Storms rock. There's the sunshine afterward to look forward to.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Recommitment
I figured it out. It was my fault, really.
The answer was: Yes, indeed, L was taking over my system. Slowly but surely, my mind was being overtaken by L's mindset, L's personality, L's habits. I was on my way to losing Matthew Yee totally. And I figured out the reason why.
It was simple, really. It was my own pride and arrogance. People kept on saying that I was so good at being L that I started to feel that my acting skill was that good. I started to crave the attention. I enjoyed being in the spotlight, and if L helped me do that, L I would be.
But I had forgotten. Forgotten the origin of my acting abilities, forgotten how I got so many supporting friends in the first place. And so it was that yesterday night, with this revelation, that I recommitted my whole life and purpose to God once again, and I gotta say, I've been pursuing life neglecting Him for so long that I forgot how much fun it was to live life when He was there. A great load has been taken off my back (literally, get the L reference...) and once again, I'm seeing life through the bright, colourful and optimistic eyes of Matthew Yee rather than the sharp, intelligent, but grey eyes of L Lawliet.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Confusion 2
My mind is reeling. My head is in a mess. If only I knew how I really felt.
Oh, the confusion! The indecision, the mixed feelings, the forces that threaten to tear my soul apart. No, wait, God keeps my soul intact always. But, forgive me, Lord, it's sometimes a close call.
Take yesterday, for example. Yesterday was the finals of the English Fair presentations, of which we were lucky enough to qualify for. My class was performing a skit on "Youth and Gaming", and I'm proud to say that although we didn't win, we did the best job we could ever have done, and for that already we were happy enough. But then I entered an identity crisis. See, I was acting as a game addict who got so addicted it damaged his mind and personality, who 'coincidentally' behaved like the fictional super-genius L, whom I just happen to think is cool, in a warped kind of way. And now some people see me along the corridors along TJ, and congratulate me for pulling L off with a amused "Hi, L!"
Don't get me wrong. I'm flattered that people think I pulled L off so well. But in the period we were practising, I lived L, I ate like L, I spoke like L, I tried to think like L. Heck, I WAS L. Now that it's over, I find that remnants of L stick with me, and I find myself wanting to go back to becoming L. And it's so confusing. Who am I, really? Am I really more suited to be L? How can I be thinking such a thing anyway? And yet, I am.
And there's more. I'm losing track of my studies. I'm still with the lecturers, but just barely. Some might say that it's just what we can expect from JC life, and I'm inclined to agree, but I think there's something more to it than just that.
Because I'm losing focus. This is the first time it's ever happened this bad. Always taking up the unoccupied brain space, and then invading the rest. Because of the reason for this loss in focus, I was 150% focused on becoming L, and I am slowly not being able to keep up with lessons. This must be purged, definitely, but heaven, help me, I don't know how!!!
If some of this doesn't make sense to you, then it's probably for the best. After all, I forsee bad things in my future if the TJC scholars ever realised what I was talking about here. Sigh...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Forgiveness
I do not claim to be an expert on hurts. I may have had my own share of hurts, but I do realise that there are many who have felt much worse hurts than I have, and I even know one such person personally. But for the sake of this person, and the random people who may stumble upon this humble blog, I offer these thoughts.
No matter the seriousness, we all have been hurt by somebody down the line. If you have not, I'm sorry, but you are a robot. The difference between an emotionally healthy person and one who is not is that the emotionally healthy one is willing to forgive and forget the wrong done to him/her. Easier said than done.
Whether any of us realise it or not, what society has influenced humanity to think is that when one is wronged, one must seek revenge, act upon a vengeful spirit. The social stigma is that to forgive someone is seen as a 'cowardly' act and even if we do not personally think it is true, we fear the disapproval of those who think it IS true. And thus it takes an unbelievable load of courage to forgive all the ways one has hurt you, and sometimes it may even be yourself. Many's the time someone has jumped off a building, shot himself, ingested a whole bottle of sleeping pills, or misused his creativity to think up unique and unbelievably imaginative ways to kill himself, all because he was unable to forgive.
"It's impossible to forget!"
"How can I forgive such a wrong?"
"You don't know how much it hurts!"
Any of these sound familiar?
Any of these sound familiar?
Five years ago, once. Four years ago, twice. Three years ago, once. On all four occasions, I was hurt deeply or I hurt myself and lost all my self-esteem. The above three statements I did whisper to myself every night. I thought no one understood. Surely, everyone knew I was hurting, but no one knew the extent of it, how much my anger and bitterness threatened to pull me apart. I had no one I could turn to. Or at least, that's what I thought.
