ahah

I now realize the main reason Ivies will not want me. The first thing they will see in me that will make them throw my application into the bin without even looking at anything else.

Laziness.

Ironically, that is also why I want to get into Ivies so much.

I'm too lazy to apply twice.

driving lessons

So far, I'd had six hours of lessons already. Four more to go! :)

Anyway, I switched instructors. No more Mister Geezer. Yay. I got to choose between two new instructors: another old fella and a young one. So I was like, the young one! the young one! because obviously, I'd prefer to spend ten hours of my life with a strapping young hottie than with a wheezy old greybeard. Then I saw the cars that come with the person. They were inversely proportional to their ages. Young dood will be teaching in a faded red Kancil that spews grey smoke. Old apek will be teaching in a brand new silver Kancil that runs as smooth as a Proton possibly can.

Okay...

So I went with the old fella. Strapping young hottie wasn't that strapping nor was he a hottie. And wheezy old greybeard doesn't wheeze that much and is actually clean-shaven. Gosh. I wonder if I'd do the same with husbands..

ANYWAY

I decided to name my instructor Speeder

#1. Because his top advice to me is "Slow down. Slow down. Don't speeding. Brake. Brake! BRAKE!!!!"

#2. He drives as fast as I did when he gave me 'advice' okay.. okay.. at half the acceleration.

#3. Because he repeatedly reminds me to watch the speedometer so that I don't exceed the speed limit. "Look at speedo ha.. Look at speedo.. See, over 30 at zebra-crossing already. Fail then you know.."

Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on driving when he does #3? I mean, the dude is practically begging me to 'look at speedo'! And to me, speedos do not have numbers... So everytime he says speedo, images of swimming pools and six-packs and tans and incredibly sexy parts of the male body and Phelps and muscles start flashing by my line of sight.

The first time he said that, I actually snorted and stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes. Hard. I had the time of my life! :D 

And I think he formed a very close friendship with the seatbelt. Love the way he clings to it every time I act dumb! Once, I stepped on the accelerator at the sharpest point of a turn and said "whoops! i thought that was the brake!" and I thought he'd laugh. He didn't. He was clutching the belt like he was dangling off it a mile above ground. Priceless.

But other than messing around with Speeder, there isn't much I can think of that is even remotely interesting. Parking, 3-point-turns and hills are pretty much no-brainers. Your engine dying in the middle of a busy junction might seem pretty embarrassing, but really, a smile and a wave and everybody forgives you.

In fact, driving by the rules gets pretty frustrating after a while. 30kmph is sooo slooowww. And pulling handbrakes at every bloody junction and looking leftrightleft even though the place is as populated as Pluto gets really irritating. And for some reason, the ticking of the signal lights bother me.

Anyway, if any of you have ideas on what more I can pull on Mister Speeder, please drop a doodle or two! Come on, give us something to write ;)

again again

See, today I was up at 8 in the morning cuz I had driving lessons at 9. So my dad drops me at this restaurant for breakfast while he drives my mum to work. For Taiping people, it's Yut Sun Restaurant - the one with extremely juicy toast. So. I walk in, sit down, look expectantly around.. And the old man who owned the place approached me. Cuz his workers are busy, not cuz he has a thing for me.

It's all in Hokkien. I shall translate as best as I can.

Boy, what do you want to drink?

*resigned sigh*

These things never cease to happen, eh? We are who we are...

Teh tarik, please.

Dude shuffles off while shouting my order. I wait. 3 minutes later, he comes back with my tea.

Thank you, uncle 

(See, I can be polite when I want to. Wanted to call him Auntie.)

Welcome. So, where are your parents?

(Feeling a bit suspicious since I know he doesn't know me nor my parents)

My dad's driving my mum to work.

Ah.. School holiday started?

Erm.. Yeah.

So, enjoying your holiday?

*thinks back to SAT2 but suddenly remembers the 5 episodes of House last night*

Yeahh..

Well, you deserve a break after all the studying.

Er. Yeah.

So, how was your PMR?

...

What. The. Eff! PMR?!

He thinks I'm a 15-year-old boy!

!!!

...

*Exerts enormous self-control*

OK lah.

So how? Think you can do well? How many A's do you think you can get?

Err. Seven?

Wah.. Very confident huh?

Heh.

But you have to remember PMR is just the first step for you. SPM is the real thing. You better start study for Form 4.

Yeah uncle. I study already.

Wah! Good for you! Study hard so that you can get all A's for your SPM!

Yes yes.

OK lah, enjoy your breakfast. And good luck!

Huh. I was too sleepy and my command of Hokkien is not enough to convey the very complex idea that I am actually a girl.

I give up.

bah. titles. i can't think of one.

i'm amazed how many people actually read that huge block of text below. i mean, i didn't think you people would think it worthwhile to wade through lines and lines of stupid sentences and missing capital letters. so, wow. i was amazed i even had responses. to those who read, thank you so much for your time. i know i didn't make much sense. your replies mean a lot to me. especially yours, jane. and to a certain someone who didn't reply, but did talk to me about it, i appreciate your willingness to listen.

i think it would take a long time for me to find my answers. it isn't exactly google-able. but i guess that is what makes life beautiful. the eternal quest for answers to even the humblest of questions. and i think i AM finding my answers, now that i keep my eyes open.

