That night while walking back to the Science Library with Joshua after our dinner break I felt a sense of resignation quite different from before, knowing that for the next few years life was going to be like that – judging from our seniors working so late only tables away – but finding a certain comfort in the routine familiarity. I am quite certain now that my drive is no longer what it was at the beginning of the course, but rather than burning out I believe it is simply… acceptance of the way things are?

Just don’t take dance away from me.

There’s the same dilation of time as with each final week of school, and as things slow into the last few days/tests (!) I cannot help but fantasize about the joys that December will bring. I just fear it will be over all too soon.

My mind is a total blank these days; the constant hum of activity that once filled my head now hushed, and I find it disconcerting. Has my mind burnt out — not even halfway into first year, and will I no longer be able to perform up to my standards? There is no more diffusion gradient helping information to cascade into my memory, and I can’t retain any new knowledge. My drive is also gone, and I find myself taking it far too easy. I miss being diligent, and yet can no longer bring myself back to hard work.

I feel messed up.

so strange to find wisdom in peeling gold foil upon a faded printed tee.

i muttered it under my breath several times, first as the question it was meant to be, then examining the rhetoric, and then finally certain that this line deserved its place among the axioms.

is it worth it?

~

deciding to make dance a greater priority than school took more consideration than i’ve ever had to give. the last time i thought about something so hard was probably when i was deciding between raffles or victoria. dear me i don’t think very hard very much, do i. the fine line for me is between letting go enough to tell myself it is alright for me not to excel and giving up too much, but even without this dilemma sometimes i crash and ask myself why i bother to spend this much effort at something i think i’ll never get very good at.

i remember there was a part of me which used to think “if someone else can do it, why can’t i?”, but i don’t know what happened to that. i suppose life gets too tiring, sometimes.

just in case anyone forgot how funny shawn was:

one piece of truffle fries: *is left*
shawn: go on holly it’s calling out to you
shawn: weewooweewooweewoo
holly: oh no someone else please take it really –
shawn: weewooweewoo
holly: *eats fry*
shawn: *lifts paper in tray*
another piece of truffle fries: *is there*
shawn: WEEWOOWEEWOOWEEWOO!

shawn: oh holly if only you had more self control
shawn: you women
shawn: and that apple
shawn: “where would men be without women?”
shawn: STILL IN EDEN I WOULD SAY

some people just weren’t born for dance but sometimes i think i was born NOT to dance.

i’m such a fucking horrible dancer i don’t know why i bother.

GAHHH  USELESS ASLKFJAS;F

hello sng you have not been replying sms-es! okay fine it was one but you are not forgiven.

i’m not entirely sure which it is i am more disappointed with: me, you, or humanity in general – there is increasing suspicion on my part that i don’t get along with some people because of an inherent flaw in my character, because as i go along i find out how messed up i really am, and how much of myself i don’t want to be. i think it is a terrible thing, finding yourself the antagonist in the story of your life, and hence i grow increasing disillusioned about people, as well as reticent: of course this shall only serve to propagate a vicious circle in which my tendency to dissociate decreases the likelihood of people ever knowing me for who i am, while simultaneously feeding my paranoia each time i hear whispers that everyone really secretly dislikes me for one thing or another.

oh my god i hope this isn’t going to be my last entry tethered to sanity.

while on a seemingly endless bus ride i slept/woke/slept/woke repeatedly each time waking to a new stranger next to me, and when the rain came streaking down my windows i wasn’t sure if i was dreaming until the bus pulled into marine parade and the uncanny familiarity sobered me: here i was, where once i felt differently towards you, and now three years later here’s how we stand: closer, and also farther.

i am content with this — happy, even, to have it all work out like this. i love my life, or at least most aspects of it, and this is not something i’d have imagined a younger me saying. who is to say that i won’t look back years from now and feel the same? of course i could also look back and hate everything about it, but i just want to get there already; to be an observer in retrospect. life is so easy to look back on but difficult to live.

Between the endless hours of school and dance sessions and seeing the people I love fly off to halfway across the world I find myself drowning in bouts of intense solitude.

On the homeward train I caught myself gripped by a sudden fear that this may turn out to be the greatest regret of my life, and I don’t want it to be. People should be allowed to live their own lives.

Might have used this title before somewhere, but I can’t think of anything more apt.
After listening exclusively to dance-related songs for so long, my iPod when set on shuffle gave me Snow Patrol’s “Run”. Leona Lewis has a beautiful cover, but nothing drowns me in memories of those days long past like the lonesome chords of the original. It seems I get nostalgic too much.

Orientation camp was a blast, and I’m glad I got to be in the best OG with the best OGLs – yes, everyone probably thinks that way about their own as well. A lot of fun, messy, smelly, vinegar-and-eggs fun, and even last night sand fell out of the pocket of my shorts. Certain aspects weren’t so enjoyable, what with the hint of mandatory unpleasantries from our predecessors. I’m sure I speak for many of us when I say I find the idea of continuing a tradition simply because it has its roots deeply entrenched in the institution of our faculty unbecoming. That aside, there wasn’t enough time to get to know everyone; I still can’t put a name to some faces, which is clearly something I must work on now that I’ve been made vice class rep.

One would think that after countless years of education I would have adapted, but I fall prey to the same fear before each new phase without fail. In Primary Three I worried about streaming, at twelve years old I had nightmares about failing PSLE. In Secondary One I thought I might not promote, the next year I feared I might not qualify to take triple science combination. At the end of secondary education I thought I wouldn’t make it into the junior college I wanted; when I did I was convinced I would wither and die before taking my A Level. Now I’m not sure what exactly it is I feel about university, but there is definitely a fear of being unable to complete the course. Not being able to find suitable sureties at the moment ain’t helping.

My recent spate of restlessness is probably due to the dread wallowing deep in my gut, a reluctance to accept that August will soon be upon us. For us – us who have wasted two years of our lives doing time for the crime of being male, us who have looked forward to its end and to living life, we suddenly find ourselves at the brink of a life about to change, hurtling toward a new environment of mostly unfamiliar faces and new challenges, frantically having final get-togethers before life sweeps us forward and away – sometimes irreversibly – as it is wont to do. For some, it also means to set off for a foreign land, leaving behind friends who don’t want them to go and who don’t know how to say goodbye, when goodbye means to be half a world(and day) away for years. Sure, this is the digital age of MSN and webcams and Facebook, but I am terrified of having to subject a friendship to the duress of space and time – Oh, what do the ravages of time not injure?

I can only carry the feeble hope that things will last like I want them to, and believe that as long as I try to hold on, they will.

I was never good with faith.