Having 3 more tests to go, I, along with tens of thousands of other students across New South Wales are nearing the end of our 4-week HSC ordeal.
I wouldn't call myself liberated though, because while the HSC process has been gruelling, challenging and many times cruel and unforgiving, it is an experience that has played an albeit minor, yet still significant role in shaping who I am and what I stand for and what I believe 'education' is and should be.
So I will miss the routine and stability of the HSC, but I won't be left longing for it.
I did enjoy the HSC, but it did not make me happy.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Still in the HSC
It's 2:08am, Extension Engish is technically tomorrow and I thought I'd type up something quickly.
I just finished watching all 8 episodes of Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High, and it had me thinking about the state of government-funded public schools. More specifically, thinking about Lilley's character Jonah, should academic excellence and intellectual progress be prioritised above an individual's emotional and social development? Does one lead to another? And why does the same schooling system produce different students?
I just finished watching all 8 episodes of Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High, and it had me thinking about the state of government-funded public schools. More specifically, thinking about Lilley's character Jonah, should academic excellence and intellectual progress be prioritised above an individual's emotional and social development? Does one lead to another? And why does the same schooling system produce different students?
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Day #3 of Jillian's 30 Day Shred
So I've been doing this workout program for 3 days. It's 30 minutes of Jillian Michaels shouting at you to keep jumping and squat lower and push harder; I like it because I think her voice is sexy and also because I like imagining myself as a 200 kilogram Biggest Loser competitor about to break their ankles from all the butt kicks and jumping jacks (she doesn't call them 'star jumps', possibly because of its juvenile sounding name- I have a theory you burn 27% less fat doing star jumps than jumping jacks)
I know my body well, and I put on muscle easily (though it's possibly more MuscleBob BuffPants, less Popeye), with the ensuing result being more muscle mass around the biceps and thighs - this is perfect for that S size bodycon I bought off the internet!
Just kidding, I don't buy bodycons off the internet.
I think if you've done Blogilates, Level 1 should be a breeze.
We'll see how I go
Day #8: She crumbles in my hand
The other day, as opposed to just the day, I ventured out on a school night, and found myself in a reclining sofa sitting next to my elusive cousin in a dimly lit gold-class cinema.
Being the first-world, gold-class snob that I was raised to believe that I would never be, I ordered a heap of gold-class food in the belief that I would get ripped off. Over-ordering was be the answer to under-providing.
Who knew that the amount of food you recieve is proportianate to the amount of food you order.
After a main course of lots of fried food and a weird stinky blue cheese dip, dessert sundaes arrived, as promised, "half an hour after the main course, please". They were the size of my stomach. They were the size of two of my stomachs, if you ripped them open and placed them side by side, stretching them so that they covered as much surface area as possible, like if their stomachy life depended on it they could stretch to cover the universe in dark coverings of never-sun and stomach acid.
They were big.
And we ordered two of them.
And I sat in the dark cinema, trying to spoon moist chocolate brownies and vanilla bean ice cream and candied walnuts and chocolatey choclate ice cream and the richest fudge sauce I've ever tasted into my mouth and down into a stomach already bloated with sweet potatoe fries and buffalo wings.
And my mouth said no.
It was strange.
So strange! I've never said no to food!
I was always disappointed when people said they were too sick to eat something; I've always assumed they had tiny stomachs or were cowards. (Being craven is a big thing in Spartan society okay).
But I felt sick halway through the sundae. I felt sick two-thirds through the sundae. By the end of the sundae, I stopped feeling things.
Just finish it!
Never!
Just do it!
It's too much!
You're a wuss!
Your mother would be disappointed!
By the time I left the cinema, I left a slice of brownie and two wafer sticks floating in shallow pool of melted chocolate mess. I left with my head down and ashamed, walking quickly so that the waiters who cleared the plate wouldn't look over and hiss at me and shoot at me shame rays through their sharp red eyes. But no waiters came, and I left the cinema with a mournful look and raised eyebrows, and I whispered to the sundae,
I'll come back for you.
Should I feel bad for leaving uneaten food?
Doesn't the argument go that since the food is already dead, it's okay to waste it? Because it's already dead? Why not waste some more!
The foods for thoughts never left my mind; even after a few days, it sat, heavy, lonely, annoying, in my mind.
Day #9: Tats
It began in the junior years.
My last name, badly drawn in an poor-effort calligraphical style on my left wrist.