***

my holiday was full of thoughtful moments, punctuated by splashing waves and over-enthusiastic jet-skiers. i learnt a lot. for example, i learnt that you can get attached to a sunset. 

this is my sunset and it is beautiful. i don't care if you think it's ugly or mediocre or [insert negative adjective] but i think it looks like a stairway to Helios's golden realm of fire and wonders. it's like you can just step on the waves and reach the brightly burning gateway to the sun and when you peek through you just might catch a glimpse of Helios and his chariot and you can see his horses panting fire and their white-hot horseshoes smoking as they cool. i know i sound cliched and touristadvert-like and i know the 'e' in 'cliche' has a 'shck' above it but i don't care enough to bother googling nor sitting for 5 minutes cracking my head for a godforsaken SAT word.

oh. and i learnt that Borneo isn't the only place to find hornbills. yes, people. Pangkor has them too! Hornbills!

i swear these are real! and a note to my dear Sarawakian friends: these fellas measure about 3 feet from tip to tip. so, Bamboo, it IS possible for them to perch on electric cables. they just prefer hanging out on trees. hah.

so i guess we can safely conclude that this trip wasn't so pointless after all. i got to see my hornbills :) 

a block of text. or two.

you know what. i seriously do not know why i'm doing this. why am i putting my hopes on something as far away as an ivy league university? why am i hoping for what's impossible? why am i aiming for something i don't think i want in the first place? and while i'm at it, why am i bothering to hope for what is a hopeless cause? why do i do the stuff i do? why? i keep telling myself that i'm giving myself more of a chance to be a better person than i am, but i can't help but think that i will be a better person if i actually follow what i really want to do. which leads me to the question of what is it that i want to do? i don't know. i just know that i have this crazy longing to throw all of this off my back and just walk off. just walk off. sometimes i get scared. i wonder why am i following the crowd. i wonder why am i listening to people i barely know telling me what is good for me. i wonder. and i never get the answer. it's weird. the people i really admire, the people who i really want to become, they never did all this. they didn't need to. that they never did was probably what made them who they are. who i really want to become. i don't know. i just can't find any reason to continue doing this. it's all so pointless. so easy to follow. so easy to do. so easy to hunker down, forget all this and study electrons. so easy. to follow unquestioningly, to do what i 'have' to do. to do what other people 'want' me to do. to make myself 'enjoy' doing all this because it is easier than contemplating other paths to carve in my life. so easy to just accept. i don't know. the more i 'succeed', the more i feel like i'm 'failing'. i want to pack my bags and walk out of this life. be a writer. travel. float aimlessly amidst humanity. but i don't. why? because i'm afraid. because i don't know if i can survive. because i am a coward. because it is all so uncertain and hazy and no one's done it before. and that is what i hate about myself. i abhor control. i seek freedom. and yet i shackle myself to this, too scared to seek the freedom i profess to crave. lying to myself about myself. gosh. how sad can that get? i just hope this great big block of text stopped some people from reading this. but in a way, when you get too personal, it becomes impersonal. because people stop caring. i know nobody would care about this because they know that no matter how much i complain, i would still continue doing what i do. hence, my willingness to write about this. this burden i carry, yet i know not why i take it. it's a bit like the story of Sisyphus, except he pretty much has his task outlined for him by a god. well, lucky him. i don't know who outlined my task, nor what my task is. and i don't even know if i'm doing my task right, nor if i'm doing the right task. i do not know why i'm doing what i do. i enjoy it, but i can't help but think i can enjoy doing other things too. i just don't understand why i'm doing all this when it is so easy to change and do something else. oh yes it's easy to change. getting a scholarship might seem tough to some, but losing one is so darn temptingly easy. and possibly fun. i just want a reason to do what i do. maybe i'll find it. maybe i won't. but i am just going to revert back to human android mode tomorrow and stop throwing questions with no answers into the air like they're helium balloons. and that is sad. i hope i won't delete this post. this is the most lucid i felt in months. possibly years. but lucidity is subjective. just like everything that really matters in our sad little lives. i guess we made it subjective so that we can lie to ourselves that we are who we are not. how exceedingly clever. bah. damn all this to hell. it all ends in death anyway. everything else is just the details. how quaint. okay. back to unquestioning, numb, happy android mode. come, let us have fun with physics. because i have to do it, might as well have fun doing it. amazing what i can make myself do. amazing that i can protest and do it at the same time. i might make a good politician. who knows. i don't.

***

i'm part of a coincidental occurrence where five people accidentally travel at the same time at the same speed to the same place where they happen to do the same thing. and one of them happens to be paying enough for all of them. i think they call it a holiday. i'm going to that island they named Pangkor, which i think is a sucky name for an island because it just doesn't roll off your tongue and it sounds like a name i would assign a cooking utensil. so. a holiday. tomorrow. i mean, today. in a few hour's time the few humans i will travel with will rise. and i too shall rise and pretend i had a fantastic night dreaming about rainbows and unicorns. i am amazingly good at doing this. the only attraction that island holds for me is this - i was happy here. i was pure and innocent and in love with life. and in love with a whole lot of other things. sandcastles. buckets. the sea. the sky. clouds. the pony. beach balls. jet skis. crabs. seashells, kites. coconut leaves. i want to find the place where i was happy. i want to go back there. i want to return to where i remember being in absolute bliss. but i know what will happen if i do. i will stare at the miserable beach that looked so much like paradise when i was a kid. i will look at it and see a sad little patch of insignificant sand filled with utterly ugly calcium formations. i will look at what was the magnificent blue sea and see waves full of jellyfish and trash. i might even find the pipe whereby the hotel dumps the waste into the water. and i will smirk at the people in the sea. but there will be no humour in that smirk. it just means another part of my childhood has been corrupted. and i smirk in acceptance. i was seven then. i am seventeen now. there you go. ten years, and i come back. i come back to ruin your memory. there you go. this is how i ruin a holiday.