End of One Term

Hmm...and so ends one term. At this point in time I feel kind of sad, cos a quarter of our remaining time in RJ as a class has come to an end. And from now on it's more or less a constant pressure of work that will just grind away at our spirits. My main complaint is still that we don't have enough time to get bored of each other. There is a certain authenticity in tiresomeness, becoming so used to some people that you have an urge to get far away from them to find some excitement in your life. Yeah, it's a bit perverse, but I think there's something in it =P

Where does this leave me? At this point in time, I don't know really...on one front, I'm continually surprised at how stable some of my relationships are. And even now new friendships are coming in from unexpected sources. I've been busy enough, what with the lingering ghost of somethingood, TSD and the Fruits and Veg Cult performances, and the crashing of lots of stuff in the different JCs. But on the other hand, this has been quite a disturbing term...what with the Monday Incident and all its reprecussions. I wonder what I'd be feeling now, if things hadn't been brought to a head by that one SMS and the resulting blog entry. So some things are falling apart, and it is painful for me, because I had not wanted things to get to this point. But while not all things change at the same time, everything changes.

Who can I talk to? It's all quite confusing, this situation that I find myself in. So far it's only been good old Jes, but lately more of Chern and Thong too. I hope they don't mind...it's just that they were conveniently located, and I needed to get some things off my chest =P Some fears I don't know how to face...

Was hoping to watch a movie yesterday to mark the end of term, but everyone was too busy going home =P In the end went home too with Mel, and chatted about uni stuff, art, and writing. She actually has some really good stuff...some of the images are extremely haunting...and she has this one line that struck me strongly, a line that I won't repeat here cos I think she deserves her intellectual property rights for that one line =P And to some extent I find her poetry more sincere than anything I've seen in the publication. I think it's because it's marked by the intensity of loss. Just like Jem's Remembrance. When you know the background of the poem, what inspired the poet to write it, then the poem becomes lots more powerful.

Anyway, we were sitting in BK dispatching a pile of fries, and the scenario struck me as quite a strong image. I added it into my latest story =P I'll upload it in the next batch of updates, but do go and check out the new prose and poetry there...see if it's more mature than anything that came before. If it is, then it's because of the influence of vetting for the publication, and the recent glut of poetry from closet poets in class. Lots of people can really write, and they should give themselves more credit! But not in the way that the publication gives a kind of self-serving credit...

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What do you make of these images?
...holding a hand that is so soft, but as cold as mine...
...watching a Novena through frosted glass, and seeing a white-caped figure walk into, and then out of, the foggy glass square...
...a chised old face bled of all its emotionlessness by enduring decades of repeated emotional erosion...
...leaning on someone else and dozing off while Sun Yan Zi's Wo Ye Hen Xiang Ta MTV plays on...

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Went to the Education UK show today. Got new prospectuses, and I think they'll give me a clearer idea of what I want to study in University. Also talked to Ms Ong in CHS yesterday, and that was enlightening...she identified my problem for me, which is that I'm choosing my dream university before I choose what I want to study there, when it really should be the other way around. Anyway, I'm quite divided over what to do. If I want to be practical about it, I'll do something politics-based, even though I'm not very fond of politics itself. But maybe it'll be more like diplomacy than political maneouvrings. While I can't stand realpolitik in real life, I do admire people who try to be diplomatic. But if I want to do what I'm interested in then I'd do something Lit-based, especially some of the combined diplomas like the Lit + French combi that offers a year of study in France. And if I'm feeling really decadent (and perhaps recklessly suicidal - though no offence to TSD), I'll do drama.

The problem is that I know that doing the latter two will really restrict my choices greatly. I'll be stuck in the civil service forever, because I don't imagine that it'd be easy to sell myself on such liberal arts degrees in Singapore. The solution then would be to strike out abroad, but I really lack the entrepreneurial urge, at least at the moment (though Ong says that the civil service creates enough frustration to awaken an urge to start a startup firm). And I guess to a certain extent I feel like I've indulged myself enough by taking Humanities now. The problem is of course that once I make this choice, I'll be stuck with it. And if the limited humanities courses available at Uni are anything to go by, the real world would be much more open to a PPE diploma than a lit one.

I took humanities because I wanted to. Now I'm thinking whether I need to take politics.

Anyway, on the universities' front, York and Birmingham seem to be quite promising places. Birmingham has a positively immense Arts Fac, but York has PPE. Warwick seems to be a vibrant place too, and it has International Studies (and is actually on the outskirts of Birmingham). I have to say though that the British Council puts a lot of effort into recruiting Singaporean students, what with all the booklets and publications and events they put together for us. It was a wish come true, after getting the EduFrance stuff last week. These things are coming in very useful.

Oh, speaking of dream come true, remember me saying that my ideal meal would be a bowl of stew and bread in a comfy armchair in front of a fireplace? Well, I found this restaurant that comes spookily close! It's Cedele at Suntec City's Fountain Terrace. It sells large bowls of soup for $6.50, and with that you get free flow of quite a few types of bread and this rather nifty flavoured olive oil, which is fantastic for dipping. Hehheh, I was happily tucking into the simple fare of a large clam chowder, olive oil and hunks of bread for dipping =D That's an excellent place for cheap, delicious and filling food, and you can hang around there forever! Definitely recommended by the intrepid rustic side of me =)

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Hmm...I'm extremely prolific today for some reason. One longish (well, longer than usual) metaphysical story, one long email and now this immense entry that I'd be surprised anyone actually bothers to finish =P And a little ten-minute script based on Grace's DS on Thu. Was working on some ideas I had for her piece, which has some rather strange restrictions, like the requirement for it to be more or less a monologue. I bet my script would be wholly incompatible with the requirements of TSD. Which is just as well...I really don't want to impinge overly on her creative process. Ownership is crucial in drama.

pondered by phoenican @ 12.3.05