My Chinese last name, scribbled hastily, missing a stroke. Making it not really my last name, but a weird derivative of it. So it really wasn't my last name.
And so I picked it up again. Diamonds was my first idea. The shiny ugly diamonds, with lots of thick lines in black.
Then faces with their tongues sticking out, proper patterns too big to fit onto my wrist.
The next day, I kept the ugly diamond design. Each day I kept it, it got uglier and uglier. I liked it like that, when I looked at it, woke up in the morning, it was there but ugly, almost-permanent and ugly.
So when I tried washing it off, I don't know why I wasn't surprised when I found faint blue lines that refused to slide off my wrist, even with the scrubbing of soap and blasting of hot water.
I guess real tattoos are harder to wash off.
Welcome back!
It's 1:05am and my History Extension exam is tomorrow, but I felt the sudden late-night urge to open up my old blog again.
I'm fighting the urge to delete my old posts and to start anew, but there's something so poorly written and pathetically funny about them that I've decided against such action.
Dammit if this is Normal font size, then it's too small. I have the inner workings of a cranky 70-year-old. Or a 4 year-old, depending on which one is more tolerable and will make you more money as they age.
And so having gotten a few things off my chest, and my pride and curiosity satiated, I leave with this:
I'm fighting the urge to delete my old posts and to start anew, but there's something so poorly written and pathetically funny about them that I've decided against such action.
Dammit if this is Normal font size, then it's too small. I have the inner workings of a cranky 70-year-old. Or a 4 year-old, depending on which one is more tolerable and will make you more money as they age.
And so having gotten a few things off my chest, and my pride and curiosity satiated, I leave with this:
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Today today
Watching them.
Watching them together.
Watching them acting like minded, intelligent, self-absorbed, addictive, taking in each other's presence, soaking in each other's presence, swapping presences, unaware.
Unaware of being watched.
Watching them builds up a slow emotion inside, watching them eat lunch, swap lunches, eat lunch, swap back again.
Watching them brings another persona, fitting me nicely, draping her velvetty, itchy drapes over me, heavier than a drape and lighter than silk, still fitting nicely.
They are addictive.
Watching them is addictive, as I, in my consciousness, conjure up their conversings, their laughs, unspoken hate.
Everything unspoken between them is loud, clear. I see it in their faces, the way their lips twitch, the way they don't try to hide the expressions that their eyebrows give away.
I should stop watching them, I say to myself, rolling the words over my tongue. I should stop watching them.
But I need them, just how I don't need them, but still do, I tell outside services.
But the outside services are them.
They wouldn't know.
They don't know.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
It's raining again
It's only so funny how my mood changes within my context, circumstance, environment.
Today, I watched a girl cry.
Face crinkling, tears raining down her face. Tears of hatred, frustrations, tears of pure and concentrated liquid unhappiness ceeping slowly down her soft cheeks, clawing skin, leaving a slimy train.
I didn't wake up in the morning for this, she muttered. Her breathing got heavier, chest heaving, mind heaving, eyes clouded, judgement clouded, no longer thinking. Just... tried not thinking. The more she thought, the harder and faster and heavier the tears flew down.
Why was she crying? Why are you crying, I asked. What's wrong? You can tell me. I can keep secrets. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Look at that flying money wearing a black, starry witches hat! Don't bottle it in. Vent it out. It's okay to cry. Let it out. Here, have a tissue, blow it out.
And when I tried everything, her head turned towards me, and my eyes found hers, a messy, sad, dark abyss.
My head turned higher, and I looked at the sky. The sky was raining.
I looked back at this girl again. Her eyes were dry.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
/Fin
This piece of writing came about as I was cleaning out and sorting through the inboxes of all my 9 different email accounts, a job which I thought would take me a few hours at the most, but which has actually taken me my entire weekend. I got to my last inbox, deleting all the e-newsletters from Microsoft and Westfield and Nyan Cats Anonymous when I stumbled upon two very old, very very old, old old old emails. The story picks up from there.
My cursor hovered over two grey checkboxes. After each click, a tick appeared in each checkbox, before my cursor moved to a small button with a trash can on it.
Click.
"Are you sure?
Yes/No"
A momentary hesitation, a million thoughts about what could've and would've and might as well have been rushed past my eyes, before I firmly pressed down on the mouse button.
Click.
