can't. People say that it's ok not to come out, that I can come out when I want to, but it just feels like something that has to happen. I'm not even sure if I want to come out to my parents ever. I don't think that me liking to kiss girls sometimes is a fact that my parents or family have to know. I was seriously thinking about it the other day, and I'm afraid of what my sister would think and how she would react. I'm not even sure that my sister would behave the same way towards me if I told her I was queer. I love my sister and I love spending time with her; I don't want to ruin the relationship I have with her.

She's not homophobic, but I'm afraid that she might find our relationship odd and incestuous, since I like to hug her a lot and sit in her lap and stuff. Obviously I would not like to bone my sister, but now I'm seeing her for the first time in 2 months since I've been away, I'm really uncomfortable with touching her anymore. I never expected my relationship with my sister to change in this way, that one day I would meet up with her and we wouldn't have anything to talk about.

I still have things to talk about with her, and we still laugh at the same things, but it's different. It's strange. It feels like she's grown up and I've grown and we have to adjust to each other again. She's... not really the sister whom I left at home in July. I guess I just have to get used to this. I don't know if it would be easier or harder to tell her that I was gay, after a long period of not seeing each other.

I don't want to tell my parents; I really don't. It's like opening another can of worms, when I've got 1 steaming pile of slimy maggots in front of me already.

I just realised:

"You're directing me/ you're dressed up I lose my grip my focus
Make those eyes at me/ I lose my grip my focus"

*squeee* this happens to me all the time. so cute.

just whinging again.

I am gay I am gay I am so fucking gay

do you have a problem with that? It's ok. unfriend me. I don't think you're worth friending anyway. I can probably do without you.

I like adventuring. Sometimes I don't like to be in the same country all the time. I like that I kind of know people everywhere so there's someone to meet in every country I go. I also like having people visit me. That is nice.

I'm studying a useless degree in a useless university. You have a problem with that?
It's ok. Sometimes I have issues with it too, but not now. You can still talk to me.

Also, I'm taking antidepressants, and I'm screwed up in my head. Sorry. that's how I am.
You can try changing this fact. Goodness knows I've tried many times myself, but I can't even change this. You think I need to be in the loony bin and kept away from other people? It's ok. My family thinks so too.

I am obsessed with harry potter, and I spend a lot of time reading. You don't really want to be friends with me now? that's fine. My parents have problems with it too. I'm telling you now so I don't have to awkwardly reveal this fact midway through our friendship. You can back off safely now, with limited emotional investment.

hey! figured that I hadn't updated this in a long while, so here goes:

1. I came back from leakycon a few days ago, and I'm still trying to process it all. I'm annoying my sister by singing "Days of Summer" and "Back To Hogwarts" over and over again. All is well. Did I mention when I went to watch HPDH2, the whole cinema sang the entirety of Back to Hogwarts before it started? It was crazy. The song is like 10 minutes long, and they had the whole thing memorised. Afterwards, of course they sang "The Weapon", and I have to get on learning that. It kind of helped that the final battle cast was in the same cinema that I was in, and Catitude as well. And of course Sanne was sitting to my right, Lidewij next to her, Tom in front, and James next to him.

2. It's just strange that only 1-2 people I know in singapore will appreciate the awesomeness that was leakycon, and being in the same room with Scott Westerfeld, David Levithan, Maureen Johnson, Stephanie Perkins, Libba Bray, and John Green. It was just insane. I still can't tell Joe and Paul DeGeorge from each other, even though one of them gave me a snitchwich. xD I want to replicate that! The snitchwich was awesome; maybe I'll have it for breakfast. I don't have any peanut butter or cinnamon crunch cereal or honey, though. HMM. And I can't buy any perishable groceries that only I will eat because I'm leaving again on friday. This will be a slight problem.

3. I want tegan and sara NINETEEN stickers! My plan is to order stuff online when I'm in LA, using paypal, and have them send it to my LA address, so that shipping is cheaper. I would get everyoneisgay hoodies if they still have them, but they don't, so I will get tegan and sara merch. Since I'm turning nineteen next month, and it will be appropriate. The odd thing is that the song itself (nineteen) is ridiculously sad-- it sounds like the T&S are ripping out their heart, and it is lying there, pulsating, on the table, all bloody. The nineteen bumper sticker needs to be had, though, and I will stick it on my suitcase, along with my DFTBA, The Nifflers, and Slytherin stickers.

