Unshakeability

"During REM sleep an extraordinary thing happens. One of the stress-related chemicals in the brain, noradrenalin, is switched off. It's the only time, day or night, this happens. It allows us to remain calm while our brains reprocess all the experiences of the day, helping us come to terms with particularly emotional events."

this might be my psych side talking, but i really feel at peace, even though there are so many things that i have to do and all the things that are surrounding my life are happening. there's CCA application, there's readings, there's fretting over exams, there's a dingy weekend, there's the tuition students, there's the slight loneliness in school (did i say it? doesn't feel like it though...), there's pressure to get a boyfriend...but even so, things just stay clear and calm. like my Guardian in GW2. simple yet effective moves to ward off things, and there's a beauty in that efficiency and do-ing.

my sickness has worn off, and American Horror Story: Coven has come to an end in my life. these are changes, and for the better.

Happy Chinese New Year.

i hope i can remained focused and emotionally concentrated and dense like this, when needed.

Limbo

it's a weird feeling/mood that i have now.

it's supplemented by the fact that i have to wake up tmr, but that particular fact isn't so bad this week because i kinda know what to expect, and so it won't be so bad.

maybe it's skating tmr, but i know it's just pre-skating jitters. it's gonna be fun once i start doing it.

i kinda look forward to gym.

schoolwork is manageable - my stack of revision savings that i've done is starting to be used up, so i hafta do a new set of notes. i've read through both subjects, now i just need to put them into writing. that should be fine.

tuition is not weighing on my mind heavily right now - there's a problem, but it's minor, and i'm fixing it.

maybe it's the realisation that even though there is stress and that there are problems, i'm not FEARING them. i just accept them and know that when the time comes, i'll deal with them. and that i will.

there's an experiment tmr, and the day after. hope those go well. they should.

i feel a little hot inside. might be falling sick, or it's just the lack of adequate sleep that i'm getting.

i would like more time to relax, and to not have this weight of sleeping early hanging over my head, but i guess just for today, i'll have to deal with it.

i would like to conclude with something less mundane, something that i can draw out of my life at this particular instant. i will write a haiku.

Calm
mahogany desk
keystrokes flow from dark to light
a muse wind whispers

The Next Week

try as i might, it just slowly plods along to the next week, and then the next week, and the week after that...

hope this busy time gets productively busy and not aimlessly busy. (what am i going to do about it?) well, the project outlines aren't very solid yet, but as of what i can see, they don't really stimulate me so far. i'm hoping i can find some details that'll make my heart tick and live again for the work.

revision is going well, probably adapted to the faster pace of this semester. i'm thankful that i don't have to take statistics this term. it's crazy enough as it is without having to worry about an extra group project and more numbers wedging their way into my life.

adeeb's birthday is coming up. i'm going for enzon's gig this friday. wow everything seems to be going so fast, and yet things aren't meaningful. this business isn't going to stay in my mind and make me cherish it. it's just filler. i dislike filler.

i'm worrying without a foreseeable payoff. i mean, the motivation to swap one activity for another isn't strongly there, or i haven't convinced myself that it's there and worth it. as i have thought, maybe it's the emotional value that we create for ourselves throughout this lifetime that keeps us going. there's no true absolute. it's what we do for the people around us and how we set our expectations and then make or break them. there is no higher purpose. we just are, and the present is what we have. we should learn to cherish and relish it, these experiences.

here's to a good next week, that work gets more meaningful, and group meetings will be productive, and activities will be enjoyable and a way to de-stress. if not i'll just end up on the computer again, driving at Guild Wars quests. and though it's fun, this isn't how i'd like to de-stress during my school days.

Hope and the Present

Ying: How can we abandon hope? It's all we have.

Aang: I don't know. The monks used to say that hope is a distraction. So maybe we need to abandon it.

Katara: What are you talking about?

Aang: Hope isn't going to get us into Ba Sing Se. And it's not going to find Appa. We need to focus on what we're doing right now. And that's getting across this pass.

i used to think hope was something we just had to have, something we needed every day and something that is an integral part of our daily lives.

this quote really struck me. living as a 20-something year old, we have so many hopes. they can be called dreams, aspirations, wishes...hope wants a change. hope wants what we think is best for us and our lives. 

but maybe we give in too much to hope. maybe this hope involves planning, and planning takes away from the immediacy of life. not even when the current plan has ended do we start thinking about the 'next step'. hope causes us to do this because we feel that to have hope for the future, we need to be able to control it. maybe this isn't what we should do.

i'm not saying we totally give up hope, but we need to temper hope in our lives.

1. merely hoping won't change things, and makes it wishful thinking, devaluing our person and our potential.

2. hope takes us away from the present. the present is good because it is where you learn and grow through reflection.

