Goodbye 2014

Lame title, I know..

It's been a boring year. Yeah, I'm complaining again, I know. A friend phrased how she's doing as "Could have been better, but I'm thankful", which is one perfect way to describe it, I guess. 

Two years ago I was sitting alone in my living room back in Akasia, alone, because all of my housemates were already asleep. I welcomed my new year by writing down some new year resolutions. I still vividly remember that day, the sound of the fan, and the complete silence (no fireworks around). None of the new year resolutions were achieved. Right now I'm just here, in a small green room, had a hearty meal with (half of) my family a few hours back, and I can't say that I'm not happy.

I'm not living the dream, I'm not doing anything significant with my life, but at least this year I have everything that some people out there might be asking for.

I've grown cynical, I've felt that I'm "too righteous, too rigid to believe" this year. It's not the best year in terms of my relationship with people in general. I still struggle a lot even to get out of my house and to be seen by neighbours and family friends. It's a constant struggle but I hope it gets better soon. I'm learning to love myself, my self-image and my weaknesses, but it's a bit hard when you don't even have compassion for the people around you. At some point this year I've lost all my love for people. At some point, admittedly, I believed there's nothing bad about not making any effort to take care of people's feelings. So what if I hate. So what if I say something bad.

Love still wins though. It still wins.

However, I'm not being hopeful in building new friendships. Of course I have new friends, but it's not the thing I cling to the most now. I don't think I'll be clinging to grades too, although maybe I might be upset if my previous exam marks dwindle. Failure is definitely not my biggest fear any longer--it still is scary but it's not as bad as some other things. Another friend told me that "our past shortcomings can come back to haunt our thoughts and emotions." He's speaking the truth, because right now I can talk about it as if it didn't almost kill me, but in a few days I know it's going to haunt me again in a way or another. It's a constant battle, and I'm okay with that, I guess.

There's nothing much I dream to achieve this year. No more "flying", no more big stuffs. Having a terrible cough for weeks makes me realise that good health is one of the things that matter most. Family is too, because having only one day to reunite with all of my family members makes me think of how unappreciative we could be. 

On a happier note, I'm saving up for a violin and if I could still keep the same amount of interest that I'm having since early this year, I'm planning to buy it by March. I could save up for a smartphone instead but having a crappy old phone that lags is an okay thing to live with, since I don't really care about phones anyway. 

I guess that's all I have to say. It's not an important, philosophical post. It's just something that I would love to reread and cringe at next year, I guess. Happy new year, and honestly I'm too scared to hope for anything good in the future, but I hope next year won't be too bad for you and me.

Thanks for sticking with me even after all that had happened, even after I cursed like shit. I'll try to be a better version of myself, not for you to like me, but for me to like myself and not feel inadequate when seeing any of you guys next time. I have no idea on who's reading (I ditched the tracker thingy about a year ago!) so yeah, you're counted, if you've read this final paragraph.

Hey, Hey It's Fine

Every single day I just can't stop thinking what kind of monster I have become and I can't just tell myself that "Hey, hey, it's fine."

I mean...who would have thought that being bad is actually not easy.

I tried being good once. It was hard. So I thought being bad is easier.

It's not. It's so hard to live with guilt. It's harder than being trampled on for being nice.

2014 is ending soon and I still can't figure a single good thing that I've done this year. Makes me sad that I wasted one whole year by hurting so many people around me, and I wish I had the guts and humility to say sorry.

But no, I'm too proud to admit I was being an ass unpleasant person.

Day 39476970. Still feeling guilty about the college incident. Still not having any guts to get back to school next year. Still regretting that I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

I Feel Like Writing..

I've been blogwalking on my own blog (oh, how narcissistic..) and I realised that time really passes by so quickly.

Thespeechlessdustbin has been a blog with redundant posts about failure, disappointment, and depression. 2014 is almost ending but I strongly think that nothing will ever change--not at least in one or two or three years. The pessimist inside of me (yes, it's inside me, not just a side of me) says that this will continue to be the dustbin of my emotions.

Since I'm in a good mood to write tonight, I guess I'll just write whatever that comes into my mind.

