Lately I've been kind of down, I don't know. It's been almost two months since I last posted. These two facts are unrelated. In fact, looking over last year's entries, I think I posted too much when I was sad and not enough about the good times. I think my FALLACIOUS ASSUMPTION was that I would remember the good times, which is true, but not in the same loving detail that I recorded the sad shit, apparently. WHATEVER

I'm not depressed about anything in particular, so it's a kind of miscellanea of discontent. But in fact things have been going pretty well. I did a teaching stint last month which I will post about in lavish detail, actually I think I will just type up the personal diary I was keeping them on the backs of scraps of paper during free periods in the staffroom, then my wit will be preserved for posterity. I'm apparently incapable of keeping a private journal, I'm too flashy and attention-seeking. I am interning with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs now, no comment, this information is classified. There is a lot of classified information in my life at the moment and I'm not sure how I feel about it. File that under 'miscellanea', I guess, file it and move on. Other stuff has happened, more miscellanea, never mind.

I guess it's become increasingly obvious that something's gotta give. I need a change, I can't keep running away from things while looking back over my shoulder or I'm going to slam into something and it's going to hurt like a bitch. I'm going to stop running away and start running towards. Whether backwards or forwards, I'm going to keep my eyes fixed on where I'm going. I'm going to go places. I'm going to look people in the eye when I talk to them. I don't buy into this wherefore I know not bullshit, I'm going to be fucking happy. Peace out, rock on, it's a hell of a universe, and it's right outside your door. Just go.

Despite appearances, 2007 was a good year. Mandatory Year in Review post missing partly because I've been busy, but largely because I didn't really see the point - felt like 2007 ended a long time ago and New Year's Day was just a formality. It's a new world order!!! etc

So I guess this post is really just for me.

( 2007 )

jian yang says:
you're a sicko
jian yang says:
have i ever told you this
jian yang says:
your thoughts automatically turn to something that is sick and disgusting
jian yang says:
you're going to grow up to be a nymphomaniac
jian yang says:
like you are not a normal person!!!

jian yang says:
so i wonder
jian yang says:
when you get arrested
jian yang says:
will i be able to say i knew her then
jian yang says:
or will i be handcuffed in the cop car next to you

TINY PEOPLES

I HAVE RETURNED AND

THERE IS NO RESPITE FROM ANYTHING BUT

IT IS ALL TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL SO

I CRAVE YOUR FORBEARANCE

now I will write a million applications essays and do some research and shop for christmas and drink myself to death and it is going to be a great december way better than last year!!! DECEMBER I COMMAND YOU TO EXCEL IN HAPPINESS

You must be pretty bored, secretly I am too. I applied for the MFA internship and was called for an interview (same day as prom, which may go some way to explaining my ennui), which basically went smoothly til the end when I got zhammed. I was interviewed by a panel of five - the four women were very nice and seemed pleased; they asked me questions in turn of increasing embarrassment factor, but it was nothing antagonistic. Why did you apply for the MFA internship (for a moment my mind went blank except for the huge flashing words, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, but I quelled this manfully), what about foreign policy interests you, what would make you a good FSO ... your grades are very good, to what do you attribute your success? To this last I told the truth, which was, very good luck and very good teachers, but suspecting they found this slimy, I hastily cooked something up about thriving in crisis, which is arguably true up to a point, and having a clear idea what is important to me, which is true but usually unrelated to academics. So it was going well until the women turned to the last guy on the interview panel, who had been pretty quiet, and asked if he had any questions. To which he said: your grades are so good, and you are so obviously academic - even the examples you bring up are academic - so I guess my question is ... do you have a life outside of school, hm? Do you have a personal life?

At this point I displayed the full range of qualities that make me a lousy interviewee. One ... you know in Back to the Future, every time Marty McFly gets called chicken, he kind of goes pale with rage and then something bad happens? So I got mad for no real reason. Two, I started making flip remarks, which was a waste of my carefully constructed sober, earnest image. And three ... I almost told the truth, which I understand is no more at issue in an interview than thirst at a wine tasting or fashion at a striptease ... as we have read. The last time I did this was in my Humanities scholarship interview, when following a barrage of questions insinuating that my father was an Enemy of the State (because he's not a Singaporean citizen) and that by extension his children were class enemies and could never be Red Guards!!! I lost my temper slightly and in answer to the question "So do you think your father will be leaving Singapore anytime soon?" I suggested sarcastically that I thought my mother would be a little upset if he did. MISTAKE

So I embarked on a long answer that made a number of points. I said that ... the examples I raised were academic because the questions posed were academic, and the credentials required of me had been academic. I should perhaps have said that ... if I have no personal life, what of it, as that is surely a virtue in an FSO who must be on standby 24/7, and actually at work much of that time. In fact I said ... surely the point of a personal life is that it is personal. And discretion is surely a positive quality in an FSO. And then I said ... it would require remarkable insight to discern a personal life from my entirely academic CV.

