Short Whines

It's a Friday and I'm walking home with a frown on my face. It's a Friday. I'm unhappy on a Friday. It's unusual for people to frown, drag themselves down the pavements further and further away from the rooms of torture on the last schoolday of the week. Even for me, it's rare.

Why is it always up to the band to decide how happy I can be? My attendance is like the drops of comfort that fill up my happiness meter because all that I have, everyone around me, is a part of it. Just because I don't show up for practice, I get alienated, stabbed in the back and cast out. These friends of mine aren't really friends at all, are they? Right now, it feels as if the only relationship I share with those people is nothing more than just members of the same group that never care.

I always feel this away after not going for band practice. It's been a week since I last showed my face in band. The form fives are relieved from practice already so we can prepare for SPM, but that's just what's on the surface. Under the thin layer of excuse, it is clear that we still need to show up every single day on the dot, without fail. So why then, do they even relieve us? I have no fucking idea.

I wouldn't be this miserable if I wasn't appointed the role of section leader at the start of the year. The higher you are, the harder you fall after all. Obligations, responsibilities, appearances to keep up... I really did not sign up for this shit. I think I wouldn't even need to elaborate further to make you feel my frustration.

Again, I'm avoiding my so-called friends. I can't even look them in the eye, to be honest. Especially the band leader, my trombonist, the one who takes up my role to teach the younger trombonists because I'm useless as fuck. Again, I think no elaboration is necessary. My displeasure is obvious-- the disgust towards myself.

I can't write when I'm upset. I'm trying very hard to stop my hands from shaking. It's taking every fiber in my body to suppers the rage that's boiling at the back of my head, slowly making me dizzy.

All I can think of is how useless I am. I just want to give up, you know? I'm not good at anything and I have no talent. I can't even bring myself to sit down, open my textbook and study properly. I feel sorry for my parents actually. They've wasted their time, money and emotions on someone who is totally unworthy, a creature that should have never been born to begin with. What good am I? What good is my existence doing to the world? Aren't I just another being shuffling on the face of this earth, wasting space and resources? Nobody needs me and I benefit none. Sometimes, I really think that I should just let it all go, get buried and become a part of the nitrogen cycle-- at least by dying, I'd do the world a favour.

It brings me back to the suicide note of a distant relative.

Tell you the truth, it worries me how close my thoughts are to that of a person who took her own life. I wouldn't deny to the fact that I hate this life, but I'm not brave enough to cut myself free from its bond.

Right now, there is someone who needs me.

Adapted from Happy Life no.2

When I was Cutting...?

An apology was made to each lifeless piece as they were beheaded. Cold, and gray, they didn't squirm when  my bare hands wrapped around their heads as my thumb pressed hard against the segment which connected their too large heads to the slightly curved bodies, severing the bond between the two parts with a pull of little force.

I shut my eyes every time I heard a damply crisp sound of heads being torn apart. My hands were shaking and I was repeating the words "I'm sorry" over and over again, my voice in a slight tremble. With each pull, something oozes out onto my fingers, making me feel the ridiculous guilt of hurting prawns that have already no life.

They were dead anyway, so why did it matter? It's not as if they could feel the pain of being viciously torn apart-- even if they did, it was done in an instant so not much pain would be felt.

A thin strand of intestines--gooey and filled with undigested substances-- bounced against my skin as I removed them like pulling on a weak semi-elastic string. I had to strip the creatures of their protective skeleton, using the help of a blunt knife to make a fine opening in the flesh before I could reach the digestive tract.

Peeling them one by one, my thoughts shifted to the possibility of a parallel universe where at the exact moment, there was a shrimp standing in the kitchen and skinning a human being in preparation for lunch.

I look at the limp creature in my hand.

It was born for this. To be killed, to be peeled, to be eaten. Bred in a farm in town, probably.

Ah... How unfair is life? It had no freedom of its own, coming into this world only to live a short meaningless life in a pond with a million of others who share the same fate.

Perhaps it was from the deep blue sea? If so, it was a waste that it got caught in the fisherman's net.

There was a rhythm to when the knife hit against board. With one hand, I move the knife in a steady beat, while my free hand shoves the cut segments of purple bulbs into the man-powered chops. Since when did my cutting improve? It used to take me minutes to finely chop onions-- or anything for that matter.

Onions.

I've never once shed tears for this purple bulb of tantalizing sweetness that owns a rather feisty personality. Layers upon layers, I never got how people stung their eyes because of those smooth skins.

I seem to be enjoying myself, making a mess of the kitchen as I go. I take forever to cook as I enjoy every moment I spend preparing, thinking as I peel, dice or stir.

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I would love to write more, but after I gobbled down my spaghetti, I seemed to have forgotten everything I wanted to write, the things that went through my mind as I observed my own actions.

I'm going to be late for my movie if I don't hit the showers! I smell like seafood at the moment!




P.s. Gonna bake cookies when I come home later~

Studies of a Horrible Student

My internet is being ridiculously slow these days, so what better way to stop myself from smashing the modem than to blog? Once this "write post" page is loaded, I can spend as much time as I want here, without having to wait... Until it's time to press the orange button that says "publish"

Honestly, I came on here without anything in mind. There's no topic, no emotions that I want to pour out, nor is there anything interesting that's happening at the moment. Right now, all I'm looking at is the screen, I didn't even know that my fingers knew the positions of each alphabet so well! I still have my socks on, my bra is lying on my lap and I'm making a sort of the-fuck-did-I-write-that-for face.

