So What If?

So what if all my life I've been working very hard to top the pecking order if what others are only willing to see are my flaws?

So what if I've been spending most of my time all cooped up in my room doing just the most unexciting thing ever if others are only able to see how uneventful my life has been?

So what if I've tried so relentlessly comforting myself when all others fail to notice how much I want this?

So what if I really want something so badly when none of them are willing to give me a chance?

So what if I've never surrendered to my viciousness and my jealousy when people around me have never failed to live better, attain more and excel further than me?

To God, to my peers, my educators and potential employers - they who have the power to give and enable, whom I have never been visible to.

I apologise for being so ordinary.

I apologise for taking my life too seriously.

I apologise for not trying to be entertaining.

I apologise that my achievements fall off the radar so quickly.

I apologise for not being better than the others.

I apologise for my monotony.

I apologise I couldn't do any better.

I apologise for not being memorable.

I apologise for not knowing what's so incorrect and ill-fitting about me.

Now... can You start giving me what I want?

Best Thing In This Galaxie

I needed the whole thing to set in before I can present a proper and impartial evaluation on my whole experience interning with Galaxie mag's editorial team.

Nah that was a lie. I was just plain lazy. That's one and two, there are some things I needed to figure out since the results got out. Note on that - still figuring it out. And so haven't really got the time to feel nostalgic about the interning days which should have been able to compel me to write something about it. A write up at five in the morning after a good hair wash sounds like one of those typical moments to feel nostalgic eh? Possible.

Interning with Galaxie was perhaps the luckiest thing that has ever hit on me. It all began with a random email. The same email which I believe Seventeen mag, The Star and NSTP would have received. You know, the same introductory line I lifted from the very email I sent to SLB cause I thought hey if I scored that with this line, the theory is that this should work for any other employer too right? Guess bosses from those other mags have different taste. Wouldn't be bothered though cause Gordon gave me that break I was relentlessly praying for. The break from law. I mean it was my final months before I graduate (gotta admit I had doubts whether that will happen this year), it was a either-you-do-now-or-you'll-never-know crossroad. I know if I didn't click 'send' to that email, I would regret for the rest of my life knowing I didn't have the balls to get my hands on the thing I've been preaching that I will do someday.

When Gordon replied me, my eyes froze, staring at that subject headline for more than five seconds before clicking on it. Not even an ounce of belief was invested in the possibility for a reply from the I-once-used-to-read magazine. An appointment was arranged and even when he put it clearly it was going to be a chat, I took it that it's an interview. I arrived darn early for fear of a negative impression and I sat in the lobby quietly without making any large movement. Too cautious you may think but you would never know, he might be watching. So turns out he wasn't watching. The interview, as in the chat with Gordon was a laid back one. It was in the lobby and pretty warm, no not from my constant flushing. The sun was harsh to me that day okay. But just when I started warming up to him to the point that I shared with him my exclusive dream, a dream that no one has any knowledge of except for a certain someone, he asked me to write - on the spot! Inside I was thinking oh come on, like a pop quiz when I was in Standard 3 to see who gets to be dismissed first? No, this is worse than a pop quiz. This is an essay exam. I wrote a movie review on The Avengers and a short write up on TVXQ, my self-proclaimed-favourite-but-actually-I-was-no-longer-interested-in-Kpop K-Pop boy band. But when he told me that he appreciates it that a law student like yours truly would take some time off for a detour in journalism, my sixth sense told me I may have found the right person to work with.

My dad wasn't too happy with the news when I told him I got the confirmation from The Star's HR (Galaxie is owned by The Star by the way). He expressed his qualms by blaming it on the forty-minute long drive to the workplace for such a meagre allowance but I know deep down it's cause he's always thought his daughter is going to be a lawyer. He must have thought that journalism dream of mine has long been forgotten, devoured by this new-found hunger for a niche in the corporate world. It's not his fault though. He gloats on the fact that I'm a lawyer on my way and I've been more than happy to pave the way for that presumption. He gritted his teeth and gave his blessing anyway and I know I've said that it annoys me but there's a tinge of awkward poignant sentiment aroused in me looking back at the times when he called during working hours to remind me to drive with extra caution when it rained cats and dogs outside. Oh and also the fact that the monthly allowance wasn't discontinued despite my paid internship. I swear, I did say NO when he handed me the money. I even pushed the money away with full force, short from stuffing it back into his grip. But he insisted. *grin*

To be continued...

