Decisions

Bah, I hate it when people abuse my goodwill. If I'm nice to you, it doesn't mean that I necessarily have plans for a deeper sort of relationship. It just so happens that most of the time niceness facilitates the conduct of professional business. And actually, most of the time, I'm open to friendship, but when people get too forward, it really is a put-off. Call me old-fashioned. Heck, call me insecure. The old crush from the Monday Incident seems to be back, and I can't seem to shake her off that notion of hers.

Well, maybe I'm being unfair to her. I'm sure that she means well, on some level or other. But I'm afraid I could not prevent my whole outlook of her from being tainted by that incident on that day. And the reprecussions that it has caused elsewhere...I don't think I can see her as a normal friend with no ulterior motives anymore. I'm thinking whether I should respond to this latest advance or not. Politeness and precedent say yes, but Enduring Love is a cautionary tale at the back of my mind.

Arh...most of the time, girls are enjoyable enough. Prolonged exposure does tend to produce a certain amount of friction, but when amour comes into the equation, things become more complicated than they are worth. Needlessly so. Well, let me say it clearly now. You may not know who or what I'm talking about on this journal, but here it is in plain language: I have no romantic intentions for anyone alive at this time.

* * * * *

Oh yar...Enduring Love. A story about a psychotic gay stalker and how his obsessive love destroys a seemingly harmonious marriage. Personally I don't like this book as much as Atonement. Style-wise I think Enduring Love is less refined, rougher around the edges. The plot isn't terribly inspiring, though the book does raise some intriguing questions. For example, if love really was enduring and for evermore, as us naive teenage romantics would like to think, then it really is a psychosis. A psychological condition known as de Clerembault's syndrome, whose sufferers don't stop loving someone intensely for decades on end. They somehow get the notion that they're loved by some stranger, and then from then on they're determined to maintain the illusion of love, (mis)interpreting their victim's every move as further confirmation of their secret shared love. In this way the one-sided love is immune from rationality's erosional effects. Quite scary, really, when you think about it. It's quite healthy in a relationship to have a bit of infidelity, in this case.

But the book really doens't make full use of the potential for exploration of this interesting notion, I think. It's pretty straightforward, how the protagonist tries (unsuccessfully) to throw off the stalker, and in the end is forced to shoot him to prevent him from committing suicide in front of him. There was an interesting moment when he considers that he's going mad, because no one believed his assertions that he was being stalked. But everything basically gets resolved too cleanly, I think. The stalker is put away in a loony bin, the couple makes up and no charges are pressed. In all, the book raises an interesting question, but lets us down by ending almost fairy-tale-like. They lived happily ever after. Well, happily enough anyway.

* * * * *

I hate it when my relatives stop by and try to give us a pep talk on the economic woes facing our future. Singapore is heading into an economic dead end, being forced off the edge of the cliff of economic doom by competition from China and Malaysia alike. Singaporean kids are too protected to survive in the real world. And et cetera et cetera. They take so much pleasure in repeating the same message over and over again, and I always feel like telling them that I've heard it all already, and I've tried to prepare myself for it. But that would have been uncouth; their pleasure is derived from my ignorance and ill-preparedness. And I can't really bring myself to rob them of their advisory acclaim. If they can be happy from pointing out my personal developmental shortcomings, then all right.

But still, I wonder if they actually think of what they're saying. I mean, it's all well and good to encourage us to go abroad to make contacts and gain experience now. But I remember how much of a chore it was to convince my mum to let me to go Yunnan the first time round. And the outright rejection of that trip to Silicon Valley in Sec 1. They may know that we need more real world experience, but when it comes down to the crunch, can they bear to throw their kids to the mercy of the foreign world and stand back? And anyway, the problems faced by today's kids are not less severe than before; they are just different from anything that has happened before. Granted, we'd probably die if we were plonked in the middle of the lofty Yunnan plains, but how many Yunnan children will actually excel if plopped in the middle of Singapore? Ambition and ability are not genetic to native Chinese, I believe.

I agree that us Singaporean kids probably need more daring to grow. But then again, we know that already, how we're so well protected and lazy and unmotivated to strive for excellence and all that. It'll be a happy day when something is actually done about it, rather than repeating the same unenforced mantras all the time.

* * * * *

We crashed the release of results for the A levels on Fri afternoon. Heh, seeing the J3s in their civvies (some conspicuously sans hair) shuffling to the hall in little clumps was quite evocative. They reminded me of sheep, multicoloured sheep, wandering around in groups, united against danger. And the unknown is friendlier when we are together, after all. The tension was palpable in the bright afternoon sun, and against the monoliths of the white J and K blocks, the J3s looked really small. Forlorn, even. Scared definitely.

