Self discipline fail

Seems like there's no one blogging again so I shall take matters into my own hands to self-revive this blog. Yes, I am extremely determined to do so.

You know what question I did for GP? *groans* "Thou shall not kill. Is the taking of a human life ever justified?" Why, WHY did I choose to do that question. I should've stayed away from it, I shouldn't even have considered it, however enticing the challenge may have seemed. On hindsight, even though I thought I did fairly OK for the question, I think I injected quite a significant amoung of moral judgement, which teachers hate. But I couldn't help it, I felt that I couldn't betray my own conscience and dump truckloads of information down there that I do not believe in because I have always veered towards the view that killing someone is never justified, no matter what the case may be. I thought it was simply disgusting to have to argue about the pros and cons of killing a human in order to arrive at a 'justified' conclusion. It's sick. And yet, at the same time, I couldn't pull myself away from doing this question either.

Of course, I will not do well. But I'm still proud of my work. It doesn't matter if I fail(whcih I think I will). I'm strangely proud of myself for having taken a stand for my own true opinions even though its a pretty stupid situation to do it in. I will not take the risk for this in my real exams. See, if you don't take the risk of trying new and dangerous questions now, then when are you ever going to do it? You should take the opportunity to make mistakes while the world is still willing to allow it and forgive you for it. Yeah yeah, call me foolish. Whatever. I need a whole lot more self restraint.

Blast from the past

dear kerryn, i think u will be happy to know that your previous post is not something new... 7 years (!!) ago, yours truly blogged about what you mentioned. I will reproduce it below and hopefully, it encourages you that you are not alone! :D

love, debra

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October 2, 2003

you know what? im all ready for a post about life. at last! haha.

you know how sometimes life… no, God… just works so miraculously? haha if my friend reads this she’ll be quite amused. but i needta share it. so there i was sitting in front of my comp… invisible on icq. there i go being anti social again. then i see my fren! so shud i msg her? i did. and we started chatting… and then i apparently “inspired” her personal statement… or so she claims but lets just take her word for it :) anyway i read it and it was good. so if i didnt make the first step… this whole chain of events wouldnt have occurred! and im sure many other stuff happen to us in very much the same way. ahhh the beauty of life.

but you know sometimes u feel so down and out. then suddenly it seems that life is meaningless and full of crap. and no one really seems to care at all. especially during the prelims… when all i did was stay home to mug. wake up mug eat a bit mug. mugmugmug. i really feel that singapore’s mugging society is exerting a negative externality on our lives. pardon the economic jargon. but seriously, other parts of our lives get distorted. suddenly our whole focus is on the 4As… well not tt for me but yeh. what happens to our families… friends… pursuing what we like? suddenly all that has to be put on hold cos we wanna muggggggg. maybe im exaggerating a little here but that was how i really felt then. like my life had to be put on hold cos i need to mug man.

then i have to remind myself… hey life is so short. the one hour of mugging probably wouldnt yield as much marks as the happiness u get frm doing something u like for awhile. seriously… then u think of the times u wanted to pon sch to mug… did ponning school actually help much?? and for that u forgoed time spent with ur class. “in the long run we are all dead.” forgot which guy said that but the econs s pple prob know. now thats like my fav quote i ever received frm econs. its so apt. sometimes i really wish i had the courage to do what i want. i wanna quit sch and go pursue my dreams!! oh wait. then i realise that in this whole lifetime of mine… ive been so busy keeping up with this fast paced society that i no longer know what i want to do! it was easy saying i wanna be a vet, a teacher (now i cant believe i wanted to teach…. and eat chalk and get snide remarks frm my students?!)… but in the end they vanish. cos reality is most of the time not what we idealize it to be. (hahaaa just like a pc market is never really quite applicable to the economy.)

oh well so i guess thats where faith comes in. for people with religions… a light shines at the end of the tunnel. in the long run… we wont be all dead cos most religions believe in an afterlife.. er if im not wrong. hee ok dun kill me if i generalised that. ah but u see most pple our age dun have religions! ok maybe i generalised that too. what im trying to say is… with all that mugging and stuff… has anyone started to think about the meaning of life?? i kinda went thru that stage last yr. i dunno… perhaps we r too comfortable in the material world we live in. everything is so seemingly perfect. why spoil it by thinking about the end of days. or what happens after that last breath u take. i know some cynics who scorn religions. they think that its just a way of trying to escape from reality and the brutality of life. hm maybe it is, maybe it isnt. we will all find out… in the long run.

you know somehow i dunno whether to post this post. haha. what the heck i will.

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Need to stop this ranting habit once I get a chance to blog

Seems like the further into JC I progress, the less motivated I am to mug. I hate that word. To mug. It's so... factory-like. Like a production process, not a journey of self discovery or learning. As if the greatest our human minds were made for are to absorb and memorize information without really contemplating its true meaning and purpose in our lives and world. My teachers call me a mugger. I beg to differ. They don't know me.

