Short notes:

1. My dad told me that I won't be staying in hall in my second year. Wanted to throw things at him but maybe I should think about it too,

2. I sometimes wish that I could post photos of us up on social media without having to overly worry about my parents (since they're both on Facebook and Instagram) and then it makes me think about the deeper problems I will face in my relationship and it just makes me wish I didn't wish for anything in the first place.

Other than that, yay not so bad day today.

first coherent post in a while

Highly irrelevant picture to break the introspective nonsense I've been typing for who knows how long.

I don't really know what happened with my blog. It wasn't meant to be so emotional and introspective when I first started out. But school and people and everything gets me down. Haha Amanda you're so lame.

Over the past few months in school (it was mostly hall) I have realised that I am a very insecure, inward looking, self-conscious, needy person but at the same time I can't bring myself to reach out to too many people. And when I lay it all down in words, I sound quite unappealing to myself too.

The same things repeat constantly in my head: insecurity, inadequacy, weariness, anger and sadness. Still feeling a bit of all that, but I'm trying to move off from this stagnancy. Got really angry and upset with a lot of things yesterday and a bit of today, but I reached home, away from almost everything and I feel so much better.

And on the car ride home, I am reminded of why I love theatre so much and I'm glad to have found at least one person who is allured by it as much as I am.

Listening to xxyyxx helps me. I can't believe I'm going to see him in January I'm so fucking psyched.

Having things to look forward to really calms me down and I actually feel glad enough to want to hug everyone because things can be good and things can go well and I have things to be positive about.

I should move my blog/delete everything soon.

I will figure things out.

gasp//gaps

I am so bad with people and keeping everything in check in check in check I just feel like saying I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry all the time and I just want to be left alone alone alone but I feel the silence reverberate and I can't stand it I just can't and I wish to go to go to go but where do I go who do I go with what do I do why do I do this questions questions questions stop asking me I have no answers I am unsure and afraid and but if what how no no no goodbye I fear something anything everything stop asking me what why how I can't I just can't answer please please let me go no stop I want I just want to please please just please please let me breathe.

Walking home alone at 5 in the morning was comforting. It was one of the few times I felt completely at ease with my loneliness and anonymity, and I almost felt like I was anywhere but in Singapore. Youth Lagoon started to play in my head, When I was seventeen, my mother said to me, don't stop imagining, the day that you do is the day that you die, and I was happy, happy just being, even with the cold cradling my calves, even in the vast empty streets, so quietly at peace that I could stand in the open road and not care about my mortality.

I wanted to keep walking, for the time to stay at 5 in the morning, and the more I wished time would stop, the more I noticed silvers of light creeping into the sky from behind the tall buildings, the more I noticed that I lived in a world constantly in motion, and the moment was lost.

I was and am myself again.

psycho killer

when we used to be friends and we both liked this and when I had no idea what qu'est-ce que c'est meant.

I fucked up. I really, really fucked up, didn't I? Why am I always so bad with people? It took so much for me to trust you entirely, and I felt like I gave a piece of my soul to you, but I just lost all your trust like that. In a few words on a screen I lost what we have built for almost ten months now. Everything is this close to disappearing.

Or rather, a piece of me may be torn out, disembodied, replaced by a silver of your soul, whose shape does not fit my own crevice, but is what I can only settle for.

Bummer.

I always find my memories more beautiful when I am nostalgic and long for familiarity. I could forget all the bad and remember everything in hazy warmth, wishing to go back to the good days which weren't very good at all. Cinnamon rolls taste sweeter nursed in the forgetfulness of my memories, while half-imagined conversations rolled off the tongue easier in memory.

Why is there always this constant distaste for the present? Reality merely doesn't satisfy my need for belonging, while memory, in not belonging, seems the best place to be. I catch myself forgetting the worst parts of my high school life, and I realise I want to forget. It is simply too painful to remember my past and live my present bitterly. Either one has to be masked in falsehood, and only the past can be misrepresented because of the very fact that the present exists.

Finals week start next week, and I know I'm supposed to be nervous and focused, but all I can feel is a lot of loneliness and some measure of feeling out of place. I feel so vastly different from the people around me but I didn't have this feeling some weeks before. I get so irritated so easily. Did something change when I didn't notice? Is there something wrong with me? Why is it that I always feel so negative about everything around me?

I find solace in the boy, but I know that it's not good to be utterly emotionally dependent on him. I need other people on my life too. 

Why do I feel so alienated when people are speaking a language that is supposed to be my mother tongue? My incoherence makes me feel out of place. I can't imagine what people who don't understand feel. Do they appreciate the beauty of the unknown and remain frustrated, like me?

Essay is due in 35 hours and I have not started augh fucking hell.

If this goes on, I am going to go Carrie on everyone here.