Five years ago, once. Four years ago, twice. Three years ago, once. Each time, when I could not stand it anymore, when my tears were so numerous they threatened to drown me, when I was ready to give up hope, I found someone who understood. Because I met him, and kept on meeting him in my darkest moments, I can type this today. If not for him, three years ago I might have really considered ending it all. (Bet you didn't know, eh, mum and dad? Sorry for the shock.) But who was this person I met? Let me tell you.
Jesus Christ.
I can sense it already. Some of you are already thinking: "Aw, nuts, one of THOSE people. Let's surf something else". I know there are such people. But please, I beg you to read further.
You say God does not exist? I beg to differ. I felt Him.
You say God does not care? I beg to differ. I live because He died for me.
You say God is not such a big deal? I beg to differ. Life is so much more fun with Him around.
Approximately 2000 years ago, God himself took human form, and came down to this very planet. For what purpose, you may ask? Jesus Christ came, pure, innocent, the only person alive who had NEVER done anything wrong. He came to be declared guilty of every crime man had committed, was committing, and would commit, and to receive our death penalty. Such was His love for us. While he was being killed, what did he say?
"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." D'uh. How could anyone understand, at that point, what indeed Jesus was doing? After all, he could have just whistled, and angels could have come to set Him free. No, He had to die, so we wouldn't need to. He came back to life, three days after, on the very first Easter, after finishing his three day stint in the enemy's camp, hell, claiming mastery over Death. Claim it He did.
If you ever think you cannot forgive anyone what they did to you, remember this: You deserved to die. I'm sorry, it's true. You may say you're not SO bad, but to God, wrong is wrong. You deserved to die, but God came down in human form and took that penalty for himself. And you know what? He doesn't hold the slightest grudge towards you for that! Wow.
This Easter, if there is anyone you have yet to forgive, remember Jesus forgave you, and if you ask, He will only be too glad to help you forgive. I could not forgive the people who wronged me, nor myself for doing such a thing to myself, but once I found God, it became easy. When you know how much God loves you, you feel great and you can't help but love everyone in return.
For the random person reading this, I may not know you, but God does. I may not know your hurts, but God does. I may not have felt your pain, but God has felt worse. Take the step today, to let Jesus into your life, and see how powerful forgiveness really is. You may have rejected similar invitations before, and I ask, why not try it today? After all, you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. If you take even one step towards God, I promise God will definitely take the rest of the steps to you.
For the random person reading this, I may not know you, but God does. I may not know your hurts, but God does. I may not have felt your pain, but God has felt worse. Take the step today, to let Jesus into your life, and see how powerful forgiveness really is. You may have rejected similar invitations before, and I ask, why not try it today? After all, you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. If you take even one step towards God, I promise God will definitely take the rest of the steps to you.
Don't nurse a hurt, nor curse it, but disperse it to God, and I promise you with 100% confidence, He will reverse it. That, if anything, will give ANYONE strength to smile at each sunrise, rather than frown till sundown. Let God show you how not to be bitter, but a better person. Because I let Him in, I forgave the one who hurt me, I forgave myself, and now, because of this, I enjoyed yesterday, I'm loving living today, and I can't wait for tomorrow.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Writing
All I can say is, it's finally paid off. Last year, besides the pain of prelims, the stupidly large lot of schoolwork and the final stretch at O levels, I thought I had left my whole past behind. But I had forgotten.
What of my portfolio? The one I submitted to the school in hopes of winning the Goh Sin Tub Literary Award? I had committed so much to it. I had stretched my vocabulary to its fullest, called upon every literary device I was familiar with, and then some. Adapting writing styles I deemed good for my own personal use, albeit modified to make it uniquely me. Entering competition after competition, doing what I loved best, besides reading. That is, writing. I accumulated a modest pile of writings, compiled them into a file, and released it into the unknown that was the tables of the SJI English Department. Long I waited, past the prelims, past the O levels, past the December holidays. Of course, I did not expect for the results to come immediately after the O levels.
But wait I did, and they never came.
Until I totally forgot about it in late January, as the pressures of JC life threw themselves on me.
But while I had forgotten it, it had not forgotten me.
Just yesterday, as following my daily routine, I ventured into the deep maze of metal that is Dunman Hostel's mailbox area. I bravely held my mailbox key in front of me, ready to fend off any assault of junk mail. I inserted the key, turned it, and lo and behold, there lay an innocent-looking letter embossed with the SJI crest I had grown to know so well and love so deeply.
It looked innocent enough on the inside.
"Dear Matthew Yee, you are invited to the Founder's Day Ceremony on Monday, 7th April, at 8.00 am. Should you wish to attend, you may contact Ms. Joanna Tan at *insert email here* or call the school office at *insert number here* during working hours to confirm your attendance."
And then I saw it. In deep black Times New Roman letters of font size 11.