July already, huh?

This morning, I finally forced myself to do some mathematics exercises... CHAPTER ONE T^T I'm a horrible student, I know. I wonder how Siah Pang Seng felt when he walked over to my desk only to see me, his student for a year and a half already, start the first page of the workbook when other people have already finished all the exercises inside.

Even so, it's never too late to start. Hey, at least I'm trying, okay? I know I'm not the best, but I'm putting a little bit of effort into learning something! This is the first time in seventeen years that I voluntarily take out my mathematics book and ask my friends to teach me. I wonder if I'll be able to get a C for mathematics in SPM... Yeah, my hopes aren't too high for it since I'm aiming for the more arty subs like literature and history.

To all my juniors out there, if you choose to go into the science stream even though you know you suck at science and maths, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAAAAAAAAD TIME! Heed my warning! My brother was kind enough to tell me that I'd regret the fuck out of going into the science stream back when he was in form five, but stupid little me didn't take his advice. Please, don't make the same mistake that I made... Albeit bearable, you'd still be left behind.

 Dennis facepalmed himself when he found out I was a science student. Everyone knows just how hopeless my ability to understand logic is, and thus have given up on ever hoping that Rachel Cheong Yun Xuan will ever ace mathematical and science subjects. My parents have one eye closed when it comes to me and maths-- shows just how horrible I am, doesn't it? Even grandpa stopped tutoring me... T^T

Biology is the only one science subject that I'm actually good at, probably because it doesn't need much logic and has very very little questions that requires calculations-- thank goodness for that! I failed chemistry because there's too much calculations but passed physics because at least I've got some common sense in me!

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What am I doing? Going on and on and on about my studies. It doesn't comfort me at all that I'm a horrible student! What's worse is that I'm making it known to the world!

Man, now I'm gonna feel all depressed again because I feel under prepared for my SPM. Literature? Still got a handful of poems to study, a few short stories to read and a drama to re-read and analyze. Sigh... I wonder if I can do it after all... I have doubts, you know? I can't remember the texts so well...

Alright, I'm challenging myself. I'll study all the required pieces for literature this Sunday, and I will finish them while sipping a cup of coffee-free caramel frappucino. Of course, I'll enjoy each written piece of art as I go, it would go against my principles not to! I don't believe in brain-dead studying =)

Mr.Internet, I hate you. I have to utilize you now, to search the world wide web for the poems and short stories in my syllabus, not to mention the analysis for the novel Holes and the drama An Inspector Calls. UGH.

Wish me luck. I'm aiming for seven As.

Something's Missing

Looking at this dark brown marinade in front of me, I can't help but feel that something's missing. Did I put enough rock sugar in it? Or did I added too much soy sauce into my mixture? Is the mirin too little?Something's missing, but I don't know what.

An oriental soup spoon rests in the middle of my glass bowl, a little bit of teriyaki sauce flooding its center. It reminds me of the cough syrup Lisa poured down my throat hours ago. Brown, dilute and seemingly unpleasant.

Something's missing.

I'm not talking about my teriyaki sauce anymore. Even in me, my world, something's missing.

Relationships, a gap in them.

The stitches of the finest surgeon is surely flawed as well; the miniscule gaps between the thread and the wound still exists no matter which doctor holds the needle. It feels as if it's perfectly pulled together, but we all know that it's not. Then again, who are we to complain? At least our hearts are still beating.

What was my point in the last paragraph, you ask? Well, I'm not sure if I can explain it either since if I could, I wouldn't have used the surgeon, thread and wound metaphorically. Hah. Don't want to or can't? Honestly? I'm just too tired to explain.

I'm like this I guess, drawing comparisons between things that seem ridiculously impossible to be related to; put together.

I'll try my best to explain, despite being only half awake, with bacon still left to marinade.

The surgeon would suggest a person who is by my side right now. The wound would be my world, the phantom gaps are the missing things I feel but can't seem to grasp. But I can't complain about it, can I? Compensation-- this is as good as it's going to get.

Time to put the bacon in my marinade, wrap the bowl, keep it in the fridge and go to sleep.

In a few hours time, I'll be sitting on this very same chair, preparing my bento for a dreadful day of school.

I Honestly Don't Know What to Call this Post

I wonder what's my source of inspiration. Haven't been feeling the urge to write for some time now. Writer's block, again? How many times a year do I need to find myself standing in front of this magnificent wall? UGH!!!

For some time now, the days have gone without me sharing the joys I feel with someone who once meant a lot to me-- not that he doesn't matter at all now, just that... He wouldn't want to be of significance to me anyway. 

"Oh, I went to see them run today-- my friends. I didn't even know Qi Shun could run that fast! Got second place in the event!" 

That was something I would have said last Saturday night if things aren't the way they are now. I'd have told him how tired I was, who fainted, how I cut myself some slack under the morning sun and which of his friends were there with their bulky DSLRs acting like professional photographers. That, would be something that should never happen again. A surreal reality that--once in while-- makes me lose myself. 

It's fun to believe in things that don't exist, like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Belief, it's what keeps people happy as it's like a thread of warm sunlight in this dull society of hopeless individuals. I believe in Santa Claus.

If only we all could see the world through a child's innocent eyes, then it would certainly be a better place. We'd find wonder in everything we see, even the little dust that floats in the air or the beetle that crawls in the dirt would seem marvelous. 

I'm waiting for the pink phone to start ringing.

It doesn't seem to come, his call.

Speak of the devil...