3. too much time spent on hope might lead us to unproductive worrying instead of planning and taking concrete steps towards our goal.

how to balance hope and living then? when frivolous planning gets too much, we should take a step back and look at it from a wider angle, as a small part of the bigger journey of life. in this way, hope becomes a good tool, and helps us grow and mature into independence. from this same perspective, we should look at our current situation, our life, and appreciate it by seeing how it fits into our whole person and journey. appreciate that by being here, we are part of our own life. and thus, be able to enjoy the present. the here. the now.

Maturity

what does it mean to be mature? what does it mean to be an adult?

psychology has opened up these questions to me. there are definitions, but how do they help me in feeling better about myself? how do they explain the mental journey that i have had so far in my 20+ years of living? i've definitely traveled, haven't i?

egocentrism takes a while to shake off. so does superficiality. i mean, we are visual people, possibly more visual than ever in the 21st century, with so much of information coming in through our eyes. reading, looking at slides, watching videos, calculating...

the stress is there, but it helps that i'm doing something unpleasant to handle it. i'm making progress. i just hope progress isn't always as painful as this. in an ideal world, it shouldn't be. people would be able to be specialised and take care of the things that they want to (or maybe that they're good at). okay this is a strange idea.

back to studying i guess. not much to say about maturity. i want to keep living. i want to keep feeling this, and i never want the passion to run out. i want to find new things to be passionate and happy about, that fire me up strongly enough to keep me going for ever. it might sound a bit dependent, but it's probably the truth: everyone needs to fight and strive for something they believe in. they have to take every step thinking that it counts, if not, they wouldn't be able to sustain it in the long run.

alright.

The Beginning of Stress

the workload is getting to me.
on top of that, so many other duties and tasks to do. it really, really prevents you from thinking long-term, and that's what i dislike most.

the course outlines are like stepping over a minefield. so many ways to fail, to get marked down, to get marks taken off. urgh this reminds me yet again of JC - meaningless academic deathtraps.

Sociology.
Psychology.
Economics.
BGS.
AS.

these are my modules, and i have to study for each and every one of them. accumulate enough knowledge about each of them to pass the final exam. and worry about them along the way to get various tasks done, like a monkey jumping through hoops.

maybe one way to stop seeing this as a minefield is to acknowledge and see the value behind each task, adding up to the sum of its parts (greater than the whole).

TGIF, TGIF.

Nobody likes to but I really like to cry
Nobody likes me
Maybe if I cry

Tired

i'm tired from gymming.

meh.
meh.

notes?
meh.

(econs.)

First Day

well, today i don't really have much to talk about.

i attended a lesson in school, my first sociology lesson for the semester. it's a great class and the teacher is brilliant, but i ended up dreading sociology quite a bit. not due to the content directly, but more of the evaluations and tests and requirements of the course that sound really demanding. i want to start on it now, but...people aren't ready and we don't even really know what sociology entails or wants. that makes it impossible to write a satisfying piece of work, or, i mean, to begin directing and planning a piece of work that will culminate in 13 weeks. yep.

so. hung out with david today, enjoyed myself a bit at lunch, although could've enjoyed myself better if i was fully awake then lol. my energy peaked during class today, and then slowly went downhill from 9.30pm onwards. now it's zombie mode.

Edit:
so remember what you have told yourself.
just focus on reading and making notes about each week's readings.
it's easy and natural to you.
after this, everything else will fall into place, because you have a good foundation.
you can read and have friends and live a normal life.

Weakness and Religion

been speaking to a few of my friends about religion. the topic just came up randomly, but they all had different and interesting views about religion that i want to share here.

Keith, avoiding the topic, said that religion is a personal experience that is difficult to explain to others without them experiencing it firsthand. this was an argument examining why religion and religious experience is so difficult to disseminate and spread in the modern world.

Keith's girlfriend (i forget her name), said that religion was for the weak, and that it was a tool for those with less morals to abide by to get them to follow the law and civil society.

Kashish had a mish-mash of the two.

my view shares some sentiments with the "weak" argument, but in a less derogatory fashion. if we call others weak, are we not implying that we are strong? thus, i feel that religion is for the "weaker" of us, but that does not mean that we can judge them based on this, for all of us are still weak. what is important to know and remember, is that religion is simply a social group, a structure created and adhered to by the "weaker" who need to have hope, who need a reason to hope and strive on in life. these people who are "weaker" may be in their weak situation by circumstance, and they do not have the energy to carry on. thus, clinging on to an external symbol may be the only way for them to continue living. in this context, then calling them "weaker" may also be a misnomer (!). in a way, we who have all the comforts of life may have no need for religion, but those who do not may view it as an indispensable part of their life. why it has this effect on them can be explained psychologically, but i will not venture my hypothesis here as it is tangential, but i definitely have an opinion about this as well.

