Two weeks of summarised thoughts

With my module exams finished, I have some thoughts to vent out... Everything here is pretty much a condensation of these past two weeks.

The exam is supposedly easy, since after the mock paper given before is roughly 70% similar, and throughout the whole module, the lecturer has been hinting us deliberately about which sections are important. When I told my guys about it, I was bashed for that fact. Well, I wouldn't want to blame them, since for them they do not have this type of treatment. But i hate it when Phil stated that that's the way UWA teaches their students. I mean, this depends on the lecturer, isn't it? Different modules are taught by different lecturers, some are Singaporeans while some are Australians. So can you assume the whole uni is such based on a single lecturer? Maybe he mean something deeper, which I guess he might be implying the fact that I have not been doing my research properly when choosing the uni, but I will never know.

Even when the exam is probably so easy, and the possibility of getting a HD is high, I'm afraid that I will only score a D at most. Why is it so? Because sadly, I have been slacking off before the exam... Yes I have been reading, but it just did not get into my head, and somehow I do not feel the rush to study. This is the reason why I did not manage to memorise everything which I should have. Comparing this to my foundation days, where I panicked way before the exam, my anxiety did not get in until the day of the exam. After the exam, I realised I have lost about 7% of the marks on 3 questions which I do not know how to answer, and I'm angry with myself over that. But then again, with my half hearted studying, I am able to do most of the questions, yet people are complaining that the paper was harder than what they have expected. This irks me. Most of the questions inside are so predictable that it's a no-brainer. All you need to do is just to look at the exam hints and the mock paper, and you will be able to figure out the whole paper pretty much (I lost the 7% as I did not expect those questions to come out). This means that the rest of the 93% are free-frag questions. That is also why when the lecturer says that only less than 20% got HD, I was astonished.

Recently through Zhiye, Joseph wanted to meet me. Im pretty surprised at this, since both of us are not considered as friends anymore a few years back. Thinking back, it was my fault that he decides to break the bond between us. After all, at that time I'm just an asshole who don't give a damn to EVERYTHING around me. School, family, friends, the environment around me, everything, even myself. Even though friends are important to me, I do not bother to main relationships and instead I kept a laid-back attitude, where I won't do anything until somebody push me to. Being an introvert, I will rather keep to myself and so I make friends not by my own initiative but others'. I am sure Joseph was pissed at my nonchalant attitude. Thinking back, it's actually heartening to see that someone actually bother to get angry with me, which means that they do care about me. But too bad I only realise this now.

After meeting with Joseph, the biggest shock i have is that he's still in contact with YPL, and they went out together from time to time. The reason is, YPL can be considered as one of my crush. Although by this time I shouldn't feel anything towards her anymore since it's been such a long time, but it ain't easy to forget a crush, especially when she's in the same CCA as me for 4 years. Not that the thought will impact my life, but thinking of her reminds me of the awkward relationship between YPL, Joseph and me, which kinda disturbs me. So I try not to think about it. Luckily for me, memories goes as fast as they are remembered, though little bits do seep through and force me to recap any lost memories. For instance, the moment I heard that YPL was asking Joseph how am I, a particular fateful scene came as a flashback to me. This Friday, which is also Joseph's b-day, I'm supposed to meet the both of them. I wonder how much she had changed, and wonders whether I can speak normally to her as I would now. Maybe I will stammer like in the past, but hopefully not. That's too unnatural.

With the maths test of the foundation course coming soon, I do hope I will be of some use to the guys there. I know that Adeline and Shuang will be having problems, and the last time when Adeline ask me to lend her my past tutorials, I realise that they are not coping well at all. This is why when Joy ask me to teach her Complex Numbers, I'm overjoyed. I may not be good at teaching, but I at least have some confidence in the subject. After all, it's a subject I hated in the past but came to like it. When I was in secondary school, I actually like maths, but because of the Sec 2 streaming, I failed by a small margin to get into the pure science classes, and ended up with learning E.Maths only. E.Maths was a breeze, but the damage at that time to my confidence undermine my abilities to learn A.Maths when I tried in private. And with my nature of giving up easily, I gave up A.Maths pretty soon. When I go on to JC, I study AO Maths, the equivalent of A.Maths, but even then, I dislike the subjects that I'm taking, and have no interest in studying anymore. After a down period when I quit school, proceed on to NS, and working for a while after I've ORDed, I decided my path and went on to the LSF course. Fatefully, my first module was Maths. However, this time it was different. Under the influence of my lecturer Eugene, and fellow classmates Auntie Stephanie and Michelle, plus my determination at that time in dong well, I came to study hard and found the same enthusiasm in it as I've felt in primary school. Eventually, I secured an A (which I have expected. Yah, I know I'm being cocky here, haha), and for the first time in decades I've felt proud of myself. Finally I did some justice to myself, and I'm not the lousy person that I am in the past. So Joy, this is the reason why I'm able to teach you with no complaints or regrets. Teaching is kinda fun to me too.