On many other occasions I have sat by the window(yes really) and thought about what I want from my life. And mugging my minutes away seems like such a waste of time. I don't like letting my grades or leadership achievements determine my worth. Surely we're better than that. I don't like to have to care about whether my results are stable or fluctuate, by how many percent they've grown. All I need to know is that I have learnt something about this world I'm living in and that that is slowly helping me to build on my knowledge bank. I don't want to fit my answers into the formats and limits of essay topics. If you had to set a limit then that isn't a true answer, I feel. By limiting, you're suppressing opinions that do not fit into the equation, your equation. And by suppressing opinions, you're not letting others express how they truly feel just because you feel its out of the topic.

A friend once told me why she doesn't read anymore. She said that she loves books and she loves language. But by reading one book, that would pull you magnetically into its world for hours, you'd be wasting time that would be better spent on mugging. Again. That dreaded word. Really? Reading is a waste of time? Just because I do not choose to invest my time into bettering my grades doesn't mean it's a waste. I find more meaning in reading than in memorizing your stupid technical phrases. It would be more pragmatic to do the latter, of course. Those who mug more may see greater visible returns in results, but if isn't what makes you happy, then what's the point?

There's this popular question that Chinese teachers in secondary school used to like to ask. They ask us, "Do you study for yourself, or for your parents?" Hard question to answer. It's like the existentialist theme all over again. Is your duty to yourself, or to society? Which do you focus more on? It has often been suggested in Kafka's 'The Metamosphosis' that one needs to have a balance of both in order to finds happiness and success in life. And now, after years of thinking, I finally have an answer.

First, let us make clear what 'studying' means. And because this isn't an essay, I'm sure I have the liberty to define it as I like. Studying for me encompasses two main components. There is the learning and real accumulation of knowledge, where we truly feel empowered by what we learn and slowly construct our own opinions not for essays or for answers, but out of personal convictions and principles. The second part of studying is pure mugging. Senseless memorizing and practising just to give them what they want. Methodological and systematic.

(Disclaimer: Most of how we mug nowadays is a mix of both components because you cannot have the second without first having at least a bit of the first, I find. But the second form is more prevalent because it is more advantageous results-wise)

Now, to answer the question of who I study for, I learn for myself, and I mug for both my parents and for my future(because if I don't mug now, there would be lesser opportunities in the future for me to accomplish the first form of studying that I mentioned above). I'm not quite sure if you get it, because I have a tendency to spout things that don't quite make sense to others and I have no other way of explaining it in a way that would be more coherent. This is how I can best articulate my thoughts.

Maybe you think that this is just how I console myself for not doing as well as my counterparts in school. I can actually agree. But then again, I do not want my happiness to depend solely on grades. How sad would that be? There so many other things in life worth celebrating but because we never stop to look or listen, we miss out on all these simple pleasures. It's the same way I never quite understood why people like to bring their office-working habits back home. Efficiency is important in the corporate world, that we all know, but is there any real need to enforce it at home as a value? Sometimes you just have to slow down and let things take its course. Don't rush, focus on quality, not speed.

But like so many other times, this is just wishful thinking on my part. I need to stop being so idealistic yet my personal principles disallow me to.

*looks up at the wall of text*

Crap I can't believe I ranted that much. I'm supposed to be doing vectors now ugh.

"Life goes on."

Hello guys, I won't be in class this coming Sunday again. I know no one cares but I'll still say it anyway.

You don't know how much it pains me to miss Sunday School! I wish I had Sunday School every day instead of Math lectures, instead of PE, instead of Geography(Okay, maybe only for the topics I don't like). Can we have remedial Debra?

On another note, if your personality is anything like mine, and you're desperately in need of some discipline and motivation to study, then looking up poetry online on Google is not the way to go.

Seriously. Love poems are amazing.

(Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost are my two favourites <3>

Anyways, have fun to all of you in church camp! *waves* I'm just trying to, you know, jive this blog up. Not really helping, but still. It's comforting to see new posts, even if they're all by me.

Meanwhiles, I'll sulk here in sunny humid Singapore and try to fill my mind with theories and concepts about the global production chain, the rise of China and India, tertiarisation, possible armed confict between China and US, and sigh, TOYOTA(the most meaningless, I find). On the other hand, studying has been really rewarding lately because I learnt about the IMF and WTO and how they, as supranational organs created to deal with global financial and trade issues and disparities, have not exactly been super successful. THAT was the only interesting thing I felt I learnt. Other than that, I don't want to learn about why firms and governments work the way they do in the economy. It disgusts me. Everyone's just out for their own profit and monetary gain and I go round and round in circles driving at the same point. Tedious. Boring.

