growing up:

inappropriate moment (Geog paper tomorrow) but i just gotta write this down.

in 5 years i've changed a lot! like huge transformation (which i refuse to credit as good or bad). in the past i was just an average science kid, like the most cliched of science kids, you know, triple science and a.math. i hated it, well... not really hate, more like dislike Physics and Chemistry (and till this day i still do). i had insanely bad skin (still do, but not as dreadful), a really bad haircut, zero dress sense, and a pre-teen still pretty much unexposed to the real world, living my life in a warm bubble only to realize the world isn't as simple as it is till i've stepped out (or was violently pulled out of) it, as Kyra would put it.

and just as much did the superficial aspects undergo metamorphosis (for good or bad), so has what defines me as a person. i am still idealistic, hell yes, if anything i've become even more idealistic. my lofty aspirations exalted even more but i shan't talk about it lest it gets depressing; what with leading a self-sustaining life and everything. the point is, i am no longer the person that i am 5 years ago. life and its tribulations (funny, what tribulations could an 18 year old encounter) have hardened me, but if anything, life and its tribulations have also taught me how possible things can become if you try hard enough. i'm not saying i'll become a successful writer living the life, writing what i want, living a fairly luxurious or decent lifestyle just from publishing enough books in which the author only earns 70cents per sold copy, of course i'm not! but i'm saying that life has taught me that trying your best is all that matters, even if your efforts don't come through. enough about aspirations.

growing up has reinforced my foundations on who i really am. i have more or less understood more about myself, and i definitely know more about myself than i did years ago. this will continue to change as i age, and i'm not sure what to think about that since there is a clear difference between being presented with who you are, and accepting who you are. after much confusion and ambivalence, i currently accept who i am, but i don't know if i will the next time i change. accepting yourself is exhausting. it drains the life right out of you, as if life hasn't already.

i have become a better person, that i can say for sure. of course it doesn't mean i'm a good person but well, i think i'm a fairly good person? john green has taught me that we shouldn't expect people to be who we want them to be, but accept them for who they are. in a matter of two sentences those words have succinctly changed my relationships with others. i have also learnt the sad truth that people come and go, friends come and go, even the close ones. and i'm fine with that because that's life. it is not a prison where the people who enter will be trapped with you forever. it is a glass cage of population: you, where people from the outside judge for themselves whether they want to enter and start whatever degree of relationship with you. and just as easy as they enter, the door's always wide open for them to leave, and i am fine with that. but it doesn't mean i feel nothing about it. of course i get sad when people leave, but i guess that's life's harsh reminder that it goes on whether you like it or not. i am no longer one who sits about moping in the past over the loss of whatever.

in understanding more about myself, i have realised that i am not who i thought i once was. i used to hate literature (yes, the audacity!) in sec 2 because i didn't get it. i loved science for its simplicity and straight-forwardness because there can (very usually) only be one answer. now i mull over the intentions of authors, poets, and playwrights, thinking why science students can't excel because all they have to do is memorise a specific and only set of answers and regurgitate distastefully within a time limit while us arts students grapple joyfully with the lack of specific answers as we find our (the lit teachers always say) own personal voices and shape our creativity with answers the rest of us would never think of just to get an edge above the rest because in the arts, your opinion actually matters, not the late-night discoveries of scientists. i have learnt (but yet to master) the art of penning eloquent sentences, twisting words and interpretations to my favour (which also applies to real life), employing rhetorics and so on. in short, i have learnt that language is power, and will forever be in power as long as we humans continue to exist. the arts is competitive, the arts is challenging, but the arts is amazing (see, anaphora).

i guess that's all for now, the geog notes are a nagging presence to get back to them.

this is it for now.