First of all, I'm quite happy with the pathway that I've chosen.

By saying the pathway, what I truly mean is that I'm happy with my current life goal. Four to eight years ago my goal was to become a doctor, and now I no longer give a shit about that life goal. Shows how much I'm not fit to become one in the first place haha. For that, I am actually thankful that the road suddenly changed direction.

However, I admit that I am frequently disturbed by the guilt that I'm sure I'll have to carry for the rest of my life. Guilt number one is the taxpayers' money. I scold myself every single night for this and I still can't get over it. Guilt number two is that I'm getting older and I wasted my years. I no longer feel guilty for disappointing my parents, which is good, because I know they love me no matter what my achievements are. I just have to stay like me (ie. dont kill myself, don't do drugs, don't follow a bad guy etc.) and one day I can show them that their sacrifices are worth it.

And what I'm not happy about is that my current environtment is really testing my patience. If last time, in Intec, my main concern was about finding my self-worth, waking up everyday to not feel like a loser, well now, it's a complicated business. Now my concern is more about the people around me. How I struggle each day to dodge through people who I'll never understand. And right now my true struggle is to shut up and try to be a wallflower instead of a smartass because I admit, each day I struggle to not feel superior. Heard of a quote saying that "If you think you're the smartest in the room, you're in the wrong room"? Well that's enough to make me feel that perhaps I chose the wrong place.

I'm not saying that I'm the smartest. But then each day I struggle to not start a debate with a tutor, to inform them that they got the concept wrong, to remind them that they give breaks for tooooo long per class, and I pay for the class man, so just teach and don't cheat on my money. I want to correct them nicely when they say "independence" instead of "interdependence" and I often feel restless in class. The girl next to me is watching a Korean show on her phone. The class is wild. No one wants to learn.

No wonder Mike Rosenberg dropped out of school when he was 16.

And there were two main highlights of last semester (that recently ended) which really broke my heart and caused me to analyse my thoughts.

Number one, I gave a negative evaluation to a tutor. Evaluations are supposed to be confidential, but not this one. I literally bashed a tutor and they wanted to know my identity. Who would've thought that I could be so heartless? It's been weeks and I still bash myself for being so stupid and senseless and heartless for being too honest.

I almost apologised personally during the last class, but the tutor bashed me back openly (in a subtle way of course) so I changed my mind.

Now I've made not only one, but two (and possibly more) enemies in college.

Another tutor badmouthed me saying that I'm a snobbish person who thinks I'm too smart to be in that college, which I find amusing and stupid and pure evil at the same time. However, deep down, (not really deep down), I'm pretty confident it was partly because of the evaluation incident, so deep down (again, not really deep down), I think I deserve being badmouthed anyway.

So this tutor accused me of reading a book while he was teaching.

Again, other people were playing with their expensive phones, some were staring blankly at the wall, and I, who put some effort to listen, check the facts from the textbook, and copy, was the bad person. How unfortunate.

And day by day I listen to friends who talk about friends and how friends are rude to a tutor while friends themselves are rude. Dang. The cycle. That cycle.

Enough with the story of the semester. It still makes me examine my morals though, to be honest. I truly regret that I gave the negative evaluation, I really do, but I hate them, I hate the system, I hate the politics for betraying my rights to be heard and my rights to remain confidential as agreed beforehand. So I'm trapped in between pretending that I don't know anything (or I don't give a damn) and I know my mistakes and I should humble myself, apologise, and we should live happily ever after and I could graduate well from that place and be the kid who pleases everyone.

But then this past year has shown me how innocence and any attempts to be humble might actually harm an individual. Sometimes I feel like I've lost all of my innocence and nice thoughts about people. How I wish the people here are like the people in Intec.

So yeah, I'm a lot more heartless now. It would be weird to meet up or catch up with Intec friends because I no longer feel like one of them. I'm actually scared, but I'm trying my best to just ignore all these stuff. I no longer know myself. It's confusing.

Other than that, there's actually not much of any other updates. It's a boring journey but I'm tyring to make it interesting and remember that I'm lucky to have the time with my family.