I have physical contact with guys, but what makes hugging or even just being physically close to the person I love different is the familiarity and comfort that proximity brings. The usual scent, the soothing voice, the very presence, it all makes a difference for me. It all reminds me that I am in love.

sea

I haven't been emotionally stable enough recently to be able to take silence as a reply from you, especially when you tell me something is wrong but won't tell me what. Nights like these I really wish I could run to the sea and let it swallow me up, my limbs caressed by the waves and my entire being engulfed by the darkest depths of waters.

But no. I can only contend with my sheets, whose softness bears more tangible weight than your presence, six days a week. It brings less physical comfort than the waves but it also means that I have to wake up the next day.

Maybe everyone actually hates me and I have been such a fool. What a great big fool.

Birthday went pretty well, but some things cropped up and some things were messed up but let's just leave it as that because it's been a week.

Lately, I feel out of place. Again. Must this feeling come back every now and then to remind me of my place? To remind me of...? I don't know. But I look at some of the people I know and think to myself, You're all lovely people but I don't fit in, like I know something that they don't. Maybe that's the truth, or maybe I lack something they have.

Times like these I miss my old friends so much. Then I realise that I haven't been great at keeping in contact with them. And I wish very much that I am shrinking as I cower into a little ball, my entire being compressed smaller and smaller, until at last I disappear.

my dumb insecurity (in which I waver in my points of view)

I'm a really insecure person who pretends to be able to understand people but I really don't. This realisation (or observation) stems from three things that I realised I do:

1. I try to remind people that I exist
2. I feel bad about doing that because I don't know if I'm offended
3. I do it anyway because I am insecure

It's like this endless cycle of fretting, and I don't want to care about what people think of me. But sadly, I still do. Somehow, impressions of me are something I obsess about but also things that I can hardly change. I am also at a point where I am unsure of my bearings, unsure about my stance.

Which brings me to the next thing on my mind.

Recently, I've been reading about Malala Yousafzai and I get increasingly confused as I read more and more about it. At first, I was really heartened to hear of such a young, peaceful activist for education and women's rights. Her story was one that really touched me because education and women's rights are very important things to me. 

As I read into the story, about how people in her home aren't too receptive to what she has done, about the fact that she might have either exaggerated situations or over-generalised the predicament of her people, about the fact that (this is something more controversial and sensational) she may have been manipulated by others to give certain impressions about her oppressors, I get more and more uncertain of what I should believe.

Should I believe that she is what she says she is, or should I believe the naysayers? Should I believe the positive or negative? What do I choose believe? What do I want to believe

It makes me want to stop reading about the whole case itself, but it also makes me want to find a truth for myself. But is my truth the real truth?

Augh, my head. I'm tired and unsure. I could say that it's because of school, but I think it's something else.

Tyler, The Creator - Tamale

I really liked this?!?!

Studying soci and french gives me a headache. Bewildered studious milkmaid at your service.

unsocial media

The more I think about my online presence, the more inhuman I feel.

I have an account on almost every social media platform, short of Vine (and I'm not getting that because of issues with my phone). But having a presence doesn't mean anything. In fact, the more I look at the things I post (or rather, do not post), the more disconnected I feel with the people around me.

le sentiment de l'appartenance

Obviously, the feeling of belonging does not exist here. Look, I am so out of place that I even look photoshopped into my room.

wonder

I find myself becoming busier and busier, overcommitting in school, falling back in studies and trying (pretty hard) to catch up, "socialising", trying to help a friend run his business. And while the me from years back would have felt energised amidst the chaos and a schedule that never stops, it all feels quite meaningless right now. Is the reason why I busy myself because I am so empty? I sometimes think it's because I'm scared of admitting to myself that I am alone, I am my own being. So maybe that's why I let myself continue to be busy, continue to do everything in my capacity to forget that I do not matter, I am dispensable and disposable. I wonder, do all the things I do only serve to remind me I exist?

Haven't blogged for a while. Mostly because school is really hectic, and while I still don't feel like I fit in anywhere (it's already week 5!), I'm getting used to it. There's this girl here who tells me to treat NUS like it's an american university, where it's so massive that you contend with the loneliness and see it as a good thing. In lectures you don't need to have an identity; it is enough to be alone, listening to what the lecturer is saying, no one bothering with knowing who you are, not having to bother about who everyone is. I guess I'm still trying to understand that, but I'm on my way there.

Other than that, I've signed up for too many activities and I can see myself overcommitting. There goes your CAP, Amanda.

short term

Some years ago a friend told me she felt like crying when a new friend she made was switching classes, because she felt like he was a lost brother and knew that things would be different between them from then on. She asked me if I understood that feeling and I just nodded without much thought.
But I think I can understand that now.