"I am pleased to inform you that you have achieved the Goh Sin Tub Literary Merit Award. Should you attend the ceremony, you will receive your prize. If not, it will be mailed to your home address."
What else could I do? I screamed with joy, vaulted my way up to the 7th floor, offered a silent thanks to God, my inspiration, and confirmed my attendance at SJI Founder's Day Ceremony 2008.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Fractions
Misleading title, eh? Coz it's not fractionS, just one fraction. But one fraction that's very very significant at this point. What am I talking about?
This morning, during assembly, almost all the scholars in TJC were very tense. Why? They hadn't done some of their homework (typical!!!) in a desperate lazy gamble because they were predicting something would happen today based on information we had gotten over the one week study break. And so we waited with bated breath.
Mrs. Loke, our dear principal, came to the mike and launched into a long speech about the good A level results and how well our seniors did and the contributions of the tutors and congratulations to them. Not that we didn't care, but there was a more important matter at hand. And because of that, we just wished she would confirm our hopes.
Confirm it she did.
"And because of the spectacular results of the college which proudly displays the Temasek Excellence," she proclaimed with a flourish, "The college has decided to give you all a half day!"
And amidst the loud cheering on all sides and hoarse screaming combined with the high-pitched shrieking, the scholars silently stood for a moment to smile knowingly to each other, breathe a sigh of relief, and join in the chaos.
Hence my roomie and I now blog at this table, with extremely similar laptops. Mirror images of each other, twice the electronics, during this half-day.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
School
It seems that the holidays were never meant to be.
March holidays? Yeah, right. I'll tell you now that the name is horrendously incredibly extraordinarily inaccurate. You want to know what it is, really?
Study break. No kidding. My chem homework is 11 pages long. There are 2 maths tutorials that no one said to do, but you could feel the "do it" aura from the maths teachers during the 'last day of school'. And don't get me started on malay homework. Oh yeah, there's GP homework too. Finish in this week? Well, maybe if you didn't sleep at all!
To top it all off, I have extra-curricular things to keep me busy too. Have to think up ideas for my NRP project, have to plan essay for that ASEAN forum thing, have to do research for the two of afore-mentioned whatevers. Slack? Not a chance.
Even now I'm in the school canteen, making use of the wonderfully fast wireless to do all the things that need the Internet. It's like a conspiracy, they make the wireless so good on purpose so the students would want to come back to school. How sick is that???
And you know what's the worst part? Some guy (or girl, I don't know for sure) is playing that idiotic song Umbrella two tables away. Nothing against Rihanna herself, but I just really hate the song. Must be because so many people like it and scream the song into my ears every now and then. Oh, Rowland... Truc... Surya... are you three reading this?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Sharing Joys
It is indeed a cause for great joy. On Friday, the 7th of March, at approximately 1430 hrs, TJ-Cians and one Rafflesian whom the JC1s had only known beforehand as our relief teachers all fled their lessons to receive the piece of paper that would be their first step to a good career start, or not. Yes, I speak of the A-Level results. I, being but a lowly JC1, was not there to witness totally their reactions and emotions, but I learnt of a few of the teachers, JC3s, I know have acheived incredibly wonderful results and I would like to congratulate them here, on this oh-so-unassuming blog.
Congratulations to:
Mr. Aulia - All As
Ms. Amita - Unfortunately, my intel is lacking in this area
Cikgu Seha - All As 0_O
And not forgetting...
John Gobok (I refuse to put the 'Mr'. He is, after all, my senior, and not my teacher, so I refuse to call him Mr. John when there's no other teacher around...) - All As, as expected from a scholar... (clearly biased, huh?)
Mr. Lock Hong Quan!!! (My esteemed, cool, friendly, warm and Rafflesian GP tutor) - All As, as expected from a Rafflesian...
Congrats to you all!!! :)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Blazing Temasek's Fame...
In the recent competition organised by the A*Star Singapore Cancer Syndicate, the Green Mushroom School (yup, that's us ;P) emerged 2nd runner up, beating schools like Victoria and National Junior College due to our incredibly smart competitors (of which I could never ever match up to) who shone in the oral presentation with some incredibly complicated presentation about my******** ******* ********** leukemia.Hey, don't look at me like that! How am I supposed to know the name?
But anyway, we beat quite a few........... Aw, screw politeness.
We totally owned them!!! So much for lowered standards, all you TJC critics out there! Yes, you know who you are! We may have not clinched champion, but hey, we only lost to TWO schools, okay. We served the others on a silver platter!!! Even the two schools whom have long insisted that they were far superior. In your face, hah! Edo, Djohan, Henry, Albert, Bondi, are you reading this???
*Disclaimer* I just want to say that the above rant is for entertainment purposes only and plead for the reader's understanding and not be offended by the rant. I'm not really like this. Really.
