C ∆ T ∆ L Y S T

Friday, 2 March 2012

00:02

This is fucking ridiculous. Singapore, you are amazing. Tiniest speck on the world map but the extent of which your people are spread all over the globe and how they eventually reconnect is really creepy.

ONCE AGAIN, LIFE, YOU HAVE HAVE PLAYED ANOTHER GOOD JOKE ON ME. Surely, I would be used to the ideas of coincidences by now but the element of surprise will always be intact. Maybe I'll sleep this off, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll carry this to Loughborough over the weekend and laugh about it in retrospect.

But for now, really, I'm waxing hysterical.

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

00:00

Leap of faith for the leap year.

Monday, 27 February 2012

11:00

Maybe it's time to truly acknowledge that alcohol throttles my negative emotions into overdrive. No more experimentation. I should just abstain. Why have I become so soft and so submissive to peer pressure? I would like to write a proper post but the essay draft on panic disorder needs more of my attention. As for now, I only want to get the music in my head out of it.

So here goes:

The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails
Sunburn by Muse

Songs of people who burn. There's been so much on burning (figuratively) over the weekend. Well, I do feel slightly burnt out from the sleep deprivation but I shouldn't be making excuses. I wasn't even involved in much.

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

20:01

I WILL NOT SUCCUMB.

Also, I'm definitely going to get more piercings and re-dye my hair after Loughborough. This is getting really frustrating. Paracetamol has put me in really weird places lately. I've been having distressing dreams and crying fits. It's much better today seeing that I'm much more stable than I've been the past few days.

It could've possibly been the near three hours spent on a video call with Lynn over Skype yesterday. It's still a little difficult to reconcile with the fact that she's literally halfway around the way from me, with her being in the southern hemisphere and stuck up here in the northern hemisphere and also from the fact that she is half a day ahead of me in time.

Over the 2h 51min 29s session, we tried to update each other on as much as we can on whatever that has happened since her departure for Melbourne last July. What I've seemed to pick out from our exchange of stories is the realness of the culture shock phenomena. Prior to our conversation, I could never put my finger on what the great difference in our social dynamics were as compared to locals here.

We'd come to the conclusion that we do not know how to take compliments graciously. Singaporeans have a sarcastic and snarky side which often turn compliments into jibes. We learn not to take our friends' comments seriously. We learn to be critical of ourselves. We learn to share opinions in the form of jests and pseudo-mockery, delivered in the form of jokes and japes. We have become so accustomed to being quick to critique that paying sincere compliments feel so unnatural. I suppose this is what makes up the Singaporean "complaining" attitude. Conversations end quickly because more often than not, we accept compliments with a red face and an awkwardly delivered "thank you", followed by a length of awkward silence as you debate internally whether you should return a compliment and if so, what about. Small talk is a skill that Singaporeans lack because any one who breaks out into conversations with strangers on public transport or in public areas are always skeptically viewed as being possibly mental. This was further observed as I looked through this Twitter page: https://twitter.com/#!/BvsSG The page, although a poignant juxtaposition of linguistic deviations, proved also to be quite a source of nostalgia and amusement.

Another thing that has been made obvious is that even among Singaporeans, the ugly truth is that you can't get along with every Singaporean you meet. The elitist divide, an abhorrent side effect of meritocracy, is painfully evident. Unfortunately, I'm an offender myself, in that I find myself being better able to get along with those who were previously from independent or Band 1 schools (God, already from this, I sound like such a snob). In mindsets, interests and personality, we tend to be more similar and PSYC1014 theorises that the most salient determinants of attraction in a friendship are similarity, proximity and reciprocity.

Digressing into another bothersome topic -
Being so caught up with dance lately has brought up some repressed issues I have with it back to the surface. Intense feelings of inferiority is one thing, but there is so much about the social dynamics in dance groups that make me feel uncomfortable. What I don't understand about myself is why I feel so bothered about not being more proactive. Why do I keep feeling like I have to do something?

I have a lab report due on Friday and have been telling myself over the past three hours that I should really work on it but I've been distracted by Eurovision entries, chain YouTube-ing Finnish music, watching live performances of Combichrist's What the F**k isWrong with You, being sidetracked by recordings of Aesthetic Perfection, Uberbyte and Surgyn from The Talking Heads and participating in discussions about the lab report over the Facebook group for the cohort.

And then I noticed another pattern -- men in black muscle tees. That's all.

Monday, 20 February 2012

10:36

Songs on my mind:

Calgary by Bon Iver
She's So Hard by The Jezabels
July Flame by Laura Veirs
In this Shirt by The Irrepressibles

These feelings of vulnerability and instability is driving me nuts. Shouldn't the effect of paracetafuckingmol wear out by now?! If you're interested, click on the titles of the songs. I'd linked them to their respective YouTube videos.

Sunday, 19 February 2012

19:29

Everything was fine yesterday, until the extra dance class in the evening. The thing about me and dance is that it will always eventually come to this point where I can't balance out the bitterness and the passion for it. Sometimes, it feels like everything just turns horrendous and all I'm filled with is dread. Also, it could possibly be because it reminds me of things I've been trying to push out of my mind. When I'm deprived of it, I miss it. When I'm submerged in it, I hate it because I don't know how to cope with all the things that come with it. The preoccupation with image. The paranoia of screwing up. The paranoia of sticking out like a sore thumb. The paranoia of inferiority. The paranoia of how everyone's thinking of sticking knives in your back. The paranoia of being an absolute fool. The phobia of exclusion and isolation.

And then I had a headache, because there was so much noise inside and outside of my head. 6h of rehearsals today was difficult to cope so I gave in and took a paracetamol pill. Bad decision. Since the over-dosage stint last year, whenever I take paracetamol, breathing, walking and talking starts getting effortful. It later lifts me into a manic state, coupled with incoherence, impatience and impulsion. From the height of it all, it embarks on a downward spiral into hopelessness, self-loathing and heightened anxiety. The thoughts, worries and musical phrases buzzing about in the head, like liquid, they spill over.

I feel like. But I can't. And I shouldn't.

The only thing I really ever struggle with is myself.

I really should try and sleep it off.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

10:48

I feel content right now. Well, carried over from yesterday, really. Grades for the poster assignment from Semester 1's PSYC1015 were out last Thursday and I'm pretty happy with the grade. Contemporary dance class turned me into a gushing teenage girl (ironically, I'm turning twenty under two months). The gushing became an excuse to talk to friends and reconnect with them, albeit over Skype/MSN. The group conversation with Li Zhi and Jia Ying was probably the best perk-me-up that had happened. I'm done with the CRB check and can probably get started on the whole volunteering scheme soon. There are rehearsals later and for the most of tomorrow. I am tired, but it's okay. Friends are drawing up lists of recommended places for Norway, Finland and Denmark. All I need is someone who's familiar with Sweden now. I hope my Scandinavian Easter's going to work out.

I feel hopeful.