Feeling utterly out of place, unwanted, forgotten and alone. How long will I be able to take this?

school, also known as, my lack of social skills

Maybe it's the way I keep looking towards school and meeting new people with a sense of dread or apprehension. Maybe it's just the way my face looks. Maybe I'm just not a good person to be friends with. Whatever it is, it's been pretty tough to settle into a new school and environment.

Quite ironic, because I'm in the faculty studying social sciences but I seem to be lacking in the "social" area, as in, being sociable (lol).

I have a good feeling about you, like we could be great friends. But it feels like it isn't mutual, and I never like it when the favours are not tipped towards me, so I will hold my attachment in, until I can let me trust you.

Watched The XX live before this. Felt like I missed the boy too much and really wanted him to enjoy them with me (even though he doesn't listen to them). The male vocalist has a voice I could marry, and Jamie XX just wowed me speechless.

"In love" is such a confusing state of mind.

Do I love, or do I only love Love itself? The feeling of being in love is a wonderful one but isn't it unfair if I claim to be in love with someone but am actually in love with Love? Can the recipient of my affections be substituted by someone else? I'm afraid of knowing the answer, but at present I feel like I am in love with the person for his company and qualities. 

Also, I haven't been putting my thoughts into words these days. My life is becoming slower, and I feel like I'm dragging my feet through life. I've stopped running or exercising, and I'm pretty sure I've stopped thinking too. Been trying to get out of this inertia but it hasn't been working. I really need a run and a swim. School's starting and I guess that would work my brain, hopefully.

Facing the future with a lot of trepidation. I have been so used to...and I am at a sudden loss for words to describe what my 7 month long break as been. Inertia seems about the only word to describe it. Limbo comes a close second.

My vocabulary is so limited now.

Camp is finally over and I was pageant girl and I made friends but even if we clicked and even if we say keep in touch it usually means that we won't talk anymore after this. This is so annoying.

If home is where the heart is, and my heart belongs with you, my home belongs in the spaces between your bones, in your blood and in your flesh, under your skin and in every strand of hair, and that would all sit very well with me.

This week has been pretty tiring and I am looking my worst and bleeding A LOT hahaha is this tmi but anyway, this morning I was registering for O-Week (like, why do we need to even register for this?!) and someone approached me to join the Arts pageant and right now I look like this

lbr I look terrible

memory

I miss the smooth, soothing quality that your voice had over me when we talk in real life. I miss the gentle strength in your hands and in the way you carried yourself. I miss the light breeze of your breath as we stand next to each other, the steady rhythm reminding me of your presence. In your absence, my memory gives me faint shadows of your comforting presence, and in your presence, my consciousness conveniently takes no notice of the smaller details. But over the phone, as we argued and as we reconciled, the tiniest details played out, over and over again, I choked, not because we had fought, but because I remembered.

I said nothing in reply when you told me that you missed me, but you knew that the depth of my yearning was as infinite as the silence of my response.

I'm getting really worried, what if everyone secretly hates me at work even though I think most people are nice?

So I kind of made the boy hang out with his old friends even though he was okay with spending time with me because I felt like I was hoarding him for too long during weekends but now I just feel a little lonely and no one is free to hang out with me so here I am eating nuggets at home but they forgot to give me my fries in the take out bag so I am just sad.

I miss having conversations about things that matter, rather than empty ones that are about air and fluff, or things we encounter daily but never in relation to the bigger picture. I feel suffocated on the screen and in my room. It's all so very stifling these days.

future

I was in the backseat of the car of a friend and his brother, who was driving and had a charming voice. Somehow, the combination of the voice, the night, the alcohol and the criticisms of my future school gives me a certain intense nausea that makes me feel nervous, afraid (but also, sleepy). In such a short ride home, the resolution in me to major in humanities in this country crumbled and all I am left with is fear, apprehension and a sense of displacement. Was my education in the humanities for nothing?

It feels like the country is trying to tell me that the humanities are only for people who can afford it. If you love it, and you're rich, great, you can go overseas and pursue a humanities education that would be recognised and appreciated here, if not only for the name of said overseas college. If you love it, you're bright, but cannot afford the education overseas, getting into a law faculty here is still "great" (because I feel that law is not for everyone but that is another topic altogether). If you love it, but you're short of the grades or ability to get into a law faculty, you're stuck with the few options here that aren't the strongest faculties in their respective schools. The charming voice told me, "You're going to the best school here but to its worst faculty." and that scares me. Other mentions of "soul-sucking" and "becoming one of 'them'" (I have no idea what that means) intimidate me even more. Is studying the humanities here really that pointless and painful? What is with the general impression of the local humanities faculties?

I know I won't get any answers until after I experience the faculty for myself. By then, if I regret it, or if I do become too disillusioned, the so-called "solutions" would be to take a gap year or to transfer. What then?

