Panicky

Called friend in Shanghai today and the subject of homework was inevitable. Am thinking about all the things I should have done and should be doing right now and I am sort of panicking. As a matter of fact I failed to sleep on the bus because I was thinking about my essays that are due by September and that I have not yet even started. This is bad.

Frankly I am very tempted to continue ignoring their existence for the rest of my stay in America. This however is obviously one of the worst solutions I could ever decide to implement. 

I am going to make my third redraft of my Personal Statement now and hopefully think up one or two topics to use for my World Literature essays (2x), and maybe even write the structure.

Bleak. Bleak. I have still a 4000 word draft of a research essay on top of that.

I should not have ignored it so far. I have been enjoying myself too much these weeks. America is everything and more than I had ever thought it would be. I am having one of my best holidays in my life.

Good things don’t last forever. Bit by bit, I shall have to make my way back into the world of reality, competition, college applications and IB.

Afternoon

As none of you know, I am currently in Boston, MA! For now I’m with a summer program so I’m living at a nearby university, but later I’ll get some free time and then fly across the country to California, hell yes.

Anyway. Productive afternoon (I guess). I had a few hours free, so I decided to hang in the Campus Center! Found my way there after a lot of map-consulting, getting lost and finally asking this cute dude for directions. Got Starbucks. Sat and wasted time on the Internet. And then I played pool for an hour, on my own. I only just learned, so it’s good practice (????) . An hour away from class-time, I left for the campus store. Browsed through everything and bought hair ties + 2 books. A flash storm took place while I was there but fortunately it soon ended, leaving me less than half an hour to walk to class. Which I did, successfully. Got there 15 minutes earlier and wrote the essay that was due in class, successfully. 

And then there was class, and it was interesting because half of it consisted of my having a conversation with the teacher / friend. This summer program is filled with local Chinese people and has only 3 first-language English students, and Chinese students are incredibly laid back (or at least these are). Nobody had any questions or even constructive comments.

I hate to sound racist, but being around these kids can sometimes be REALLY embarrassing. Once when we were touring another university campus, this painfully Chinese-looking boy pressed the Emergency button making the police come. 

I sound awfully biased, but I have never before been so ashamed to be Asian. 

These small things remind me why I hated China so much when I first went there. There is pretty much no sense of social responsibility and almost everyone just does whatever annoys other people the most.

Yeah, this is like, a pet peeve or something except it probably isn’t what you would typically call a pet peeve. 

Yeah whatever I’ll shut up now

Art.

I was planning to write a post, but became hooked onto a couple of blogs by graphic designers. 

They reminded me of how I wanted to, initially, study graphic design. But then I changed my mind and decided to go for Marketing. And now I’m wondering if I should still go for graphic design. 

Perhaps Studio Art, as a minor. I still have time to figure this out (albeit not much). 

Am going to recommend those sites to my friends who want to pursue art as a career. 

I am feeling generous today.

( And in completely unrelated news it got into my head that I should try using that waxing cream, and since it was my first time using it I decided to just apply it to one section of my leg. Now that one section of calf is ridiculously and obviously more bald than the rest of my leg. 

Gah. )

Summertime.

The title totally reminds myself of the song “In the Summertime”, of which artist’s name I forgot.

What can I say? This is the summer between two years of IB and seriously, there’s not much in terms of major rest and relaxation. Lots of essays, preparation for college–that sounds more like it! Which is sort of a shame, because I’ve only grown fond of holidays during recent years. The exciting thing about this summer, though, is the fact that I’ll be going to America for the first time in many years! 

Nevermind the fact that it’s partially for touring colleges and attending classes. It’s going to be fun anyway. Or at least I hope! Because I’m going to be with a group, like as in a summer program, it would totally suck if I couldn’t get along with the people there. Which I hope won’t happen. If it does, I guess I’ll just call people all the time and write/blog a lot.

(That sounds inviting.) But you get my gist!

So I guess this is turning into a “My Summer Plans” type of post. Oh well, I never seem to know what I want to write beforehand anyway. 

