B.A. in Idiocy

Introduction:

Welcome to the year 2009. It is ending now but I wanted to say a few friendly words before we part ways, forever, temporally speaking. I can only physically move forward, even if I think that I'll always have an eye turned over my shoulder to this point in time. Now that we are nearing the end, it is a time for reflection, for thought and for internalizing. The added bonus is unburdening, but we'll see about that.

Chapter 1: Zetsubo-sensei

Do not despair. Please kindly refrain from ever using this word (except in jest) if you ever have to mark someone's essay. I believe my professor was being kind but such things just kills. It doesn't help when at the same time, you're undergoing a crisis when you've suddenly to take on a majority of household chores because your mom's injured her arm. 

It may seem very sad for me to say this but I really agonized over which to prioritize. I felt that my essays were very important, but my mom felt a shiny floor and not eating out was. And one of my deep core beliefs that my parents cared about my education sustained a deep and irreparable crack. They certainly cared, they want me to have a stable job and money and a comfortable life, insofar as their own convenience was not unduly jeopardized. As, I was, naturally thinking the same, though in reverse (I didn't want to jeopardize my essay grade), I can't say I can fault them too much.

The fact is also that I wasn't always working on essays, which I had half given up the battle for made the guilt of not helping out more even more aching. It was a relief to hear somebody, anybody tell me that I had helped out more than enough even if I didn't believe it, it was nice to hear. Naturally I felt even worse because it indicated simply, the minutiae I can do for my parents, especially since I took on the housework very grumpily and fanned the flames of discontent a lot at home.

I'm a disappointment, really. Which is why and here is a lesson to all future parents: Never tell your child that she is useless. It is damning. It is also contractual. There was a point in time, when I ought to have been thinking about my ISM proposal that I was thinking more of a 5000 word essay on Tyranny.

Chapter 2: Bitter Fruit

This one is a joke made by another person. Every time we meet up and I've an opportunity to explain why I wasn't doing a thesis, she'll laugh and say, "Leong sounds so bitter every time". I don't. It was probably a good thing as I on average, score better grades in fields outside my major. The proposal exercise proved that I wouldn't have been able to sustain the rigor of a thesis. I lost interest in my topic. It was a struggle just explaining what I had in my head and I became frightened that I had sustained some kind of permanent mental damage. There is no way you can write clearly if you can't even articulate coherently your own ideas to yourself. 

My CAP went back up this semester, but just when I seriously needed a confidence booster, my grades were on a downhill slide. I would have liked to believe that I could do a thesis. I might have been less unsure of myself. But all those mights don't account for anything in the here and now, other than that in a way it is tedious the way it, like the early string of As I was getting this semester buoys hope up when all I had wanted was the peace of having accepted that I was an average student and average person.

I understand that I've not made as sustained a description of what bogs my academic life but some things remain too sore a point for me to talk about. Then I discovered that my opinion matters very little in the great scheme of things and that I should not be so concerned that I was wasting people's time having to bear through listening to my bewildered proposal.

Chapter 3: Death Wish

This has nothing to do with family or my education. It has to do with the only other thing left. This involves a person I knew from school, though only as an acquaintance. In a way, what I'm writing here is so watered down that it isn't even what transpired but I shall summarize pithily. It involved a bench, my idiocy, and a suspected perv. I don't know. I felt sorry for him but that has, in increasing days, turned to blood boiling. I was asked if I had a death wish following the idiot to the park at night. In a way I was outmaneuvered but still - I spent most of it being very uncertain if I was mistaking a fellow schoolmate of unholy designs or if he just liked me and was just stupid. And I was too polite. And nice. As usual. I have a very big range for accepted idiocy and strangeness in people you know. Just... don't take advantage of my open-mindedness. You'll induce me to feel pity - not very flattering for the person and anger. You would think alarm bells would be going off in my head and they were. And which goes to show how right Freud was when he spoke of the uncanny. I simply believed that Singapore was very safe and I was with someone I sort of knew, even if that someone was giving off very strange vibes. But everyone knows "safe" and "know" are easily turned on their heads. I just didn't think I would be the sort of person to attract creeps.

I however take this as a learning point and wake up call. There were several very strange things leading up to this 

Conclusion:

This might come across as a surprise to some people but, no, I don't trust myself. I said that maybe I ought to start but there are a lot of difficulties, and not two days after telling myself that, I committed the same mistake. No, I don't trust myself because I believe that people are inherently selfish and that includes me, of course. Being magnanimous is actually a struggle and a pain and it doesn't come easily and this year has been a dry year. I told a friend over prata that it would hardly matter if I simply disappeared; the world will go on and possibly even be the better for it. Less humans is always a good thing, these days and I point out, as a current example, Avatar. A human directed film where blue aliens trump humans - doesn't that say something? 

It has been an eventful year for me and I am grateful for small things. Tuition, while a sore point in terms of time constraints and aggravating children are all the better for making me feel happy and satisfied. I feel like I'm doing something for somebody, and the satisfaction it brings cannot be measured. I hope I will like teaching. The horror of my mom's friend's daughter when she heard me say that I was going to teach is priceless. 

So, too bad. This person doesn't want to be a blue alien. I want to finish my education. I want to see how chapter 3 turns out. I want to watch movies. Rediscover my love for books. I want to feel sunshine, listen to the rain and enjoy the sharp smell of wind. A salute to Life, and to Art.