The future of my education feels so tentative and uncertain. Or maybe I should just shut up and "be happy with what I have", but it's never that simple, is it?

gratuitous \(^O^)/

I like my job but I am also tired yay photos of myself

Romantic love seems like a really strange concept the more I think about it. Unlike familial love, wherein bonds are much easier to explain away (because of genetic relations), romantic love requires emotions and obligations to come out of two unrelated people. Two people deciding to set aside a piece of their minds for each other, two people setting unspoken obligations for each other. It scares me, because familial love feels like something I possess out of pure obligation, but my reactions to romantic love are more intense, as if it possesses me rather than the other way around.

We will never have what we think is "enough time" with each other because of this nation's need for your "service" and because you are a good child and I missed you the very moment we parted. Though I was with a crowd, the thought of you going home alone made the longing to be with you stronger as we were pulled further and further apart.

I really don't like it when people say oh I was so crazy and bad now I'm changed up and good inside, ugh you're a good friend BUT SOMETIMES I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU.

we're up all night to get lucky

best cover

The boy is back from camp for a few short days and then gone again I feel like my only free time will revolve around him for a while, oh well bad news for him because that means he has to hang out with my own friends ha ha ha

At work now, feeling generally irrelevant to the Larger Scheme of Things just because, irrelevant to the people around me because our conversations usually revolve around them, irrelevant to my religion because where is He anyway. Feeling hungry for food, hungry for answers, hungry for company, hungry for something More than This. Hating my 9 to 5, hating my need to matter, hating myself inside and out. When did I become this?

double standards

It saddens and baffles me that my mom would be okay with me dating a dude who smokes but may never accept my Muslim boyfriend (who is most likely even 'cleaner' than I am).

I have your cardigan with me to remind me of you but I don't dare to hug it or smell it too much or your scent will be replaced with my own so what do I do now until you come back?

flurry

I look at the empty space you left behind in such a hurry, rushing home to appease a mother who doesn't know I exist and who may never acknowledge that I do. I breathed in the last of your presence, stroke the last imprint of your body on my sheets before it is replaced with my own.

My body still isn't fully aware of the fact that you're not in close proximity. Imagine the time it will take to comprehend that you're leaving in two days.

I have forgiven you even before knowing, because I cannot blame, I would not understand the pain, though certain truths are harder to swallow and comprehend than others. Know this: time is unforgiving, it gives mourning and sorrow greater resonance, it brings greater significance to things that, in other instances, might have been insignificant. You can only grow stronger with every cut that smarts, and the scars do not shame you, they should remind you of your strength in spirit.

There is some difference in the way I see you now, but that has not made you any less wonderful in my eyes.

It's kind of weird that since I've got a boyfriend I keep noticing hot girls and never notice any hot guys anymore it's like I'm man repellent now or he's a real huge girl magnet or maybe it's both.

We have limited time left, but somehow, coincidentally, schedules clash and the time we have left is less than what we expected.

Sometimes I decide that I can be totally independent but other days I feel as if I will lose a part of myself when he goes off to serve the bloody nation. Today is the day when I feel like the latter.

Most of the time when we meet I just want to lie down and fall asleep with you.

On another note, the girls I met at the Awfully Chocolate training are a rare breed of pretty and nice girls. This must be some kind of small miracle! (The only problem is I have shifts on the weekend he comes back and I am a retard I am such a fucking retard.)

my beloved monster and me,

I know this whole thing is tough for the both of us, and we're both still figuring a way out, I'm still figuring my affections out, but we're going to do this, and you're so lovely, I don't want you to go. I feel like I've only just had you and you're going so soon, but last night you told me that you're already thankful we had some time together. I'm not easy, this isn't easy, but maybe something good will come out of and unto us.
It's been two months and this is cliched, but it feels much longer than that (and it's good, it's good because it's some kind of solace, that the time we've spent together feels much longer, before you have to leave).

better happy

Today has been a pretty good day. Crashed a friend's house, watched Adventure Time and Archer, and was told that I seemed "happier". Met and old friend and made new ones. Passed the Awfully Chocolate interview despite feeling like I botched up. Generally feeling happy and great, despite what's to come. Going to finally write the NUS Law personal statement and go for the interview tomorrow. Despite feelings of fear and slight anxiety, I feel like it's going to be okay. I don't expect any to get a place in law school, I just hope to be calm and enjoy myself tomorrow.

Tomorrow seems like it's going to another great day too. After all,

It's (going to be) Friday, I'm in love.

Grace thinks that the saddest men make the best lovers and I guess I kind of agree.

come with me, my love

Do you know, this fills my head whenever I'm with you?

Between last Friday and the end of this week I would have had 3 interviews - SMU Law, Awfully Chocolate, NUS Law. SMU's all over now (so did not nail it). Freaking out a little about NUS. Heard it's a group interview for AC. Probably going to flunk all three. I'm too inadequate.

lazy sunday

hi goodbye