Wednesday, July 28, 2004

let me see the funky doctor...what's that you say?

if anyone told me before this year that doctors, potential or otherwise, are all either tall and lanky with coke bottle glasses or the average plain jane...i would have believed them. as a *hopefully* potential doctor myself, i felt myself to be in the 2nd category: the plain person with just perhaps that little brighter spark towards helping people through the medical profession.

if anyone told me all that now...i'd laugh.

okay, fine, i've known all along that irritatingly smart people are not nerds. most of my friends are irritatingly smart people and they're the most beautiful, happening people in the world.

but whenever anyone asks me about what i envision a doctor to be, the immediate image that pops into my head is my family doctor: a tall, lanky fellow that looks rather like penang's ketua menteri (head of state), tan sri dr. koh tsu koon. yeah, glasses and all.

how degrading to doctors, i know. not to say my family doctor is not a nice guy (he is, though he still thinks i'm 12), but...oh well, you know what i mean.

and despite the reports from my friends about the absolutely stunning and fascinating people they meet during university admission interviews, tests, and whatnots, that picture of my dear doctor remains firmly stuck in my head.

taking the umat (undergraduate medicine and health sciences admission test) this morning was an eye-opener.

there were so many people, first of all. i kinda expected something like 50 singaporeans. i forgot that singapore is the only available test centre in the asean region. something like 100 people were present for the test.

secondly, the variety of people there was so diverse. there were tall lanky people (hah! i was right!), short petite people, bengs in basketball shoes, the coolest indian dudes i've ever seen, one straw-haired australian who looked like he was going for a walk on the beach, absolutely gorgeous girls, and this chilled guy who came in 15mins late with a golf cap, multiple earrings, and a goatee.

right.

in other words, it was all very...to borrow mun's word, "funky". i mean, i found it terribly interesting. i just wanted to forego the test and just people watch the whole time. you learn alot by simply observing people.

i noticed that all of them looked scarily intelligent in their own unique way. rather intimidating, really. for example, the moment the test started, basketball beng (who was really cute, btw), the typical beng with the spiky hair and "wat-you-looking?" attitude, put his glasses on and went head on into his test looking more like einstein than...a basketball beng!

wow. potential doctors. no wonder people say that the medical faculty can be the nerdiest and the coolest faculty in any university. such a variety of personalities, all with the same aim to get into medical school, do good, and contribute to society.

or at least that's what i hope the common aim is. hmm.

anyway, i must sound super shallow, ignorant and naive to write all this. all i can say is, i sure hope i can make it to australia. i know, from this morning's test, that if i do gain admission, it'll be one helluva interesting 6 years down under.

am putting my trust in God and hoping that my scores will do me good. won't say too much in case i jinx it or anything. wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed for me! =)

lishun at 10:11 PM

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Saturday, July 17, 2004

in the short space

in the short space of one week, everything has changed for me. i have lost almost everything worldly that is important to me.

i have lost part of my freedom. although i am probably my own strictest guardian, with my self-imposed groundings and curfews, i do let myself a little slack, especially since no one else really cares about me here. the only thing people are about here is my report card, and as long as i give them a nice-looking one, i have my freedom.

i have lost my parents' trust. i have been aware that through these 18 months, they have let me make my own decisions. when i chose to take the asean scholarship, they let me go. after getting jpa, they respected my decision to carry on here rather than go back into their arms and study at taylors. when i went home end of last year with a brilliant AAAB for promos and just a slight bug about my physics, my mother offered to ask her lecturer friend to help brush me up, but i refused. and she never brought it up again. now, my parents are practically forcing me to take tuition, something i loathe, and the worst thing is, i know they're right.

i have lost most of my confidence. i am used to being top dog all this time. i am used to being one of the proud, flushed receipients on prize-giving day. and this year, i was but a spectator, watching my peers go up there and smile to the crowd while receiving the white envelope or plaque as a reward for their work. i, on the other hand, have achieved nothing. i never contributed as much to the college as i had wanted to, i didn't achieve the academic excellence i know i am capable of. lishun, the proud one, is forced to be humble and accept that she just isn't that good. the bad news is, my confidence just flew out of the window.

why?

simple, really. it's a case of the bad report card. i've simply not been up to mark. my deterioration has been steady, and if it carries on, i'm not going to cut it to australia. a result slip displaying BBCD is not going to impress anyone. it doesn't impress my friends. it certainly doesn't impress my parents. and i'm hating myself more and more each day because of it.

the pride and resentment are, of course, signs of how weak my character is.

i was incredibly depressed a few days ago. i couldn't sleep although my eyes hurt and i was tired from all the shouting and yelling and crying over the phone with my parents. i knew they were right, and yet the child in me just refused to bow to their advice. you see...i even used the word "bow". that shows just how reluctant i still am, although right after writing this entry, i'm going off for my first physics lesson.

i only have comfort in the knowledge that this is a test from God. note that i described all the things i've lost as worldly. God has simply stripped me of the worldly things i love to drive home the point that i am not meant for worldly things. that my place is in eternity.

