"I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.
College transported me to a new town, where I tried, one more time, to reinvent myself. Becoming someone new, I could correct the errors of my past. At first I was optimistic: I could pull it off. But in the end, no matter where I went, I could never change. Over and over I made the same mistake, hurt other people, and hurt myself in the bargain.
Just after I turned twenty, this thought hit me: Maybe I’ve lost the chance to ever be a decent human being. The mistakes I’d committed – maybe they were part of my very makeup, an inescapable part of my being. I’d hit rock bottom, and I knew it."

-Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun

Was just reading some of my past entries. God am I depressing and repetitive in almost all of them. Sometimes I still can't believe people aren't bored of me yet.

I shall talk of something light today, school work. It's piling up on me after 1 month and the modules I picked turned out to have quite a load of information to memorize. I'm seriously wondering if I would struggle and fail at the end of the race only to fall back to below 2.0. I'm thinking of trying voice-recording for all my notes, that way I could listen to them whenever I like. I learned in cognitive psychology that auditory memory is stronger than visual, but even if I do have my mp3 on me everyday why would I choose listening to my own voice ranting about school work instead of music? I have to figure something out quick.

Time flies, I just realized that my brother and I have been at our ignoring-each-others-existence war for over a year. Way longer than the one he had with Mom. I wonder how long am I actually planning to keep this up. I say "I" not because I was the one who started it, but I know that any chances of compromise would definitely be on my part. He's too self-absorbed to want to take the first step.

But turns out, neither do I. I seriously don't see the point it salvaging anything. Yes I get that he's all dark and twisty like me with Dad punching the crap out of him so many times he even called the police, but that doesn't give him the right to just waste his life away playing computer games for the past 2 years and ignoring me for no good reason.

Oops, my bad. I was suppose to be all light and breezy today. Apparently that kind of weather never happens to me.

"Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. In most cases, not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult thing in the world to eradicate." -Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have finally crawled my way out of the hole I dug myself into. Exam results are out and I finally scrape past the line. It's odd how for the past two weeks I had miniature panic attacks at the thought of failing again, and yet I feel no sense of relief or happiness knowing that I was out of the danger zone.

Well, at least I managed to tick off one of the items on my things-to-do-to-please-my-mother list. She seems to keep demanding more and more all the time, I don't know how much more I can give her.

She uses the word 'ask' without any intention of giving me the actual choice. I told her to use the word 'tell' next time because I can bear with the abuse of her god-given authoritative power, but I can't stand her trying to cover up that abuse. So I went to her church service with her only to end up looking like I don't want to be there [I was partially distracted by the tiny revelation I got from Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die I was reading on the way there].

The next day she texts me saying how she was dampened by my reluctance in praise and worship and how I caused her to feel like she should stop going church. All I wanted was to scream at her and tell her it's her fault for forcing me to go in the first place. You can't pressure someone to do something against their own will and expect them to do so happily.

But I'm a sucker for guilt trips, so I'm adding another two more things on the list: do whatever Mom tells you and be hypocritical about how you feel, even if it means faking praise and worship in front of God.

Sigh, two sessions of counseling and both times my tears just keep falling as if I have absolutely no control over them. Its like a reflex action whenever any topic related to family comes up.

I'm still not that used to the whole "save lives" ambition counselors have. I don't mind having doctors tell me that since they are literally saving lives. But of all the people I've met, they do change and impact lives, in the negative way.

Another reason why I've came to a conclusion that community service does not really help anyone, most probably except the volunteers. In some survey, the people receiving "help" do appreciate the kind gestures, but generally don't like the volunteers as they feel that they have a superiority complex and most of the volunteers look down/pity them. The volunteers are the ones benefiting emotionally since they have a chance to feel better about themselves and only in comparing the sufferings of others can they realize and appreciate what they have.

I hate that. Comparing and weighing problems to see who's more unfortunate. Yes, the poor with no food to eat are really unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that the rich with other troubles of their own are any less so. I remember my counselor telling me how she has heard so many stories that have the same problems, she wonders why God is so uncreative. But even with similar situations, no two people can actually have the exact same combination of problems at the same point of their lives.

According to the last session with her, feeling lucky for myself in comparison with another person's problems is a way of viewing situations I should adopt more often. Maybe I should stop seeing her.

I'm stuck in a vicious cycle that I can't seem to get out of.

People say I should just let God do the miracles, go to Him in my current state of messiness instead of trying on my own to get my act together. But as much as I'm familiar with hypocrisy and good at it, I don't want to make use of God.

I know what everyone's gonna think, even I am thinking this way: Isn't it seriously about time I grow out of this self-absorption.

I know what I have to leave behind before it consumes me alive, but I can't. Not without knowing what are the pieces I chose to forget.

I know I'm the one who's shutting myself out from the rest of the world, but I can't help but feel all this constant mugging is making me socially inapt. (not that I ever was a sociable person to begin with) And all this time alone by myself is allowing me to wallow in self-pity and loneliness yet again. This whole depression thing is getting overly repetitive and I'm getting sick of it.

