UnWoW

'pparently my class has had an excellent WoW trip and my regards to them. Friends from other classes I've heard also came out learning things - some of them important lessons, no doubt.
My heart goes out to them.

While some class fights typhoid, some class builds houses, some class climbs up coconut trees and stargazes into the world beyond, and some classes stare out from their windowbeds out and wonder how their friends do elsewhere, I lay in a bed in NUH.

It was, honestly, a rather painful experience. 'specially the 10+ injections.

That I was in the bed to be declared fine after scans, checks, punctures, and tests is an annoying experience. My spine will shiver in physics lessons whenever the teacher mentions anything about wavelengths and lambda, I expect.

But really, there're worse feelings out there.

It was a bittersweet feeling getting onto MSN and seeing all the faces go "Hey, Herrick, how was your WoW?". A painful feeling getting onto MSN and seeing all the nicks go "WoW was..." and the like. A knifeslice feeling knowing that people have learnt, enjoyed, made friendships and relations while I lay in bed with my pulse being measured at 4am.

It's not the most wonderful thing to talk about, really. The pain of having anesthesia fail on you while a needle jabs through into your spine. The wrenched face as you hear the nonchalant voices of the staff and their statements of iced logic and heartlessness. The completely weak and useless state - and not a soul to pray.

It would've been a reply laced with dread. And I feel that it would've been a reply better non-existent. And so it was. For now I'm somewhat glad that pretty much no one in my class knows my blog.

Edit: A dumbshit of a classmate apparently doesn't understand the idea of 'pretty much' along with the trend of learning not to talk about stuff.

It's an interesting thought how the idea that you knowing something about someone that others don't is a testament to your right to speak of it or at least of some signification of something more than that.

...perhaps it is only as interesting when you end up in hospital for that, I suppose.

Library

Library

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I'm sitting across a girl silently doing up an EE proposal while a brainwave on how to solve
Question 5 of the Math Portfolio runs through my head. As she writes, the voice
of the new librarian (What was her name?) rings throughout the room, and cries of secondary
school students follow quickly after. The chaos fills the world around us; the desperate screams
of juniors being dragged out, the vain attempt to shush the public by student leaders, and
amidst all of the action going on she continues to do up her EE proposal for Literature. Her fingers keep flowing across the keyboard, and I just watch her.

The location has ceased to be conducive for work and the world around me hurtles but
yet time slows down around her. My head gets increasingly distracted by the rather apparent
noise pollution going on around here but across the table time flows smoothly, silently, slowly.
While everyone is screaming and shouting and running around the silent zone she continues to
type in the peace of her inner mind. I think I like her. I'd die for her.

A tornado has come in through the window and paperwork flies across the area yet the
situation is so bad that it causes no additional harm to the world around us. The apocalypse
is on its way, and while everyone around me is in hysteria I'm entranced in this truly silent
zone between the two of us, and my first thought is shit I forgot the solution thanks to staring at her I better get back to my Math Portfolio.

-----------------------

Referenced from Rosary (Pg 170, N.O.C.)

Pools of Blood

"You know it's like this giant pool of blood and everyone's dying and you can't exactly tell whose pool of blood this is since everyone's pools of blood are so big that they all overlap and we're all swimming in this giant pool and the only thing that we know is that everyone's dying inside"

Paraphrased, of course. My memory for quotes of such length does not extend to the many months from when the quote came about. What with this being a teacher's passing comment and all, it's hard to remember the quote so clearly when it's just a statement said during a break.

It's kind of the point in time where the blood has began to flow out, the wounds are deep and everyone is in their own pool of blood and yet the vessels that were cut were the veins, not the arteries. So a few months into IB (well, close to half a year now) you're beginning to wonder why the hell there's such a huge pool of blood around you and more importantly why you're not dead yet. Oh, wonderful arteries. Keeping the blood pumping and your life flowing.