But as Robert Frost says, "Life goes on."
(Yeah I went to look up quotes too. I'm obsessed with this stuff)

I really miss Sunday School :(

Greetings once again!

This is in response to Huihan's post. If you guys didn't know, I was at my friend's church yesterday being the moral support of my other non-Christian friend who wanted to visit her church :X Not a very mind-blowing experience, I actually find that their church service is largely similar to ours, give and take minor things like the sequence of certain things and the fact that she's in English service.

BUT the point here is that I really Really REALLY missed Sunday School! Yes, I truly did! You guys have no idea HOW much I look forward to Sunday School every week, it being the only lesson where I can learn without the academic pressure weighing down on me and also where I learn about stuff that's interesting and really makes me think and reflect. It's one of the few meaningful activities that are present in my life. I do treasure it(and I hope I won't have to change class next year as well). And pffft, there's no Sunday School this coming sunday because it's church camp. *sobs*

I really think we should have a class outing, like, get to know each other OUT of sunday school, you know? But well that's just my idea and if you're for it too, then keep it in mind and we'll try to bring it up during the next sunday school lesson.

I am honestly so bad at self discipline. I suck at it. I resolve to do something, but that's as far as it goes. It remains a plan, the actions don't get carried out. I always end up day dreaming, it's like an escape mechanism that automatically kicks in whenever I'm in situations where I'm unhappy or feel confined in. And it sure doesn't help that one of the things I hate doing during studying is organisation and consolidation of information. I hate fragmenting them into little sections, I hate compartmentalizing them. In fact, most teachers despise and discourage this act of separating information into clean little blocks because it hinders flexibility.

But then, they demand clear structured essays which they insist is the only way that clarity of thought and intellectual capacity can be shown on paper. And because I can never structure things properly, I end up sectioning off my bits of information from each other and hating myself for being so inflexible during essay-writing. Why is narrative writing inferior to analytical, structured writing? WHY? I actually find that the latter is the one writing style that limits your creativity, which in turn restricts your ability to think freely and properly and come up with your own opinions. Opinons that you have not because you need to show an opposing side or an 'on the other hand' in essays, but REAL opinions that you feel for and will fight for, and will defend to the very end.

Sometimes I think the entire thing contradicts itself. Actually, I still do, but let's not go there.

I need to stop digressing.

Oh, I've added one more issue to my prayer list - the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. This is the first time a genocide's ever been officially termed and acknowledged to be a genocide while it is still going on. There are humanitarian aid workers and peacekeepers trying to end it, but somehow the remoteness of the area and the lack of cooperation is proving to be a real problem. As far as I know, there's been some peace treaty or ceasefire or something along those lines that was drawn up and signed, but action hasn't really been taken. Sigh, is there really any more need to add to the destruction and suffering in this world? History really repeats itself.

Hey kerryn, you missed out point #2. But anyway that isn't the point, the point is to tell you how there are only 2 sad people keeping this blog alive and that there are only 3 students in class today :/

By the way, just to blog to hope everybody's doing fine (but mainly to revive this blog because I know Kerryn will be excited to see an update, but sorry to disappoint you 'cause the content is going to be just plain boring. It's too late for my brain to function haha) and that everyone will come back soooooooon.

Hope the upcoming week will be a fruitful one!

For the sake of the blog's revival...

I know no one is going to see this, and no one will reply, but I will post for my own self-amusement and satisfaction anyway because blogging is the only fun I have :)

Random fact:
North Korea is the world's top persecutor of Christians, for the 8th year running. They also have a pretty large base of underground Christians. Nice, kudos to their faith, courage and determination!

(If that isn't relevant enough to us I don't know what else is)

Well... I think that we've been hearing so much news of disasters and genocides and epidemics that nothing fazes us anymore. So when we come across something like religious persecution happening in a country in our own continent, we just shake it off and say, "Oh, it's just another one of those things." Well, globalisation has both positive and negative effects, but at LEAST we know about stuff like that, now we just need to start demanding that some action be taken, or even better, if we have the means to, to personally take action.

Sometimes I wish I could have the control of the funds of a mega rich corporation just for a day. Then I'd be able to wield enough economic influence to enact some sort of social or slight political change. OR I could even donate some of the money. That's one of my fantasies. Wanna know what causes me to fall down? Thinking and daydreaming about stuff like that, that's what. Ok, well, and a thinking of a whole load of other nonsensical crap as well, like what sardine ice cream would taste like etc etc.

I need to stop ranting on about this.

And I WILL continue to post because it pleases me to see new posts every few days, even if the only eyes reading them are mine. Self reliance fail, much? Well so does North Korea's Juche ideology that is partially the cause of the widespread starvation in the country now. Ok, I really need to stop this.

God Bless!
(And yay I've been disciplined enough to do my QT regularly and I feel different already. I should so have started earlier :P)

-Kerryn (who else)