He also doesn't put me to a test that i am incapable of passing. the only reason why He's testing me is because He knows i will make it through.

i get the point, Lord. now i can only pray that You will help me through this. because right now, You're the only one i can trust.

lishun at 8:56 PM

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Wednesday, July 07, 2004

believe in thyself

there are times when all you need is someone to believe in you. when you have let yourself down, and you don't believe in yourself anymore.

there are also times when you yourself are the only one who believes you can. when others look at you and think you're hopeless, but you know you have it in you to succeed.

other times, you have the best of both worlds: your self-confidence and also others' confidence in you. that is when you can soar and touch the sky, pluck the stars from the dark canvas above you and reach for eternity.

but what happens when you have all that...and the stars remain out of your grasp, and still elude you no matter how hard you try?

when will exceeds ability, i can tell you that the only thing you really want is for people to stop believing in you. what was once a form of encouragement becomes pressure. that extra light driving you on suddenly becomes a raging fire.

that was how i felt about passing napfa.

last year, i failed, but that was my fault. there was no effort in my training, no effort in doing the test. my teacher knew that, so he did what any good teacher would do: push me harder.

this year, i passed the 2.4km run, shaving a full minute off my previous test time. and it was because each time i felt my body giving up on me, my teacher would yell, "lishun...RUN!" across the field. it made me angry, because i've never done well on the track, but that anger drove me on. the frustration i felt each time he called to me made me cry, but i ran harder.

and i passed.

i had my first breakdown this year. early this year, i weighed in as overweight and found myself in a compulsory morning run programme. that, coupled with my failure to improve my fitness, drove me to the edge.

i'm not used to having my efforts being "not enough". my best has always been good enough, and it was tough to finally come face to face with a situation where everything i did wasn't sufficient.

after getting out of the programme (rather unhealthily...but i was stressed!), napfa came looming at me again. as i mentioned, i passed the run, and barely passed everything else...except the jump.

and still my teacher wouldn't give up on me. i really wished he would. i wished he'd look at me and think, "she can't pass, and she never will".

but he didn't. and that pissed me off.

it brought that familiar anger and frustration that came with every PE lesson. i totally broke down in tears when faced with the possibility of having to repeat the entire test again. it was the first time my irrationality took over. the first time my head lost the battle.

and he still didn't give up on me.

i didn't achieve the standard required for girls to pass. but i did get a bronze for fitness, with alot and alot of help from my teacher. he didn't tweak my scores, and he never gave up on me.

i hate him for that, but i'm also immensely grateful at the same time.

thanks, mr ong. you really are our dear gto.

lishun at 10:12 PM

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Sunday, July 04, 2004

mirror

i've been writing poetry for a long time, mostly silly, corny lyrics about unrequited love. but it's only recently that i've turned to reading poetry. funny isn't it?

well, one poet that really stood out from the rest is rainer maria rilke. i've encountered him too many times this year for me to ignore him, and i finally picked up a copy of "the selected poetry of rainer maria rilke", edited and translated by stephen mitchell, who is hailed to be the best translator of rilke's works (rilke's original work is in german and, later, french).

there was an introduction on rilke by robert hass, and he wrote about rilke as an extraordinary solitary, who chose to live inside the emptiness and longing inside of us, instead of looking to fill it, like what most of us would do. rilke's look on human relationships is really unusual, but he wrote alot on mirroring.

i haven't quite figured out what he means about mirroring, but there's a poem i read, "the last evening", that included the lines:

...he looked across at her
almost as one might gaze into a mirror:
so deeply was her every feature filled
with his young features, which bore his pain and were
more beautiful and seductive with each sound.


now, i'm still the shallow person i am. when i first got the *ting* revelation that the reason why i write poetry is because of that basic longing in each of us, i thought about what it is that we are longing for.

love? fortune? fame? acknowledgement? more pie?

i don't know what i'm writing poems for, what the emptiness means to me. but i do know what it is i search for when i meet people.

i search for people that mirror that chasm in me, only when i look at them, that hole is filled, complete and whole. i mean...when i look at my closest friends, i see little bits and pieces of me that are missing. which is why i keep them close to my heart, because i need them to continue being that little part that makes me more complete. like in the poem, their faces reflect how i feel, in little ways.

and that's what i look for. in everyone. it's an almost immediate thing. that look, that reflection...it's there when it's there. and when it's not...the person standing right in front of me can be gorgeous, interesting, absolutely attractive...and i'd look at them and feel as empty as before. they don't mirror me. and chances are, i don't mirror them.

of course, not everyone is looking for that mirroring effect. and i may just be trying to find my image in vain. it all seems so ideal all of a sudden. but that is how i know a person is worth the effort.

when i see the complete me in their eyes.

lishun at 11:18 PM

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