When you have this really huge pool of blood around you, though, you really do begin to wonder. "Hey, what's up with my death coming so slowly? Is it going to get any faster?" "What's the purpose in my veins being cut? What's the point in this form of suicide anyway? Why's it so slow?" "That wasn't what I was expecting. But then again, what would you expect from cutting your wrists?" "Hey, look, that guy screwed up too - he's also got a big pool of blood around him and I don't see him dead." "Hey, that's my senior, let's go say H- wait, he's dead. Nevermind."

And then you start wondering how long your blood is going to trickle down drop by drop onto the gigantic pool of blood. And then your pool joins up with other people's. Then you realize that hey - that's Sir over there and Ma'am right over at that corner. Mr Connor's relaxing in that one korner (Due apologies to anyone who has heard me say this too many times one particular Friday) and so on and so forth. And then you realize that your seniors are in this too - save that their pools are just that wee bit - ok, a helluva lot bigger.

But of course time waits for no man, and the Grim Reaper isn't exactly the most patient man around when he has to deal with a Japanese citizen every 15 minutes (Statistics provided courtesy of a fellow 駄目人間, translated as worthless human being. Kinda makes you wonder about the credibility of the statistics, eh. Lies, damned lies and the like.) So he cuts your arteries too. It's really quite a subtle process - administration and bureaucracy are rather inefficient and you tend to be more concerned about such things, so it's natural that you end up lambasting the inefficient systems of blood loss. In short, everyone's not-checking.

It's hard to notice, of course, since you're busy thinking of philosophical approaches to the topic of death, finding your identity in this 2-year suicide, and generally improving your standard of intelligence while stuck in this giant pool of blood. Oh, did I mention socializing and talking to other people stuck in their own pool of blood?

But after a while, you suddenly realize at a random point of time that the blood really is oozing out like this giant fountain of beautiful crimson tears (really, just a nice way of saying fresh blood)
and you suddenly realize that death is that much quicker (and that much sooner). You try and get out of your pool of blood so you can properly panic and run around and scream AAAH I'M DYING OVER HERE SOMEBODY HELP ME - but you're stuck in this pool of completely coagulated, dried blood that really, really hinders your movement rather badly. Think of it as a rather philosophical form of quicksand death. I mean, you're getting stuck thanks to bleeding, damnit. Did you die due to your arteries draining your life out at this particularly rapid pace or is it because you got stuck in the blood that solidified while you were standing around wondering how long you were going to take to fully understand the effects of blood drain?

Really, this huge amount of blood loss would come across as a huge shock to some of you. The hypovolemic sort, of course.

Yet somewhere around the 2-year mark you suddenly see a lifesaver come in. A medic team, buncha green men and a high-ranking official walking into a particular private-owned Hill in the 119th lane - though by that time its name would probably be Bukit Merah (Maybe it would have its own monorail too, haha. Would be convenient too, and it's more comfortable to travel without feeling the ickyness of walking on solid blood). So you wonder to yourself: Hey, is that guy here to save me from the abyss?

You see the official walk towards the grim reaper, contract and featherpen in hand.

"Hey, reaper. The kids here - I mean the second year ones - how much are they worth?"
"Quite a fair bit, Mr. Lee. How much do you want to save their asses for?"
"Any amount. It's in the contract. Trust me, some things are priceless."
"All's fair, then. I'll sign this, and you get the second year kids."
"Oh, actually, I want the guys. Just set the girls free if you want, I don't really need them. Not until they can marry, at least."
"Hmm? Not that I care. Here're the guys."

You get pulled out of this giant pool of blood with the latest techno know-how and what-have-you-nots, and in but a moment's time you're sparkling clean.

You look to the official with grateful eyes. "Hey, Sir, can we go back now? To a normal way of living?"
He looks back at you and smiles. "What normal way of living?"

And enlightenment finally comes to you like a nice red brick: Oh God, he's with the government.

IB Days

There lies a time where you are what you are. A time where you relax with little care about the world of the future nor the world of the past, and focus on the world of the present - more importantly the world of fun. A time where your actions define your self, your speech defines your thought and your appearance defines your facade.