Sucker = Me

I can never truly be happy for someone else, can't I? What a loser I am!

Truly Amazing

I was wrong all along. Miracles do happen - to me...

Gray.

Spread my wings and fly. That's a resolution I made prior to the finals which I had now gone through and bid farewell to. But wait a minute, where are the wings? And it certainly doesn't look like I'm flying at the moment. College life is a phase I initially was very thrilled to embark upon and when it didn't look like it's ever going to come to an end, I began dreading to continue and had been very anxious to make that giant sprint into something else. But now when the finishing line is within the sight, I dread leaving the path and am uncertain whether to make that turning into working life or that something else discreetly ingrained in my flickering heart.

Fascinating visuals brimming into my vision is one of the very few personal qualities I take a lot of pride of. When I go through a torrid time in real, the surreal life of mine takes it further and mortified the life I tricked myself into believing for an easier flow of sympathy I wage on myself. When it's the other way round, the illusion takes a turn and paints it all bright and sunny with me living a blissful life perhaps even companion-ed for my own gratification. But I cannot at the moment, picture myself in a life post-result day not for the obvious reason. Yes, it can go either way. The outcome may be very bad, or moderately good. I may be crying in tears for either of the two very polarised reasons. But no, that's not the source to my limping fantasising ability. Truth is, my life after college (or my degree course, to be precise) has it's very beautiful plan. But it's a plan sounding dubious if it's presented to the realists and overtly ambitious if it's fallen to the knowledge of my parents. Curiosity is endless on the plans of my friends because they always sound so do-able. I'm always hesitant in revealing mine. Even if I do end up saying something about it, it appears to be direction-less, heading nowhere. 

Which is why a lot of stake is weighed onto the three months I am supposed to savour to its limits. I dreamt miles and miles about it. I want to do this, I want to go here and there, I want to take up classes, I want to work here and I want to create a legion of stories to share with my to be colleagues or postgraduate mates. Yet nowhere near I am currently to that requisite first step to make all those take its place. I have done nothing to save it from being 'just another school break'.

Now that I think about it, the 3 months spent on being an awkward receptionist doesn't sound so futile anymore. At least my pocket gets deeper by each day I spent on daydreaming. 

Old and New.

I will be lying if I'd said I didn't miss those days. I do, all the time. I'm a grown up (I convinced myself that I am so) and so, I understand that it is an era I needed to leave behind in order to move on. For a better life? - I don't know about that though. But it will always be a strand of memory which I know was a life-changing one. There, I discovered friendship stripped of chivalry, my curiosity for the life out of comfort zone was ignited and I learnt that ambitions are like unbankable blank cheques until you fight your way through to get it signed and filled up. I learnt many things which I often dreamt about when I was younger are unreal, and the things I could only see on TV are actually kinda real, they do occur in a run-of-the-mill fashion.

When I'm down, either because the current life isn't treating me too well or because I couldn't get things moving, I choose to dwell on those moments. Then the remorse that I didn't do more, learn more and know more back then would overwhelm me. Because if I did, I wouldn't end up being like this today. Sometimes I just wish someone cared - about me. Sometimes I just wish I could end it so that a new life awaits me in the next cycle. Maybe I just need to get a new life.

Daydream saves my life from getting drowned by the brutal reality. I've always dreamt nice things happening to me. Flashes of me getting a man whom I love and who cherishes me more than his mother, me writing by the lake for my next New York Times' best seller, me in a dark blue pair of converse strolling around the office in search of ingenious pointers to help free my client from law suits and of course me, paying for a Louis Vuitton handbag with my platinum card for my mom's birthday. But I've never imagined how life would be like if I were to graduate with a degree classification no firm would spare a glance at. Well, I would most probably be mourning for the rest of my life about that and continue to yearn for the impossibles.  