On Saturday, out of the blue, I decides to go to school early just to crash the LSF course. I know I'm very bo liao, and probably Phil and Fred will pour sarcasm on me for this, even though Fred do it all the time, lol. When I reach the place, only Joy was around, and YM came some time later. When YM refer to me as Joy's maths tutor when we talked, although my face is straight at the time, deep in my heart I held disbelief at his remark. First thing first, it is obvious that he's the one who has been teaching Joy all along, ever since Chemistry. If you give me the choice, of course I will choose to go to him instead of me. I'm not a person who can teach well, even if the subject is what I'm good at. The fact is, he is much better at teaching. He's able to change his teaching methods depending on the person he's teaching, and he goes way beyond what have been taught. Compared to him, I do feel inferior. After all, my knowledge is just half-ass, I'm not as observant, and I have little experience. I don't know why I'm so disturbed by such a simple remark. From his expression, I'm supposed to take it as a casual remark, but knowing that he's one person that I can't understand, and that I'm ignorant and a dimwit when it comes to sarcasm, I couldn't stop myself from getting so troubled over these two simple words.

If there's two people who I'm uneasy with, it will be Joseph and YM. Phil also somehow fits the profile. Joseph because I find that his character doesn't fits mine, and technically speaking I considered my compatibility with him to be the lowest out of all my friends. We may be friendly with each other, but in my heart I know that I sorta hold some resentment against him. Don't mistake me, he has not done anything that left me with ill-feelings, not even the event when he severed friendship ties with me, but that feeling kinda lingers in my heart. YM because he's somehow multi-personality. He's a person that I sort off look up to, because of his history and knowledge, but I feel resentment whenever he treats Joy the way he did. The problem is, I know he had good intentions, and I perfectly understands it (somehow...), so I will choose to let him be, even though i always have a drive to stop him before he goes too far. And that's where the problem is. Towards me, he's a very friendly person to talk with, and as far as it goes, he doesn't not hold any ill intentions behind his back, even though he does have the ability to do so. He just choose not to, and that's the part I respect him for. He even went the extra miles to help us, which led me to believe he's a good person. Phil no longer fits the profile as well as he is before, partly due to the change in him and partly due to the fact that he bothers to look for me even when I broke off all contacts. But believe me, Phil in the past is very similar to the YM of the past, maybe with some differences. The event where a loved one passed away inducing a huge change in philosophies and ideals happen to the both of them. Both are manipulative, intelligently work-smart and calculative. The major difference is probably the extreme obsession Phil has with his new-found religion at that time (he was an atheist before he went into Christianity), and it was scary to me.

I cannot express myself well, and it's difficult for me to put myself in others' shoes, to think of the feelings of others in a rational manner, and to be able to understand what others are thinking. If it was me in the past, I will close off my thoughts and just do whatever I deem fit (commonly I'm criticised by Fred to be in my own "la-la" land). Shutting down my mind is one of the easiest tasks for me, which is why all these years I've failed to mature emotionally. I did not bother to take note of my surroundings, I did not bother to think deep enough, I did not bother to dive into the true meaning of life. Not that I don't want to, but there's this stoppage that prevents me from doing so. Whenever my mind start to think complicated stuff, somehow there's a self-defense mechanism that is activated to shut down my thinking process, or so I think. I will call this the "blank state of mind". In this state, I fail to visualise my thoughts properly (normally I already have problems visualising...), but I'm able to do what I think, except that I have no idea how does the thought translate into action when I can't feel it in my mind, which reminds me, might I be feeling my subconsciousness instead? Anyway, this state occurs after another another state, which i dubbed the "active state of mind". In this state, i start to think rationally and critically in ways that I couldn't have in a normal state. Visualisations became possible, and they are so real that I'm able to feel it happening, even when the event in reality did not occur. Problem is, after a while, imaginations will start to run wild, random thoughts start to come in, and suddenly the strands linking my thoughts are severed. I tend to become kinda paranoid in this state when all the mumble jumble get messy. It's usually at the peak or the end of the randomness when I move on to my "blank state of mind". In this blank state, I will normally just wait for it to go away. But when I'm at the wrong place, I do all sorts of stupid things to myself to knock myself back to normal.

Which is why I love to keep to myself. Since expressing is so hard, keeping quiet will be the easy way out. You know, I'm kinda surprised that with my sort of personality, I actually have friends to count on. If I'm them, I will just give up on myself. There's absolutely no benefits from having a friendship with me. This is what I think I will have thought in the past.

But then again, I do feel grateful to Phil, Zhiye, Fred and the other guys for accepting me the way I am, even when I broke off ALL contacts during the half a year after I've quited school. This led me to cherish the friendship I have with them, and I promised myself that I will not take it for granted like what I did before. And now I'm glad that I choose the path that I walk now. It might not be the best choice, but I did feel the change in me and I came to know all my foundation guys. At the very least, I continue to walk forward instead of being stagnant like what I did in JC.

With my PC down, it was a surprise how I manage to blog this entry. I took two sessions, once at home as I managed to log on to Windows (but it soon died on me after I saved the entry), and the second time when the foundation guys are having their maths test. Now I realise that I spend too much time on writing a single blog. Calculating, this entry actually spend me 4 hours to finish, and if Fred was to know about it, his sarcasm will start to come in again.