4. Hang on two seconds; I have to reply a fb message from the girl I'm dating; she said today I don't reply her messages! Which is true. She's cute.

5. I'm going to therapy, and I will have taken fluoxetine for 5 weeks, come wednesday. This is something that I want to be open about, because other people being open about this have helped me immeasurably. In some way I think I'd like to help others too, however idealistic this sounds and however stupidly under-the-radar my blog is. The therapy has helped, and the fluoxetine too; it's like I don't know there _is_ a problem until it gets better, and I love it when the problem diminishes.

This is strange, but decision-making has become so much easier nowadays, sleep is better-- at leakycon I could count on waking up at a certain time each morning, and the regularity of it is amazing. Although now because of the jet lag, it's 4.30 am and I'm awake. Hopefully when I get to LA it will right itself again. Food is easier; I don't get the shakes as often, and I'm learning to eat complicated carbohydrates, and to make myself eat at certain times so I don't get hypoglycaemic. It's so much easier to tell when I'm full; before this I had to monitor a lot more carefully. But ever since becoming vegetarian I've always had to pay extra attention to what I eat, and to ensure that I get enough protein and fruit, so this is just an extension of what I'm already doing. It's sad, but I realise sometimes my hunger level affects my mood, so knowing how to manage it is great.

Actually I've been appreciating these few months a lot, because I've been taught to separate my crazy self, and my rational-thinking self, and to know when the crazy self is getting crazy, so it doesn't go overboard. It's been the most helpful thing that's come out of therapy. Also on communication in relationships. I'm working on that. I just love that my counsellor is so open with talking about _anything_. The downside is that my psychiatrist and my mum want me to see a more "reliable" counsellor, so recently I've been going to see a more expensive psychologist. It makes me a bit annoyed, because I pay for the therapy in cash, and my mum sometimes forgets to pay me back, but this means I'm dependent on my mum (when was I not) but it just makes things a bit more complicated. Also I just spent the last session catching up, and I'm bad at adapting to someone I don't really know that well. Thank goodness this tuesday's session is the last one before I leave.

6. I'm leaving! Did I tell you? just for a little while-- 6 weeks, to go for a summer term in LA, because said mum doesn't want me to "waste time" before I might start uni in mid-september. I'll be taking 3 classes: Human Evolution, a Comp. Lit class with Kafka, Gogol, and Garcia Marquez among others, and Intro To Social Science research methods. I think I'll have a lot of time on my hands, and should have signed up for 4 classes instead. >.> but we'll see. I'll probably do the default with the free time-- homework, read, write reviews, make videos. I just want it to be productive.

http://transpride.net/post/5310443918

"Some people call this genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, whatever you want! No, labels don’t matter. I would recommend exploring tumblr more. There are tons of tumblrs directed to those that identify as genderqueer, androgynous, genderfluid, bigender, no gender, third gender, so on so forth, and you may find a label that you feel best defines you after a little more exploration."

I don't know~

Recently I've been trying to... find a label for myself. I didn't really have to, before I met people in the community, and they ask what do I identify as, and I'm like, "I'm the Q in LGBTQ?" haha I either say "questioning" or "queer". Most recently I've said questioning, because that's the easiest answer. Or rather, it's the first thing that comes into my head. xD

But lately I've been feeling that "questioning" is a rather immature term to use, is it not? It mostly applies to adolescents, and you know, the gay people I know aren't questioning, they KNOW exactly who they are attracted to. But I don't know. When I first encountered this, I was really doubtful, and thought it was a Thing that I should get solved. I should find out what I identify as, asap. Just so I can have a straight answer to people to ask, and there won't be awkward silences.