But ill-advised answers aside I was ironically struck by the truth of something I came up with on the spot, which was also true: that I had been talking about my school life simply because in broad terms, if one doesn't venture into specifics, everyone's personal life is basically the same. It is the specifics that set us apart, and it is the specifics that are nobody's business but one's own. "I read, and I go out, and I go to the movies, and I go to parties, and for lunch and dinner, I go to town, I ..." - what does one say? Even the ostensibly unusual quality - I like to play the piano, I am a youth group leader, I go jet-skiing, I volunteer at the SPCA. These describe thousands. The specifics are, who did you see for lunch or dinner, what transpired after two or three drinks, what did you talk about, why were you there in the first place, did he really, what does it matter ... and really these things are no one's business. Not even yours, lately, Livejournal.

I didn't say all of this, I was in a bad mood and put pith before point. I had earlier mentioned that the life of a Hwa Chong Humanities student as far as I could tell was a fair approximation of that of an FSO - alternating parties and crisis, so one of the women said ... well tell me about the best party you've been to. Your favourite of all of them. My mind touched the obvious answer, blanched, cast around frantically, recovered. I'm trying to think of something I can say aloud in a government ministry without getting into trouble, I said ... so I hope you will take it on faith that I have a personal life, but one that is far too exciting to mention. And then I gave them my best smile. Which seemed to amuse most of them, even if my answer made me sound like a terrorist, so that was okay. And strangely the most truthful I've been in an interview. Unrelatedly, I got the internship! I hope it will go well.

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So, Livejournal. Rest assured I have a personal life that has reasserted itself strongly now that the A levels are over, and indeed hardly stood back at a respectful distance all year even when I could have used the space to concentrate on academics. I hope you will take it on faith. And I have been happy! Life has, however, continued to alternate parties with crises, even if the nature of the crises has changed. So I am in some ways also glad to be going away for a few days to think about things (though I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't rather be here dealing with things). But I hope you are all having a nice time, with parties, and crises only to the extent that you enjoy them (which I arguably do).

My child, be attentive to my wisdom;
    incline your ear to my understanding,
so that you may hold on to prudence,
    and your lips may guard knowledge.
For the lips of a loose woman drip honey,
    and her speech is smoother than oil;
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
    sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
    her steps follow the path to Sheol.
She does not keep straight to the path of life;
    her ways wander, and she does not know it.

Proverbs 5:1-6

Conch

In front of the mirror in my parents' bedroom lay a pink conch. I used to approach it on tiptoes, and with a sudden movement put it against my ears. I wanted to surprise it one day when it wasn't longing with a monotonous hum for the sea. Although I was small I knew that even if we love someone very much, at times it happens that we forget about it.

-- Zbigniew Herbert
translated from the Polish by John & Bogdana Carpenter

yeah it's one of my better memories too

Instead of talking about the actual 'A' level papers I would like to relate a DISTRESSING ANECDOTE. Because I think it will be instructive. And I think it NEATLY ENCAPSULATES the absurdity and indignity to which most interactions with the Singaporean education system ultimately reduce themselves.

So at the start of the International History paper I was wondering why there was this huge crowd just milling around the entrance of the Hall, not going in, til I got to the front of the crowd and realised this invigilator guy was just standing there throwing out any student who was not attired to his satisfaction. We are warned that this is something invigilators have the right to do, and that any external invigilator who has a bone to pick with a particular school can just bar people from taking the examination for this reason. So it was strange to me that that not only was this a teacher from our own school (like ... 不攻自破!!!) but ... we'd been taking exams for two weeks and this was the first time it had happened.

Anyway so I was going to sail in, as I am the Only Gay Eskimo and like, the only person who actually wears a collar pin all the time, but then I got thrown out too because my school shirt wasn't tucked in properly! Like any other self-respecting youth, I don't tuck in my school shirt (it's not long enough to tuck into the skirt!), I either pin it so it looks tucked in, or cunningly tie it with elastic, so I stepped out smartly and folded it up a little more. "That's not tucking in," declared the sartorially demanding invigilator, "that's folding!" - "Well, I can't tuck it in here," I said, exasperated, and was peremptorily sent to the washroom to rectify this.

Upon my return I was somewhat offensively admitted ("That's better, girl,") and for the first time noticed that not only was this invigilator so concerned with the school's professional image and noble reputation, in fact, professionally dressed in a T-shirt and bermudas (and, I think, sneakers), but the T-shirt said "LIVE LIKE A DISSIDENT". Finding the irony unbearable, when the paper ended I did not trouble to do anything about my shirt (which again had come untucked) and exited the exam hall out only to walk straight into him in the corridor. "Live and let live, sir," I suggested wittily, seeing him rapidly purple with rage, but then he started screaming at me, so I thought it politic to make a quick getaway. Though not before he swore black vengeance and many deadly oaths and informed me that "I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU!!!" Dark days indeed! I feel like Frodo! Though I suppose a great deal of my indignation is really just that my sophisticated literary irony fell on deaf ears.

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( AFTER GREAT PAIN: WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING NOW THAT THE REAL 'A' LEVEL PAPERS ARE OVER )