Summer program and touring aside, hopefully I’ll also get to meet an old friend! Who is sort of a sister-from-another-mother. So that should be a major highlight.  

( And all that aside I have a 4000 word draft, two English essays, an Art project and lots of late Bus.Man assignments that I have to hand in by the end of August. Am not happy about this: I leave in less than 10 days and have another 10 days after I get back from America to do this. More or less! )

IB aside, I really need to get my plans straight. I don’t really know which colleges I want to go to or what I want to study, and this is among the many things that I would like to find out this summer. I can’t prepare myself for what I don’t know will happen, so here’s hoping to getting that sorted out. Oh, and my personal statement. I need to get over my aversion to writing personal, emotional things in order to get that done. I find myself trying to hold back as much information as possible and seriously, I think I would feel a lot more comfortable writing someone else’s personal statement. I don’t like the feeling of having my thoughts and emotions on paper for anyone to see and laugh at.

Or having my emotions anywhere, really. 

But that’s growing up for you? Suck it up, that’s what I’ll have to do, just like all the people before me did and like all the people after me will have to do. 

Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Hope y’all have a great summer too. 

A Sparkly Award

Nominated by Kendel, from Just Another Teen Blogger. 

Just in case you’re reading this, I love your name. Does this sound creepy? I hope it doesn’t. 

So here I go, answering seven questions in order to be an official holder of this award.

Describe yourself in seven words: Doubtful. Loyal. Restrained. Humorous. Curious. Determined. Cynical. 

What keeps you up at night? Homework. The Internet. Chatting to people. Reading a book. Being out with friends.

Whom would you like to be? Me. Sort of. With modifications. Oh scrap that, I wouldn’t be me then. Or would I? 

What am I wearing right now? Pajamas. Which is a cotton dress.

What scares you? Uncertainties, unfortunate incidents, some insects, the future. Horror movies too. What else? I don’t like listing out my weaknesses so I’m stopping here. I’ve listed enough already as it is.

What’s the best and worst thing about blogging? The best thing? Being able to express myself and finding like-minded people out there. Broadcasting my thoughts and knowing that the people that I know in real life probably won’t read it. Feeling safe (perhaps stupidly) in that assumption. Maybe even practicing writing, to some extent. Uh, and the worst thing…the possibility that people in my life will read this and use it against me. Or finding out that I’m boring and useless even in blogging? BUT all these points have huge flaws and whatever and I’m not going to do a self-psychoanalysis here. 

If I could change something about myself, what would it be? Being able to let go of things. Not taking everything so seriously. Not thinking so much. Having more self-control. Whatever, whatever. Lots and lots. Being able to draw better, write better, do everything better. See? Everything. There is no end to self-improvement.

Slankets, yes or no? What? I’ve never run into any. But they look nice and comfy and if I could, I would totes get one.

Tell us something about the person that nominated you: Kendel is a teenager living in New Zealand, and she blogs about her personal/daily life amongst other things. She’s always bright, lively and positive in her writing style…which makes her blog a really sunny place (like New Zealand, probably)! From what I’ve read, she’s a social and active person and not afraid to voice her thoughts. I don’t know what else to say! I feel like a teacher writing a student’s end-of-term report and it feels strange. All in all I love reading it, I wish I were as positive on life! 

And now I have to nominate 15 other bloggers, but I’m not going to go with the rules. Instead I’ll nominate as many as I want. 

Or as few?

ArtTropes

Grrl Style

Pretty, Sick, Young, Bored

The Whippersnapper’s Gazette

A Nice Ring To It

Team of Awesome

A Nerd’s Life

Geekdom

tenbrknbullets

throughjuliaslens

VERRY | V1

There you go, 11 nominations. How many will respond? I don’t know. Some of these have been MIA for a while and others, I just recently followed. But I like all of them, and that’s why I made the nominations. Not to be annoying.

There you go.

B is for Biology.

Biology Revision

In this pdf document is most of the material I learned this academic year in IB HL Biology, arranged into a revision sheet. Why did I do this? I had my Biology final exam today (IB first year) so I had to do some revising. 