Really I'm okay with people asking; it is practically a getting-to-know-you prerequisite now. I'm just not very used to it because not everyone, upon introducing themselves, asks about one's sexual or gender orientation.

haha and on twitter I say I'm "Out", but the strange thing is that I'm not Out to my family (and not planning to do so anytime soon) and of course I'm not Out to my school network, my potential employers, etc. because:

1) I don't think my sexuality has anything to do with my employability or my academic ability (or lack thereof).

2) If I outed myself in singapore, I'd have a really tough time trying to find someone who would hire me.

I'm out to, well, the people online-- which is everybody really, but I am safely cloaked in anonymity. I'm also out enough that I can meet people in the community, and I'm also so fortunate that I can talk about this to my counselor if I ever need to, without worrying about her reacting negatively. This is a privilege that people in the army don't get, though. In singapore it's compulsory for all male citizens to undergo National Service once they turn 18. I'm not sure if it's DADT, but word on the street is that you get a lower PES (Physical Employment Status) if you say at the medical checkup that you're gay. I've also heard that if you declare that you have a mental illness, eg depression, they'll put that on your report and mess up your chances of getting into a good university after serving NS. The second rumour, to be honest, sounds more fluff than truth, but I heard it from someone who knows someone who works in the military. psssh the way I describe my source ~really~ adds to the validity of the rumour, huh? xD

Anyway, regarding the PES downgrading-- it's been corroborated by multiple sources, so it's more likely to be true. The reason why I have to get this information from friends and hearsay is because that there isn't an official word on it. Which basically means that they can lower your PES for any reason. To treat LGBTQs as second class citizens solely based on their sexual orientation is derogatory, at best. On the other hand, some welcome this grading, because a higher grading just means that more is expected of you during your time in NS. They'd prefer to do less physically challenging duties during their 2 years in NS, the easier the better, since NS is compulsory. If you get a low enough grading, you are eligible for clerical work. What I've learnt is that the distinctions aren't so clear, though-- there are multiple bands, from A- F, and within the grades there are subsections, eg: B1L1, B1L2, C9 and so forth.

I know someone who doesn't have a PES A grade, and he gets to stay indoors most of the time, not have to "bang" during drill, watch war movies. There are some leadership roles required of him, and a certain discipline instilled, and he still has to report every day to camp. Or work, since NS men are paid during their service.

http://everyoneisgay.com/post/4583289496/im-not-100-sure-but-i-believe-i-like-both-sexes-now

THIS. THIS. just makes everything a little bit better.

You’re going to spend your life being attracted to all kinds of people. PEOPLE being the key word. You don’t have to label yourself and you don’t have to come out the second you figure it out. Just live. You’ll never figure anything out if you’re obsessing over what it all means.

Make out with boys until you wanna make out with a girl, then make out with her. You could make out with 4 girls before you realize you just don’t like it and you only wanna make out with boys. Then you’d be hitting up everyoneisgay.com to be like ‘I JUST CAME OUT AS BI AND THEN I REALIZED I DONT LIKE GIRLS NOW WHAT’ and we’d be like ‘calllllm down’ you know?

you don’t have to label yourself and you don’t have to come out, but you do have to be happy…so go with that.

KRISTIN:

You have crushes on girls. You have crushes on boys. You are real, and your crushes are real, and you can call it whatever you like and tell whoever you like.

Don’t let idiots make you doubt yourself. You are a real person, and every feeling that you feel in your bones and your skin and your heart and your brain is legitimate and, if given the courage and the chance, will roar the loudest and mightiest roars of awesomeness. #lionkingwednesday

Watched some of Big Bang Theory.

Did some purging of the room today; will continue tomorrow.

Got to catch up with kiru and darran on msn.

Listened to "On An Unknown Beach" and "Blake Says".

I feel better : )

Also, I'm all caught up with pooky wrt the Leo situation.

I like talking to my friends.

That just makes me feel like everything is right in the world.
Pooky recommended "Yoko" by Pegasus Bridge, and it's so good I can't even. I always like the music she recommends. ^-^

Gah. miss her so much. so much. As I miss every one who is SO. FAR. away from me.

Chele and Pooky are in melb, Darran is in abu dhabi, not to mention Hailee and all the people in NL/ Belgium/ Sweden.

I miss michele! ):

All I have is geeru, and we manage to meet once a fortnight, at best.

