Saturday, September 27, 2003

recent...(part 2)

recent activities: mugging. project work. sleeping for unnaturally long periods of time and thus staying up for unnaturally long periods of time as well.

recent INTERESTING activities: none that i can think of.

recent thoughts: finals...die die die. physics...die. bio...die. chem...die. gp...double die. malay...err...phooey. how can some people sleep for unnaturally short periods of time and stay up longer than unnaturally long periods of time, and do nothing but mug during those waking hours???

recent solutions thought to recent thoughts: some people are just...unnatural.

recent misadventures: fell on the stairs. again. clumsy me.

recent pleasant surprises: the hostel is providing us specially nice food every friday...starting with last week, when nasi lemak was on the menu. yum. =P must have been that survey we did...all of us made a conscious effort to condemn the food...hahaha.

things to do after promos:
1. buy a paperback
2. clean my room. as in REALLY clean it
3. eat crepes at plaza singapura
4. throw away my project work stuff
5. exercise
6. MOVIE MARATHON!!!
7. go to the zoo, botanical gardens, science centre...in other words, be a tourist
8. write letters
9. read tonnes of rubbish magazines and fiction
10. GO HOME!

countdown: 12 days till end of finals, 21 days till end of project work written report, less than 2 months till end of project work (whoopee!), 2 months till i go home. =)

lishun at 7:06 PM

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Tuesday, September 16, 2003

mistaken identity

yup, it's back to the hell hole for me. after a week's worth of blissful idleness, i'm back to college, back to work, and back to a possibility of screwing up my finals. but i shall not whine. if i do screw up it's my fault.

talking about screwups, my father was somewhat involved in a mistaken identity screwup by one of the ministries in malaysia. you see, he needed a "good citizen" letter to secure his new job in macau and so, like a good citizen, he applied for one and left for the island.

his letter never came.

so, my mum called up the ministry...and was shocked to learn that his application was *horror* rejected! good gracious. must admit that i was shocked too. my father - faithful government servant till 10 years ago and who returned to government service for 2 years (i think) before his new position in macau - a criminal?

that's so absolutely absurd!!!

after a whole day of anxiety, my mum called up bukit aman, got hold of a police whatchamacallit guy who told her that he also felt it "odd" for a distinguished gentleman like my father to have a criminal record. turns out there's some dude out there with the same name who's been naughty and his records were mixed up with my dad's.

right.

the first questions that come to mind are: did they bother to check with the IC numbers, which was the most sensible thing to do? no. did they bother to recheck the files since they found it "odd"? no.

it was a very good thing my mother called them up asap or else a letter of rejection would have been issued and my dad would have to go through a painful appeal plus risk his job. in the end, after much bugging and rushing, my mum got the letter - which consisted of a paragraph stating that my dad had "no adverse records" with the government - in her hands 4 days from when she recieved the shocking news that my father was not a "good citizen".

the ordeal left my mother rather drained, and it was rather painful for me to see her go through it, without being able to be of much help. it made me think about how everything could have easily been avoided had they either checked my father's records using his IC rather than his name (how absurd!) or double checked when the pieces clearly did not fit.

it's just a case of when you think "certain people" could not screw up any worse, they just go and prove you wrong.

special thanks to the guy at bukit aman who helped calm my mother down, and also to the lady at the ministry who was patient enough to endure my mum's bugging.

(tagboard's still up. click "past".)

lishun at 10:08 PM

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Monday, September 08, 2003

my fears

while watching "fear factor" last night with my cousins, one of them, gezzel, asked me what is it i fear most. i came up with a list, and the history behind them as well. i know this isn't my usual "rant and rave" kind of entry, but i'm home, life's good (kinda), and there isn't anything to rant and rave about.

anyway...enjoy your peek into the darkest corners of my mind...

fear of knives

there isn't a proper phobia term for this. there isn't even a term that comes close. that made me wonder, am i the only one who's got a phobia of knives?

i'm not really sure as to what triggered my fear of knives. according to my "kai kor", i showed this fear from a very young age. i would whimper and look scared whenever anyone draws a knife, even if it's just to cut up a watermelon. nowadays, i always tell li li to point that knife elsewhere whenever she's cutting up fruit. i would panic when cutting fruit myself.

several theories as to why i react this way to anything with a blade and handle include me being cut badly when i was still young (no scars as evidence though), saw someone get cut badly, or, this is morbid, witnessed a murder where someone was slit in the throat or something.

yikes.

fear of papercuts

once more, there isn't a proper medical term for this condition, making me feel that maybe it's something unique to me. the likeliest reason i'm so afraid of papercuts is prob cuz i got alot of papercuts. i scares me to see a deep, thin, cut with blood oozing out of it, but not actually seeing the wound itself. maybe it's the fear of things that i can only see partially. i'm a very visual person (like 99.9% of the world's population), so naturally i am scared of things i can't see totally.

some really morbid thoughts i have related to papercuts is slitting my throat or wrists with papercuts and bleeding to death.

it's making me squirm just to write about it.

fear of heights

acrophobia, altophobia, batophobia, hypsiphobia or hyposophobia. this phobia is so common it even has 5 names! for different situations, no doubt, but it shows exactly how un-unique this fear is.

my fear of heights is somewhat choosy when it comes to "expressing itself" (what a way to put it...my gp tutor would definitely slap a red "WC" for word choice on that phrase). there are times when walking across a pedestrian bridge is no problem for me, and at other times, that simple act can reduce me to a green-faced, nauseous mess.

but i guess it boils down to not looking down.

as to how i got this fear...i have no idea. i can't pinpoint exactly when i started becoming dizzy every time i look down from a height of 2 stories and above, but i do remember a time when height did not bother me at all. it's odd, i know, but i guess things just happen.

fear of being alone

autophobia, eremophobia, eremiphobia or isolophobia.

i remember as a child being absolutely terrified if i found myself alone in the house. i would then call out to my grandmother loudly, shouting "ah ma! ah ma!" until she gives me a reassuring "oi!" in return. nowadays, although i enjoy my solitude, i still feel a bit more comfy in the company of others, even if it means being in a crowd of strangers.

i also have this chronic fear of all my family members dying before my eyes, and me being left all alone. or my friends, slowly drifting further away from me and eventually leaving me as a lone figure with myself as company. i have a fear of living alone, dying alone, with the priest as the only person at my funeral. morbid thoughts, but very real fears.

maybe that's why i crave for the friendship of people and become bitterly disappointed when my feelings for people are not recipocrated. i'm just a social creature of the highest degree.

having all these fears just reinstates the fact that i am but human and somehow they keep me grounded. i have other fears that are not quite so physical, and those fears are far too intense to be shared.

quite alot goes on in the darker corners of lishun's mind, and most of it is not meant to be shared.

(comments welcome on the tagboard. it's two entries before this. tag away!)

lishun at 9:49 PM

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