I was exposed to Neopets in primary school, and it toyed around in my life. Then I started high school, and in and out it crept and jumped, sometimes lunging itself at me, other times it would curl and rub softly around my legs until I noticed it. I have never done drugs, but I imagine this is what drugs would feel like; being addicted and wanting more from it one day, over a few days, a week or two, sometimes even a month. Then more pressing matters would press unto me, and press they would until I was completely absorbed into these pressing matters and Neopets would fade into the gentle abysses of my mind, just sitting there, conversing with my ex primary school crushes and my favourite Bratz Dolls, waiting for a small row boat called Reminiscence to row past it and notice it. Then it would start again.
I'd log on straight after school. Straight after school. As straight as you could get after donning a change of clothes, a cup of tea and settling down into the soft, cool leather couch that clung to your skin like memory foam. The bright yellow homepage would greet me,
Welcome, super_evil_faerie!*
* You can still find my profile on the website, along with that_hyper_kid. Yes, I've been told that my usernames just screams maturity.
Then I would open a separate tab with The Daily Neopets on it and complete all the virtual tasks it had instructed me to do in order my maximise my Neopoints (virtual Neopet currency) for the day , as well as increasing my chances of winning the super-elusive rare paintbrushes that served no real purpose other that to "paint" my Neopet, thus giving them a new coat of colour, or pattern (A classic red Kacheek? How about a dark blue Kacheek with yellow stars?! Because having a Neopet that slightly resembled the night sky was real showcase of just how much I was to succeed in the real world).**
** I never got my hands on a rare paintbrush. Dam.
Cute but impractical. If I were a pirate I'd least put some pants on.
I knew I was addicted after logging in consecutively for a week, but there was nothing to reprimand me. I was still performing well in school, finishing homework and assignments on time, eating lunch with my friends, giving year 7s the massivest dirties I could conjure up on my tired face. If I'm doing so well, why should I stop?
My great realisation came in the shower (as they all do). Wait, what?! Neopets isn't real?! What do you mean after highschool I won't be able to work as a Kitchen Hand in my guild, Food for Thought? That when I actually get a safety deposit box, my highly prized plushie of King Altador won't be sitting there? That I don't actually have 31 million dollars in the bank?
This hurt me.
All that I had virtually worked for.
All of my virtual toys I collected, virtual clothes, virtual glass jars with coloured sand in them, virutal trophies I won, virtual shops I ran, virtual money I diligently collected everyday, virtual friends I befriended, virtual forums on secret methods of diligently collecting more money everyday, were virtually useless in the real life.And from that day on, I promised I would never work so hard for something that wouldn't directly benefit myself.
And of course I benefited from Neopets. I felt immense amounts of joy in collecting interest from the bank and seeing the number of Neopoints rise in my account, from noticing someone had bought an item from my 1NP shop, from reading a book to my Kacheek to see its intelligence rise. And my favourite joy of Neopets, the avatars.***
*** You get avatars from completing pre-determined tasks on Neopets. These tasks range from easy to impossible, from no NP to millions of NP.
Everytime I gained a new avatar, I felt a voice in my head say,
I'm better than the rest of you.
What was it about this virtual picture that I could display to others that made me so happy? I don't know. Maybe it's because I really was better than everyone else, and I just needed someone to tell me. Maybe not. Most probably not.
My current avatar. Yup. Still better than everyone else.
I needed to move on. I have the HSC ahead of me, (or realisatically back when I played, year 9 yearly exams) which is a pressing matter which presses unto me like an iron press. As much as I enjoyed my time with Neopets, it's time to move on. Maybe I'll play again when I'm retired as ex-Prime Minister of Australia and living under the Harbour Bridge, but for now I have other hobbies that I'd like to work on. Such as making the perfect macaron, or juggling.
And so I logged into my email address associated with my Neopets account, and found the two emails with VITAL INFORMATION Do Not Lose This Email! that I was looking for. One holding my username super_evil_faerie and its password, the other that_hyper_kid and its password.
I checkboxed the two emails, clicked the trash can. And as the previous joy of Neopets came flooding back to me, like a very quick flood, not the traditional slow-rain-let's-evacuate-the-town flood, more of a tsunami-wave-coming!!!-flood, I chose Yes.
Then I started discovered Sorority Life on Facebook.
My cursor hovered over two grey checkboxes. After each click, a tick appeared in each checkbox, before my cursor moved to a small button with a trash can on it.
Click.
"Are you sure?