speaking more about my thoughts about religion, think of a group marginalised in wider society at the moment, such as the LGBT. they, too, form school clubs and band together to practice and bounce around their ideas about their own identity and their place in society. likewise, in my university there is a catholic club. assuming that most university students are not religious, the religious ones have to band together to find like-minded people to hang around with. this is fine. the main problem with religion and the religious nowadays (or maybe we've just begun noticing this recently, rather than before) is that they have an almost antagonistic belief and view towards some of those that do not subscribe to them, and they act to cause harm to those same people. the imposition of these beliefs and worldviews are the problem, that should be stopped. groups that advocate coexistence are fine. groups that impose on others are not fine.

two other issues raised:
1. fundamentally, is religion flawed as an outlook? if all religions tell their followers to "spread" the belief, is it in fact a parasitic, expansionist and imperialist philosophy that is immoral? (note that this in itself fuels the debate about the existence of an absolute morality)
2. if we accept that a part of religion and religious belief is this form of evangelism and conversion, then would it be wrong for its followers to not act on this? is it truly possible for religion to still hold this principle of evangelism while remaining civil and not imposing itself on any other groups or people?

Singing

i like singing. i really do.

i have been singing from as early on as i can remember. don't ask me what about it attracts me, it's...everything.
i haven't tried songwriting though. i will probably get around to doing it sometime.

the world might be different if i had become a singer. ah, who knows what the future might bring.

XO

actually, no. the post is darker than the superficial suggestiveness of the title.

it's 4am. this is usually the time when i can really think. and sometimes, during these times, my insecurities and worries for the future surface. it's a good thing - sometimes i'm too caught up in deliriousness to see the facts that're staring me right in the face.

so enough with that self-conscious reflection. time to get down to the meat.

should i post an SMU confession about meeting more gay guys, like what keith and edison have suggested? should i close my mind off to psychology as it's "too jargonistic"? does making lists of to-do things help in doing them? have i burnt out, or am i going to burn out soon, or am i going to be burnt out if i continue studying and making notes this way? or should i slack off with adel's notes? should i drop one of my tuition slots? should i reconsider going to the UK for exchange in year 3/4? should i have gone to the AGM today? ah, so many things that i still don't know. i know that i should enjoy this whole process of not knowing, but sometimes the uncertainties just pile up into one huge mess that snowballs around and around in my head.

okay then time to sleep, and hopefully something clicks about something tomorrow.
goodnight world. sleep tight. keep dreaming.

In the darkest night hour (In the darkest night hour)

I'll search through the crowd (I'll search through the crowd)

Your face is all that I see

I'll give you everything

Baby love me lights out

Writing and The New Year

okay so it's been a while.

my psychology textbook says that writing for a few minutes each day will help calmness and soothe the little traumas that happen every day, so here goes.
it will be topic-focused, hence there will be titles (mainly to keep myself from going off-topic, which is VERY likely).

the new year symbolises a fresh beginning. dates and years and time itself is immaterial and unimportant, because The New Year is a symbol, not so much a significant time in itself. the world still turns and leap years and everything make calculations inaccurate. so the symbol of the New Year is something that holds the most power.

for a fresh beginning, i guess one thing that i would like to change for the better is my direction in life. specifically, my future career and how i'm going to get my personal life together. where should i live? how do i get there? when should i start planning my journey for? all these questions just come together and nudge me in the head from time to time. the challenge is holding on to these dreams and hopes and thoughts and not letting the everyday distract me from them. more positively, i should see the everyday as stepping stones to enable me to reach those goals. i don't want to be stuck in a rut where i've reached a point in life where i don't know how i got there or what i'm going to do next, or when everything just hits me suddenly that i've gone down the wrong path or that i haven't done enough (the former being the bigger problem because for the latter, we still have time, and 2-3 years more to achieve the dream isn't that big a deal).

i have to start with a fresh approach to meeting guys as well. like what kashish said (and secretly, i've probably been saying that to myself too, just that he made it clear and gave me an impetus on what to do), i should start KNOWING who the gay guys in my university are. at least just knowing who they are would give me something to work with or to start on. that means coming out to more people, which isn't without its own risks. but honestly, it's worth it for what might come out of it. someone to love and who loves me back.

the situation with my parents? it's slowly, glacially deteriorating. well the ceasefire is not without its costs. i can feel the patience and the cover-ups slowly wearing thin. but...maybe this is the only option left, since ben said that the best thing that i can do right now is to let it hang. because they're stubborn. i guess that's where i get it from. heh. knowing that you're selfish isn't as bad as not knowing and still being it. so...this new year, the relationship with my parents i hope to get better, but i am still at a loss on how to bring it about. we shall see.

apart from those major things, studying is less pressing and i shall keep doing (or try to) what i have been doing all this time in university, for it is paying off and i see its results. although i'm not sure whether all that is worth it - it made me realise that i don't place much importance on grades. but if i don't put importance there, then where does it go? need to figure this out as well. friendships? resume-worthy activities? something else?

hmm. looks like writing really helps you sort out your thoughts and dig deeper into me as a person. i just hope i don't become like papa, who moralises everything towards the same point of view. it's nearsighted and not accepting of contraries.

timo~