Just can't wait for the day I manage to meet pooky, and I have to do it quick so that chele will still be there.

heh. Although studying overseas almost guarantees that most of my friends will be far, far, away from me, so I'd better get used to it. It's just that I miss them so, so, much. It's just... I'm so used to them being around, and being able to hang out with them at a drop of a hat. Kayley Hyde says that living far away from most of your friends is something one has to get used to. I admit, before I've left, I've already had lots of practice with being away from my friends, so it shouldn't be so bad. After all, there is always skype and letters and phonecalls. Being separated and not being able to talk to them whenever I want, and not being completely updated on each other's situations is just something that is hard to get used to.

It's what was making chele so sad, I guess. CHANGE is hard to get used to. Moving means that I'll have to make a whole new set of friends; and even though it isn't really new to me since I've done it loads before in the past year, it's just difficult to leave all your established relationships behind. With friends like these, whom you've practically spent most of your teenage life with (chele felicia geeru) you take for granted that they'll always be around.

Also regarding friends, now that I kind of have a social life (this concept is entirely new to me) it's hard to keep in contact with old friends and maintain the conversation with new ones. I don't know how to strike a balance. Sometimes I feel like I'm spending too much time and effort maintaining my online/ distance friendships, and not spending enough time with my local ones. Admittedly distance friendships take more effort to keep going. But I don't want to lose them; my friends who live so far away are important to me. At times I feel guilty that I'm spending too much time with my "new" friends, or with the writer-people, than with people like jacque or peter or kimberly. Or I'm spending too many facebook posts on people overseas-- pooky and chele, as opposed to kiru.

I get the feeling that my friends are monitoring my facebook profile page to see who dominates the most-mentioned on my wall. I don't want to feel like I'm leaving anyone out, so sometimes if I want to mention someone, I'd rather not, because it would seem selfish.

I guess it's just that the concept of having many friends outside of school is STILL terribly new to me. (even though it's been happening since nov 2009) but now that I'm actually out of school and have time to socialise, juggling different friendships is quite hard to handle. It's all a bit confusing, really, because I want to give ALL my friends the same amount of attention, and I try to measure this "attention" by the amount of tweets/ dailybooth posts/ facebook posts I mention them in. All I really want to do is just spend time with whoever I want whenever I want... which is pretty much what I'm currently doing, actually.

I dreamt that I was in a holiday camp, and we were all confined-- my mum my sister and me, and we had to sleep in bunks like mockingjay. I was sleeping on a bunk bed, and a classmate from primary school was sleeping on the top bunk. And sometimes people had to kill each other. We had to fulfill a PE requirement. I had to make coffee/ tea for people ( can’t remember why) and it was a competition. I won the competition. Sometimes people called me camel; sometimes they called me valerie, or “val”. I distinctly remember that my name was really nicole, but no one seemed to believe me.

I don't know what to think now.

feeling a bit pissy.

tomorrow is wednesday. Because it is wednesday, I'll have to film a video.

I have a bad feeling that I'll be stuck with nothing to do after my volunteer gig.

Which is all fine and dandy if I want to film videos and write and read all day, but it is not fine if I want to go to leakycon.

Sometimes I'm afraid that the choices I'm making are the wrong ones.

But sometimes I remember that I'm still 18, and I might as well take the chance to muck around and have fun while I still can.

Also I don't know what kind of career I want.

okay! Reasons I don't like Borders:

I used to go there as a kid, remember? As young as p1/p2, and get a book on the weekends, or not get any books at all. I would sit in the kids section and read until my neck ached, and my mum would have to find me and I'd have so much trouble picking out a book. It's also where I found my HatP cd, and the Spring Awakening one, and the Pan's Labyrinth VCD that I got michele to buy because I wasn't 16 yet. In RG, we used to go there after exams just to browse, and geeru would head straight to the Terry Prachett section to ogle. I went there once after exams and saw adeline, and then in sec 4 I went with my classmates.

I don't really like it now because it holds so many memories. Well particularly because of jinghua and how he felt me up and I panicked and took flight. Also because of that time I went with darran and loki and darran talked about himself working in borders. -_-

Also because jacqueline/ thurisaz83 says the shifts are shit and working there is shit.