Yes/No"
A momentary hesitation, a million thoughts about what could've and would've and might as well have been rushed past my eyes, before I firmly pressed down on the mouse button.
Click.
I was exposed to Neopets in primary school, and it toyed around in my life. Then I started high school, and in and out it crept and jumped, sometimes lunging itself at me, other times it would curl and rub softly around my legs until I noticed it. I have never done drugs, but I imagine this is what drugs would feel like; being addicted and wanting more from it one day, over a few days, a week or two, sometimes even a month. Then more pressing matters would press unto me, and press they would until I was completely absorbed into these pressing matters and Neopets would fade into the gentle abysses of my mind, just sitting there, conversing with my ex primary school crushes and my favourite Bratz Dolls, waiting for a small row boat called Reminiscence to row past it and notice it. Then it would start again.
I'd log on straight after school. Straight after school. As straight as you could get after donning a change of clothes, a cup of tea and settling down into the soft, cool leather couch that clung to your skin like memory foam. The bright yellow homepage would greet me,
Welcome, super_evil_faerie!*
* You can still find my profile on the website, along with that_hyper_kid. Yes, I've been told that my usernames just screams maturity.
Then I would open a separate tab with The Daily Neopets on it and complete all the virtual tasks it had instructed me to do in order my maximise my Neopoints (virtual Neopet currency) for the day , as well as increasing my chances of winning the super-elusive rare paintbrushes that served no real purpose other that to "paint" my Neopet, thus giving them a new coat of colour, or pattern (A classic red Kacheek? How about a dark blue Kacheek with yellow stars?! Because having a Neopet that slightly resembled the night sky was real showcase of just how much I was to succeed in the real world).**
** I never got my hands on a rare paintbrush. Dam.
Cute but impractical. If I were a pirate I'd least put some pants on.
I knew I was addicted after logging in consecutively for a week, but there was nothing to reprimand me. I was still performing well in school, finishing homework and assignments on time, eating lunch with my friends, giving year 7s the massivest dirties I could conjure up on my tired face. If I'm doing so well, why should I stop?
My great realisation came in the shower (as they all do). Wait, what?! Neopets isn't real?! What do you mean after highschool I won't be able to work as a Kitchen Hand in my guild, Food for Thought? That when I actually get a safety deposit box, my highly prized plushie of King Altador won't be sitting there? That I don't actually have 31 million dollars in the bank?
This hurt me.
All that I had virtually worked for.
All of my virtual toys I collected, virtual clothes, virtual glass jars with coloured sand in them, virutal trophies I won, virtual shops I ran, virtual money I diligently collected everyday, virtual friends I befriended, virtual forums on secret methods of diligently collecting more money everyday, were virtually useless in the real life.And from that day on, I promised I would never work so hard for something that wouldn't directly benefit myself.
And of course I benefited from Neopets. I felt immense amounts of joy in collecting interest from the bank and seeing the number of Neopoints rise in my account, from noticing someone had bought an item from my 1NP shop, from reading a book to my Kacheek to see its intelligence rise. And my favourite joy of Neopets, the avatars.***
*** You get avatars from completing pre-determined tasks on Neopets. These tasks range from easy to impossible, from no NP to millions of NP.
Everytime I gained a new avatar, I felt a voice in my head say,
I'm better than the rest of you.
What was it about this virtual picture that I could display to others that made me so happy? I don't know. Maybe it's because I really was better than everyone else, and I just needed someone to tell me. Maybe not. Most probably not.
My current avatar. Yup. Still better than everyone else.
I needed to move on. I have the HSC ahead of me, (or realisatically back when I played, year 9 yearly exams) which is a pressing matter which presses unto me like an iron press. As much as I enjoyed my time with Neopets, it's time to move on. Maybe I'll play again when I'm retired as ex-Prime Minister of Australia and living under the Harbour Bridge, but for now I have other hobbies that I'd like to work on. Such as making the perfect macaron, or juggling.
And so I logged into my email address associated with my Neopets account, and found the two emails with VITAL INFORMATION Do Not Lose This Email! that I was looking for. One holding my username super_evil_faerie and its password, the other that_hyper_kid and its password.
I checkboxed the two emails, clicked the trash can. And as the previous joy of Neopets came flooding back to me, like a very quick flood, not the traditional slow-rain-let's-evacuate-the-town flood, more of a tsunami-wave-coming!!!-flood, I chose Yes.
Then I started discovered Sorority Life on Facebook.
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