I'd welcome any thoughts or opinion about my situation if any of you think that I shouldn't have done what I've done. Help me become a better person. Help me to learn from my mistakes. Help me to live a peaceful and happy life.

Sorry, I just had to make a stupid joke.

December Book Haul

First of all, I'm excitedddddd because my holiday has just started. Exam was OK then ended in a terrifying way (I didn't study hard enough for the last paper, I admit) and now I am no longer confident of getting the cash I always dreamt of if you get into the Dean's List. Bye bye keyboards (the musical instrument, not the one you use for typing).

Anyway because of exam (and the absence of my third sister who always became my driver), I had to postpone my plans of going to this book fair which actually started a few weeks back. A bit sad to think of because I'm sure all the good and popular titles must have been purchased by those who visited earlier.

I kept a mindset about budgeting before setting off (I need to save up for Passenger's gig, remember?) so that I could stop becoming that reckless book buyer I used to be. I've decided that life's too short to buy books recklessly (no, the main thing is that MY ROOM IS TOO SMALL) so I need to choose wisely or else I'm going to be one of those book hoarders. 

After a lot of reckless grabbing and emotional let-it-go's, I ended up buying:

What people did not know: I had to let go The Kite Runner, Water for Elephants, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Harlan Coben hardbacks, lots of potential books I failed to discover because I didn't have enough time to search all of the piles--which is one big sad case.

I'm not that sad though. The Kite Runner and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time weren't in really good conditions. I wasn't so sure I'd be enjoying Water for Elephants. And all three can be easily found in Popular bookstores anytime I want if I'm really interested to read them in the future. The hardbacks were still quite pricey (OKayyyyy 10 bucks ain't pricey, but then if I get 10 of them I'd be spending 100 bucks...)

So...I think the ones that I'm really happy about are A Painted House, The Lovely Bones, and Atonement. Andddd Skipping Christmas is in excellent condition (almost illogical to be second-hand!), my mum said maybe it was a Christmas present and the person didn't like it hahaha my mum is the wisest person on earth. It was so beautiful and it's almost Christmas, so yeah, I just had to buy it.

A Painted House is actually a book that I've read before one year ago in Intec (Thank you, Intec library!). It left me with a bittersweet ending so it's like one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I thought I should own a copy because, er, it's like one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Genius idea, right?!

I don't know from where did I first heard about Atonement but then I've always been curious about it. And The Lovely Bones is like always appearing in Goodreads' Listopias so yeah why not.

One Perfect Day is one of the books in my to-read shelf on Goodreads. To be really honest I don't know how did it end up there. I don't even remember when and why did I save it.

The Iliad and The Prince is just one of my stupid efforts to look smart and well-read. Two bucks each, so yeah, just in case I turn into one of those kind of people who reads these kind of things..I better just store them up. It's really hard to find titles like these in my place anyway.

Reading about Writing, British History, and Tales of Mystery and Terror weren't planned but kind of sparked a lot of interest in me (most important of all they're all cheap, 3-5 bucks each) so I decided to just grab them. Reading about Writing was written by a professor from Rutgers, it's quite an old book but then the contents are really interesting and insightful.

British History is a small fat book with a chronology of historical events that happened in Britain since the beginning of time. Sort of like a mini dictionary, and a TL; DR history book. Fun fun funnn.

Tales of Mystery and Terror is a collection of stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. There's this dude on my facebook whom I got to know from a forum donkey years ago (we almost became college mates, I still kept him even when we didn't end up in the same college because I ditched that one for Intec), who seems to be really interested in the works of Poe. So..because I think this dude is cool, I should also check out his favourite author. I know, I'm weird, but then who doesn't check out something because someone else likes it? Haha. The front cover is so damn scary but I'm trying to be brave and put the book far away at night.

I'm quite happy that I found good books today wheeee and there will be one more book fair before the year ends. I feel like going back to this same book fair before it ends because somehow I think I missed a lot of titles in piles that I didn't search though. I'm jealous of those who could go to the Big Bad Wolf sales but then if you can't get what you love, you learn to love the things you've got!

Sorry, I just had to insert those Passenger lyrics in everything that I type.