So no borders for me!

I don't understand why this is an issue, honestly; there are so many other places to work in.

I'm only thinking of this because geeru asked me.

But it's not her fault at all.

And it got me thinking how many ~memories~ have been formed at borders.

I feel like I can trust and learn and open myself to new experiences again.

It feels so good.

I AM A ROCKSTAR OF THE ROAD

I hate JC.

The whole idea disgusts me.

Last thursday I was walking into school, thinking that it wasn't so bad, wondering why I hated going to school. And then I remembered. Just being in the destructive environment is enough to make one pessimistic. Some people may say that if I have a cynical outlook, things will generally turn out to be... dismal. I tried to be optimistic-- I don't complain about JC to anyone I speak to in real life, and I tried to make the best of it while I was in it. I just refrain from thinking about why I hate it so much and tried to work with it while I could.

But now that it's finally over, I think I can be free to say why I hate it so much.

There were good things:

1. Lit lessons

2. RRP

3. Bio Soc until august 2009

4. linghui dorcas jiaohua jialei elizabeth meiying

5. being able to get a good review from at least 1 teacher

6. the externally-hired guidance counselor

But that's about it. Here's the things that I couldn't stand:

1. the fact that people mostly like to talk about grades and how to do better and how to outcompete someone

2. If they're not talking about the above, they're talking about who's dating whom.

3. Or mimicking viral videos from the internet

4. People in my class who don't bother to be well-informed and choose to be ignorant about issues that affect us

5. The abysmal level of intellectual discourse

6. The fact that everybody's in here to get more things on their shiny CV and nothing else-- this fact can't be helped.

7. People who have a radar for any form of non-conformity, and it gets picked up on and talked about because... there is nothing else to talk about

8. The counselor who fucking took out a bunch of crayons and drawing block, and lego people, and asked me to "play with them", and afterwards said that we didn't make any "progress". She also smelt like a used sanitary pad, but I will not hold that against her.

9. crappy GP teachers

10. crappy attitude of just studying to pass the exam

And then today at dinner I realised (not for the first time) that the path I am choosing for myself is marginally unorthodox, and I felt like I was walking on my own. I don't know. Sometimes I really abhor being with my family, because they make such a big fuss about everything. And I feel this urgent need to break away and find somewhere where I can be useful, you know? The level of "breaking away" is debatable. But I have the feeling that I am the one entirely responsible for my future, and I'm walking this road on my own. It's scary but empowering at the same time.

Scary because for the first time in my life, I honestly don't know what I'll be doing for the next 2 years. I might pass my As, I might not; I might be able to go away, I might not; I might be studying anthro or even biology-- I might even find myself in Darwin counting turtle eggs... I honestly don't know. I don't even know whether I'll go into arts management after uni because of my BA, or end up working in NParks. Hell, I don't even know whether I'll be working in singapore.

But I have lots of faith in whatever I choose? I trust myself to choose something that I will be content with. Or if the choice is made for me I just have to live with things. For now, I just like having control, while I have it. This is probably blind faith in Fate. sigh.

I don't think I would have had the courage to break away or to talk to different people if not for JC, in this oddly convoluted way. If I hadn't hated JC so much I wouldn't have continued talking to darran and kiru for example, gotten myself so involved with the valkyrieknights, or immersed myself in the internet community. So I suppose there's a bright side to all this.

The Writer by Ellie Goulding really brings me back to when I watched KickAss and I liked the song she did there. That was in april. Ah, good times. I miss them.

I realise the first times of everything are so so precious, because you never get a "first time" again. Every time you experience it hereafter will be different. (sigh)

I think right now I'm very grateful for the fact that I have friends who are so accepting of my insanity, and love me, and support me. I feel like I'm being surrounded in a cocoon of affection and it is such a comforting feeling. Being in contact with JC or anything connected to it (eg grad night) makes me remember how fortunate I am

okay last year I was watching one of jbdazen's liveshows at 4am and being stupidly ecstatic

This is the song that was in my head the next morning.