And in such a time we all once existed. Men in a carefree societal relationship. A simplistic one, but certainly an enjoyable one. And when one stays in a web such as this, one tends to do as the Romans do. And so did he; swear, be violent occasionally, sleep and skip work, and many other actions defining the norm.

Till elements change, there lies a social inertia which people do not tend to overcome. But elements do change, or life will never progress. And amongst the individuals, some stand out.

Take the poster boy; the respected senior and role model to three-quarters (make that five-sixths) the school, respected peer and person to look to when you need help (Be it essays, CIP, more essays or perhaps even psychiatric counselling - he's part of that group, after all) and pretty much well-liked by the peers, the girls, the teachers.

Really, quite the respectable figure. Always said to be someone the school is proud of, someone the school would love to portray to the world outside, the kind of 'someone' that would be put on the frontline of shows, armed to the teeth with comebacks, replies and the occasional epistemological quote.

Aims? Of course he went high. Harvard, even! Of course aims are even better if they are fulfilled (Or perhaps they are even worthless if they aren't!) He got in, even!

Now of course, people don't lead perfect lives. If they seem to, Murphy's law comes into motion. If it doesn't... well, ignore that. Murphy's law always comes into motion, whether by divine or governmental intervention. And if you ever heard anyone go in wonder about how he failed to get a scholarship, then remember that Zen is always at work.

Avid thinker, fluent speaker, awesome instrumentalist, cool dude, smart guy, the like. A deserving member of the first, they call him. Setting out into the world bravely like the scholarly global leader he was groomed to be.

But at that very point where the road took the crooked turn, he took a turn for the better - and joined the new world around him. A new time. A time where your actions and speech define your facade and your appearance defines your self.

And when he finally steps out of the school, his feet feel light. Just lighter, perhaps, but an improvement in any case. Now, he thinks, he can stop being the poster boy. Now, he thinks, he can rest and be himself.

Now, he thinks, I can get out of that accursed place and stop following them.

And when he steps out, he'll understand just how far a stepping stone can bring you.

Memories of OM

I remember in P4 when a friend talked about it.

"Hey Herrick, hey Yu Min, why not we try and make a group and join this? My bros do it in Secondary school and it looks so fun!"

Try we did, with parents joining in to convince the formation of such a group. But as always, it's never easy being the pioneer, and evenlessso to get the chance to be one. Two years pass.

I remember in Sec 1 when the teacher came through the door and just went "We need two more people. Is anyone up for this?" And I joined with another classmate who quit pretty darn early on. I recall the feeling of a vehicle breaking on the day itself due to a bad practise run the day before. While a year or two later I hear that even if such problems contested in got first, the likelyhood is that they will not get any international credit - it does feel like a waste.

Give a few (Well, quite a few, just not a year) and an actual team forms. My first experience overseas as a student. I see the students from my old school in their own teams; no doubt things start with time. Everything flies through me so quickly that really, I can't remember much.

MONTFORDDDDD MONTFORDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD~~~

That I can remember at least.

One year down, a friend and I go as spectators and watch the glorious victory of our past teammates. I remember feeling happy for them as they got the Silver medal, of which a premature team failed to get.

One more year down, I recall a statement that opportunities must be given to others. A year I didn't bother.

One final year down before the future. I go down with my friend again, now a coach. I see the Div II Teams doing so wonderfully, and I see the spectators around supporting them, all faithful men from past and present. I sms their teacher coach about their wonderful performance, sincerely believing that they will get world champions. I see my friend put on antennas like the kids' parents did and make fun of him for it, teasing his closeness with the students he coaches. Him and I go over to see the Div III performances.

I have never seen as many strangers of this up till now. It is much of a shock. I see people pointing at my friend's antennas and speak to themselves, laughing silently at themselves and likely going 'what kind of idiot is he', and wonder to myself what reason was it in them that drove them to want to come over in the first place if just to watch two performances and screw the rest. I wonder to myself what reason it was that drove them to even watch the two performances which they would have never done in any other year.

I think back to the Division II teams. It really is much too different.

One year into the future. I sincerely hope I do get the time to coach like my friend. It feels far more in the spirit.