I was feeling a little irritated after dinner with yingmin, grace and charm for some reason I don't wish to share, so I got on my mother's nerves as usual with my rude remarks. For that I would apologize. But I hate it when she gets carried away in her lectures and make assumptions and comments that are not relevant and untrue. She thinks I'm getting snobbish because I think I'm better than everyone else now that I'm studying in university.

Like that is actually something to be proud of.
Like I selfishly desired to get into university for my own sake. Please anyone who knows me would know I don't even have any ambitions or plans for a career in future, I would have been okay with going out to work earlier like my sister.
And after all that crappy talks about how SHE wants me to get into NUS because SHE wants at least one of her kids to go into university when I was having my A levels, how SHE wants me to study science instead of psychology because they have no 'prospects' when I was choosing my course, and how SHE wants me to get honours despite knowing I'm not faring well enough even to pass she thinks I'm studying for my own sake.

Does she not realize that I've been letting her control my entire life with the invisible pressures she constantly puts on me, wanting me to be perfect and different from my siblings? I'm even growing my hair back long because she thinks it looks better. Am I not even entitled to an occasional selfishness to throw tantrums when I'm stressed out.

I want to fail my exams to spite her. Tell her I'll let myself get expelled if that's what it takes to change her opinion of me. But I'm gonna hold out on wanting revenge, because I don't think I can survive another self-sabotage. The last thing I need right now is me pushing myself off the edge of the cliff.

I keep telling people how I hate hypocrites who lie blatantly and gossip about you behind your backs.

I went back to some fair in YJC earlier with Yixian and Kenny and some other classmates. People who actually paid the slightest attention to my rants about people who have hurt me one way or another in the past would realize by now that these 2 names are found on the knife scars I have on my back.

I have no idea why I'm still patronizing them. Yixian was the one who ignored me and pushed me into an empty room while Kenny was the one who switched off the lights. Why the hell am I still keeping in contact with them?

Going there was a bore, I could hardly keep a conversation going with Yixian and plus she's a lot more different from before. She's smoking, drinking, staying out late into the night roaming the streets. She's living the delinquent life Jasmine and I tried to experience once when we were out for supper and sat at a playground until 3 or 4 in the morning, minus the drinks and smokes.

Kenny as usual was gossiping about whoever he knows and their relationships and whatever that I assume should be happening behind closed doors between the guy and his girlfriend. I have no idea how he knows so much. Most probably the friends he has pretty much like to chat too. And as usual he insensitively brought up the Yixian-ignoring-me issue in front of us and I have to laugh it off like I've totally forgot it ever happened.

The thing is, I know I have nothing in common with these people anymore, I know they are not the kind of friends you keep in any contact with. Even my sister who has pretty much met all kinds of people when she goes clubbing tells me I shouldn't be around these people after she fetched me home from Yixian's birthday party where they offered me shots of tequila and I ended up dead drunk [I had no idea tequila was that strong]. So why in the world do I keep meeting them whenever they ask?

In the end, I'm the hypocritical one who lies about going to church to my mom and gossips about people I know and the lives I think they lead.

I feel like I'm constantly sabotaging myself. Over-thinking, over-analyzing a lot of things I can safely say that most of them are untrue. The stupid self-protection alarms I've put up in my mind are constantly ringing at the slightest blow of the wind. I'm sick and tired of myself as I think many people should be too by now, but I can't seem to remove those alarm systems! They are too embedded into my mind. I have to seriously find a way to control my thoughts and emotions from running out of control.

That aside, I've been really clumsy lately. Tripped twice in one week, once while climbing up the overhead bridge I ended up with a simple bruise since I fell forward and another time at the pathway downstairs of my house which I've been walking over hundreds of times now. Ended up with scratches on my knees, one side a little more severe. I think since I went to school first before cleaning up a lot of dirt and germs have gotten in, its been 2 days and gross pus keeps flowing out like a river. Its totally gonna leave me a terribly looking scar!

Alright here's my list of Singapore films I want to watch and perhaps own:
1)15
2)4:30
3)Be with me
4)Medium Rare
5)My Magic
6)Pleasure Factory
7)Solos
8)The Teenage Textbook Movie

It's so hard to find Singapore films online! I've decided to stop watching drama serials as I'll be wasting more time trying to follow the series.

School just started and I still have yet to get back to the mugging lifestyle of the past. Hopefully letting this one week slide by isn't gonna have any future ramifications. I think I'll most probably end up getting gastric problems by the end of this semester. I succeeded in squeezing all my classes into 3 days but I'll have back-to-back lessons from 10am-6pm. Why am I torturing myself? But its too late for regrets, as always.

Just watched a Japanese movie, Boys Love. The movie's good, all except for the silly ending. It's like the writer forced it to be a sad ending due to the notion that misery and pain is always harder to forget than happiness. Well, at least make an effort to let them die realistically and for a better reason.