I've lost it! I've lost the hope I've been harbouring for this entire year. Sure, the results aren't out yet and we all know miracles happen. It does but what are the odds? In fact, the stats have it that I don't stand a chance at all. And sure, there are many things my finger can effortlessly point at - the pressure, the time, the place, the people, the method I employed and the selections of the less obvious, but the truth is, I've never really believed in myself even until the last moment before I peed and stepped into the arena. All I've been doing is gobbling up all the necessary information and holding my hopes high that the right platform will fall on me for me to plate them all up. So much to prepare, so much to tinker about yet so little time I'm given is not an excuse but I can't help but to think they contribute a whole lot for the feigning hopes. Yes, I'm contradicting myself here. I want to believe so much that I'm not the cause for my failure and I want to believe so much that everything else played a part in that scheme.

I'm done for this year. Whilst I'm relieved it's over, I find myself baulking at the idea that I'm no longer an undergraduate, that there's no more papers for me to resurrect my hopes. I have lost my sanity, haven't I?

I looked back at what I wrote 8 days prior to the first paper around the same time of last year. It says there stress has yet to seep in. Wow! I must say I was impressed with how calm and cool I was last year cause history isn't repeating itself for me currently.

Could never have thought my days would get easier as the exams are drawing near. Both yesterday and today have been pleasant, I must say. Yes, there were certain junctures where long breaks were lingering in the thought but I pressed on and in the end, clocked out at 1am yesterday, feeling satisfied with the harvest for the day. But deep inside I'm very well aware that the real trying time will begin next week when there's no more excuse of those long, dreadful classes in my way to impede my progress. Thank you for giving me that much needed breather. Now that I'm all rejuvenated I promise that I'll charge on with no fear and frowns.

We Were There.

"They say that a memory is something you reconstruct depending on small fragments of recollections in your mind. They say that remembering is the same as seeing an illusion.

What is existence?

What if we had stopped there, or if we'd turned the corner...

What if we hadn't stumbled over pebbles, or ever gotten lost...

What if we'd never stopped...

What if back then... What if... What if...

Innumerable number of choices led me onto the road I'm on now.

When I was right and when I was wrong.

I was always me. You, him, anyone, everyone...

We're all right now.

It's all right now. The sad times, the happy times, all of them are precious memories.

So, I pray -

Please, let these forever be precious memories...

... for you as well."

-Bokura ga Ita, Chapter 70, pages 48 - 53 -

Pressure and Time.

Pressure and time get the better of me all the time. They are merciless enemies of the extreme in my life, and in others too I'm sure. It is a paradox however, to foretell how my life would have come off far worse than it is now without them. Guess there is a little bit of a love-hate relationship going on between us.

I Have a Dream.

Dreaming is my hobby. Working out the alternative path I could have been treading upon looks like a sustainable, fitting ritual to kill the time I can afford to spend on doing nothing. It comes at no cost, requires no extraordinary force for it to work its magic and more significantly, it keeps me alive.

But when, when am I going to wake up and plant my feet on firm and real grounds and to come to terms with the genuine superficiality all humans conform to?

Still Waiting.

Don't want to grow up for like ever. Is that possible? Not that it's due to the intention to evade natural death or to pay taxes or simply to age (although, I do secretly wish for them), it's that awareness that time is running out for me to make the big break. The older I get, the more impatient I'd get.

Back then, when I was say, 14, so bloody care-free I was that all I had to and would do was to go to school, get out of it when the bell rang, finish up my homework, and the rest, I spent it on TV. That, and waiting for tomorrow to dawn on me. All I was doing back then was waiting, calmly as if something is going to fall on my lap.

Urh... Sue, don't you want to start getting active in co-curricular activities in school since you know, it polishes your resume - What the F**k, I'm only 14. Plus, convention has it that only the seniors get to hold posts in clubs and societies, so I can wait.

Sue, don't you want to start taking tuition classes since PMR is only just next year. What? - No000, you've mentioned the reason already, it's a whole freaking year away. Why start so early?! It can wait.