The only topics I didn’t cover were ecology, some of genetics and evolution. 

And all in all the revision was pretty effective.

…I think. 😛

Rate this:

Well.

This is the summary that I wish I had written. For those of you who still haven’t read Homestuck, this should do the trick. Or maybe not. Hmm.

GeekGirl Magazine

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

What will the name of this young man be?

With these words, three years ago today, Andrew Hussie launched Homestuck. Fans of his previous comic, Problem Sleuth, expected its wacky humour and adventure-game parody style to continue. But the story of four kids and a game that changes the world quickly ballooned into something much more; it widened its scope to incorporate epic fantasy, romance, horror and other genres. Today, Homestuck is one of the biggest webcomics of all time, with nearly 5000 pages uploaded in just three years. It has a readership of over 1 million, and a vocal fandom that’s almost cult-like in its devotion.

View original post 1,119 more words

C is for Children’s Day.

Yes. Legally, I am still a minor. I am fully entitled to celebrating Children’s Day! You know the usual–I feel old, blah blah, hate life, blah blah, don’t care about occasions, blah blah blah. 

But fuck that. Yesterday I found my GameBoy Advance–a sudden fancy that got me searching through drawers and cabinets all five minutes long. With it I also found the charger and my old games. My afternoon was spend counting barley rice for IB HL Biology (there 1810 in the end), eating Oreos, drinking Yeo’s Soya Milk (the kind I used to drink back in Singapore) and playing Pokemon Emerald. It was…nostalgic. I used to play that all the time four/five years ago, when I was younger and sillier and a whole lot happier.  

Maybe not by that much, because uh, you know, rose-tinted glasses and all, but probably happier nonetheless. Ignorance does that. Ignorance and stupidity. They shield you from the harsher realities of life. That’s what I think, at least.

Lamenting my current position and whining about whatever was not the purpose of this post.

Back to the topic. Anyway, I had a good old time and gamed until I fell asleep on my bed, to be woken up half an hour later for dinner. Which, really, wasn’t bad at all–salad with mango and avocado. 

I have two more Children’s Days to go. I just thought that it might be a good idea to record this, because, well, it’s my first time in years that I’ve done anything remotely special for the occasion. And I’ve always wanted to recover my GameBoy, so…extra-special?

I’m trying to write this and play Pokemon and chat to my friend and do Biology at the same time. It’s one o’ clock in the morning and I think I’m failing all four endeavors. I should just call it a day.

(…and as an afterthought: I brought my GameBoy out with me today in the hope that I would get a chance to play [with???] it. But decided against; it was simply too embarrassing and the metro was just too jam-packed. Ugh, social pressure. )

And lastly, for your entertainment: 

SAT.

…is tomorrow. Am going to Hong Kong. Haven’t prepared well enough. At least I’ll have another chance in October.

Write the test, loiter around, eat good food, meet up with friends.

Hopefully this all goes according to plan.

And hopefully I don’t do too badly.

Time flies. Sometimes I feel as if I’m being left behind.

Under the Guise

I’m going to take the SAT in three days, I haven’t revised properly, and nor have I started on any IB homework. This is procrastination under the guise of shitdoodle.

Frankly I’m quite happy these happened because I’ve been trying to draw something, ANYTHING, for days now and none of those turned out right because they were forced.

This one–I have no idea how it came into my head, but it did, and I sat down and Made It Happen. I had to look at it for quite a long time before I came up with an interpretation myself. Maybe the most interesting of works a person can produce are those that puzzle even themselves? To me they are. I feel as if my subconscious is trying to tell myself something. Something that I have to search for.

Because really, implicitness  is so much more beautiful than explicitness. 

 

Which might be why I don’t like this second one as much. I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t something that was born of sudden inspiration. I already knew what it would mean before I drew it.

And that sort of ruined it for me.

 

Any interpretations of these? Especially for the first, because I really don’t know what it means myself. 

Interpretations are welcome! 🙂