We were standing in the gallery overlooking the J3s, and I was remarking to Thong that I felt Godlike, with all the electricity humming in the air. But as it turned out there wasn't much cause for concern...this batch exceeded the stellar performance of the last batch. It's positively obscene...100% passes in GP, and 99.2% got A or B in Lit. And a demigod obtained 4As and 3Ds, a feat that will not be repeated by our batch. The only way to exceed them would be to have everyone score an A or B for Lit. What a piece of cake, eh?

But we can have the doubtful but convenient title of the batch to produce the best results ever in the Bishan campus =P

But it's the personal level that makes it hard to celebrate. It must feel like crap to be among the 25% who did not get at least three As. And in our senior class there was a catastrophe, if you can call it that. Watching the seniors walking up to the table to get their hand shaken (or not shaken - a worrying sign) and to collect the slips of paper that are potent enough to make or break their dreams, I made a pact with Chern to have us collect and open each other's result slips next year. Perched on the balcony, we were basking in reflected glory, but also had to face the searing heat of reflected tension. In one year's time, I wonder if I'd be able to bring myself to even face Purvis across that table.

One year's time...arh, time is running out. There are only three terms left with us as a class, and I'm painfully aware that our tenure together is coming to a close even before I've had time to get tired of them. Get irritated, yes, but not outright bored. There just isn't enough time to take everything in, and so I'm forced to be selective of what I do, of the experiences that I accept, because there is so little time to create the memories that I want to cherish. To make every moment worthwhile. So far, school life has done a pretty decent job of being memorable. But I wonder what I'll remember this time next year.

But it wouldn't do to get caught up in nostalgia even before the year has ended. The worst thing I could do now is to get so caught up with the passage of time that I miss out of the passage of experience. It's hard to carpe diem if all you can seize is the passing of the day.

* * * * *

More options. I wonder what I'd be feeling one year from now, with results in hand and scholarships to apply for and universities to go to. We went for a talk on London University on Fri, and today I dropped in on Careers 2005. Got some pretty interesting things. The first impression is that not a lot of universities offer arts courses of any sort. Social science is not so bad, but literature and history seem to be realms that belong only to very select faculties. Like for UoL, King's and Imperial don't offer arts courses at all. And after today I really get the feeling that my options are limited (of course, I haven't decided if that's a bad thing, considering how averse I am of committing to such major choices).

LSE seems to be the most enticing for the moment. Their speaker was this rather impressive matronly psychology professor, who was obviously the most compelling speaker of the lot. And according to her account LSE is quite a vibrant place, full of people who want to question the higher-ups. Sounds like my kind of people =P And with a convenient location at the centre of London too. They have a really impressive library of four million social science books. More importantly, they actually offer international studies and politics. The other UoL college, the University College of London, offers Lit, but they seem to be quite high-brow...kinda like RI. And my aversions to RI apply to UCL too at the moment.

Today, attended a talk on French education. The UK and French systems aren't all that dissimilar. Two main points of difference - France doesn't have a mechanism to rank its universities, unlike UK's UCAS thingy and RAE and et cetera. And while a typical bachelor's at LSE costs more than 10,000 pounds per annum, the highly subsidised French system will give you one for a maximum of 800 euros a year! =D But then again, if I do get a scholarship, then I wouldn't want to scrimp on the tuition fees. France will probably remain a backup plan if I don't get a scholarship and I still want to go abroad.

Also looked into the University of Geneva, which has a faculty of linguistics, but that's entirely devoted to French and stuff like translation work. It's set in a great city, though. And apparently French universities offer courses in English, but I checked the list - and guess what...not a single humanities course on offer =S I hope it's a misprint.

So...at the moment, it seems like UK is more likely, and somewhere in a city would be good. After looking at the settings of countryside unis like Oxford, they seem to be rather boring actually. If I go for Lit it'll be pointless to do it in France. But if I go for international politics then both sides are viable, subject to there being an English politics course available in France. The other issue would be, of course, which subject I should choose. I'd love to do Lit out of pure interest, but that smacks of self-indulgence. International relations at least has a solid and blatant link to the real world. But the ultimate in luxury uni courses for me has to be theatre studies, a degree that'd be more or less useless in Singapore, but will definitely be fun to do =P But I think I'm set on going to somewhere in Europe, at least, subject to availability of courses. The hard part is getting to Europe, after all. Once you're inside, a whole continent lies on your figurative doorstep. I just wished that the alleged cultural hub of the world tried harder to attract foreign students to do humanities.

pondered by phoenican @ 5.3.05