Sue, don't you want to start dating? You can take out half of the hours you spend on watching TV and spend it on boys instead? - You must be kidding. Firstly, there isn't any guys I like and vice versa. And, to begin dating at 14? I'll be worried for that dude cause Dad will surely kill him. It can definitely wait.

Everything could wait because damn, I was too young for anything. And now, I'm too old for them.

And may I rationalise the reason for the dormant, unambitious lifestyle - It was simply that the peers around me are just like me, going to the same school, experiencing the same cycle of routine day in day out. They were also waiting for themselves to grow older and then be sucked into this joy-vacuumed years of constant pressure to ... I don't know, discover eternal joy? There was yet to be any pressure on me to do and be better than them.

8 years gone by, finally, my wait is over. Here I am, scrambling for every second I've got to pursue that eternal joy or the shorter term goal which is to perform better than my peers. But one thing I could never apprehend is, why the hell do I need to forsake my used-to joy to chase for that eternal joy, which doesn't seem to be closing in any time soon? Why can't I be happy now and try to be happy-er in the future?

I was so freaking happy back then. Even though I had to walk to and fro the school and the grocery. But I was happy. Even though there were people who dissed me on my surname. But I was happy. Even though I didn't have many friends. But I was really really happy.

Entering into my semi-adulthood, I, along with my peers are judged and judge others based on what we have, be it intelligence, wealth, curves (?), the perimeters of our social network, oh and most importantly which university we're enrolled in. Why is it not possible to simply judge based on how happy one is?

After 5 years of investing my instant happiness in an effort to triumph over my contemporaries, I'm caving in to the fact that it's not worth the speculation anymore. More and more people around me are no longer playing in the same league as I do. I am in a way, in a league of my own, but nowhere near the premier one.

If I were happy now, I am certain that I wouldn't mind aging twice faster than the normal rate is. But the sad truth is, I'm not, therefore, I AM NOT WILLING TO AGE NO MATTER WHAT.

I'm waiting.

This whole incident struck me like a deja vu. It's happened time and again. It's not her fault, I should be happy for her but I found myself struggling to force a smile out. I've always thought a pitiful childhood will be reimbursed with an adulthood abundant with happiness. I've always thought what she has now will vanish within the years to come and those years to come would be my time to rise above others' expectation of me. All the waiting have exhausted my hunger for excellence and dashed my little hopes of having the last laugh.

Perhaps it's because I've met failure, that it has never seemed to have left me alone.

Monstrous.

Okay, I'll admit - I've been trying too hard far too long. What I am today (being pretentious) is a result of that relentless commitment of filling in the role I was taught to aspire to be one day. I've always wanted to be the person with subtle elegance and charisma with some degree of authority thriving along with almost everything I touch and get involved in. But what that ambition has made of me, is something I chide myself for every single day. And for these days, I would stand before the mirror, looking for my reflection, and turn away. I couldn't bear looking at my ugly self. I have turned into a monster, obsessed over perfection and everything glamorous, and intimidated by the better, greater things other monsters possess. I have to stop being so uptight and possessive over myself. Spontaneity and impulse are qualities I look at in admiration but those I could only yearn for in a life removed from the eyes of the people I want to impress who also happen to be the bunch I cherish the most.

My Treasured Heartache

Remember this date - 14th January 2012 - The day where FT Island held a concert in Malaysia and I couldn't be there to witness that historical event. I know I know, the older, more wrinkled and more matured me who is reading this at a later time would read this entry and begin giggling at the sight of the word, 'FT Island', reminiscing how silly I was then. But remember, I am at this point, as I'm writing, am on the verge of ripping my heart out to bring its burning sensation to a halt. As a result of the failure to do so, I was made to endure withdrawal symptoms. Lack of concentration, anxiety, high-octane level of sensitivity, and the extreme somberness were only some of the many psychology rides I have been taking on today.

I am sorry, Superpeng, for forsaking a rare opportunity for you to indulge sinfully in fangirl-ing over a group of 5 cutie pies. I swear that I'll make myself work very hard, earn lots and lots of money that I'll pay people for chaperoning me to concerts.