It is beginning to seem as if blogging is going to be a quarterly to a half-yearly affair for me and that it is a luxury to blog, given the little amount of free time I have during normal semesters amd if recent trends are anything to go by. The workload in university seems to be doubling with every yearly progression, which is duly accompanied by the ever-increasing stress levels derived from the desperate attempt to maintain, or increase if at all possible, the all-significant CAP score. This became more of a priority now after the decision to major in Sociology, which makes it necessary to obtain honours for a better prospect.
This semester was also an important one as it was my first ever semester with THREE sociology major modules, and the grade will provide an accurate gauge of how good a sociologist I can be. One of my compulsory modules, social methods and research, did not turn out to be as bad as I had expected. The tutor, Jayeel, was friendly and taught wonderfully well, just like most of the sociology graduates, and I surprised even myself by getting A- and A for my qualitative and quantitative assignments respectively. Fingers crossed, hopefully this will guarantee me an overall final A grade. The only downs for this semester was the interesting but profound mass media and culture, which required a constant critical and conflictual view of power relations, and the boring computing module with its incomprehensible html codes and what-not. But I am just relieved that yet another semester is done and dusted with.
The wonders of sociology have enabled me to understand that it is the process that matters in life, and the end result does not matter so much, for learning and understanding comes from the process and not the final outcome. This newly adopted perspective of life has allowed me to look at life positively more than ever, and subsequently, take things with a pinch of salt. And I figured that part of the reason for attempting to blog is to remember and appreciate this life process. Now to rewind and recap the highs and lows of Year 2 Semester 1...
July
Finally ended the month long vacation job and eagerly awaiting to start the new semester. Witnessed for myself firsthand that while some people can be quite nice at work, my once mythical perception of "rogue colleagues" and "evil bosses" are in fact very real. In fact, this job stint was an eye-opener, having witnessed for myself how some people can be a total control freak, even for us temps. But all unhappy memories and terrible experiences were immediately forgotten when I received my payslip. I guess this is the only reward for labour.
Intended to take some modules with a cute girl W, especially since she is also a sociology major and according to her, "we'll be sociology mates for a looong time!". And I got my wish too, having arranged two modules that had her "exclusive" company, or so I thought. Though one of the modules was not exactly my cup of tea, I decided to take it anyway, with W playing an influential part in my decision making. Whether will it turn out to be disastrous or not, we'll see on the 26th of December.
August
Began to regret my looking forward to school once lectures and tutorials got started. The days seem to get longer you gain in seniority, or it may be just due to my decreasing stamina for staying focused during lessons. Every modules were acceptable but I was daunted by the extremely heavy workload this semester after putting into consideration every module. Computing was the most ridiculous GEM, with two group projects and an individual project, hardly worth the precious 400 points I invested, or rather wasted, in it.
Dealt with another disappointment when it turned out that W actually had friend(s) who had already planned for the same modules with her, and one of the closer ones was a nerdy fella who looked particularly irritating to me. And due to W's tendency for being habitually late and constant failure to reply to SMSes (or is it only to my SMSes), I ended up sitting through lectures alone as that irritating fella had kept a seat for her. "Learning process... learning process..." I kept repeating to myself.
Adding to the troubles in August was the woeful post-breakup period of Fabius and Jessica. It is real funny how love between two people can turn to such a deep hatred within an instant. How unreliable and unstable love can be... He wants to avoid her, she wants to avoid him, she remembers him everytime she sees me (for reasons I don't know why), she blocks me on MSN, he keeps complaining to me and asking me how and what to do, I get different stories from him, his friends, even her friends...blah..blah..blah. Just a whole load of bull crap and nonsense. The learning process is over damnit... move on. Well, but all in all, August was great. Really.
September
This was the month where it got really draining. Started my first individual qualitative research for sociology, and I selected a topic which would have a pretty high relevance to my future - single chinese males approaching their 40's and their coping mechanisms. If there was a need for sociological research to benefit public good, I figured I needed to start on an individual level, and this would most probably be my life path, regardless of how I look at my current state. Indeed, I have learnt plenty from my two study subjects. What impressed me the most was their optimism and positivity about life despite leading a non-conformist lifestyle that is conflicting with messages from the media, government and their culture and tradition. Well, it seems to help if your parents are a little more liberal and accepting towards your life choice. I hope mine are. Besides being able to research my topic of interest, I am able to obtain a good grade for it as well, and that is one big plus point of doing sociology for me.
Every other modules too were moving at a faster pace in this month. The first computing group project was just alright, though I learnt that there is always bound to be unequal task allocation in a group, with some people being able to slack, do the minimal, and able to get away with it. Little did I knew that this form of "institutionalised" slacking will grow in scale for the next computing group project.
September was also a month when emotions got a little mashed up and confused along with the blurring of lines between friendship and relationship. It could be due to the failure on my part to identify and be decisive of my own feelings (perhaps due to the busy month), and it took a short while for the proper sorting to be done before things could move on. It started when an amorous feeling of attachment to Y was unconsciously planted in me, a closer-than-average female friend of mine. So as it was, with me and my thoughts running wild, news filtered through that she got attached to some foreign worker brought me back down to earth with a loud 'thud'. Add that to my well accumulated experience of having crushes, infatuations, rejections, failed endeavours, attached targets, having my first (and probably last) girlfriend, break-up and having a girl I like snatched away by my good friend, and it all makes for impressive reading. I am even impressed myself at how much shit can hit the fan. Oh well, I have gotten through that anyway, with lots of self-psychoing and talks with S, Y's close friend. It never occurred to me that S could reveal a thing or two to Y, since girls share almost everything with each other. I distinctly remembered warning S not to tell anybody though... and I believe in her ability to keep my secret... oh my dear. Sometimes, you do need to be gullible to move on in life... sigh. しかたがありません。。。
October
The dynamics of a group of individuals coming together to create an acceptable piece of work for submission never ceases to amaze. I thought I had seen it all for my gender studies group project when a proposed group meeting failed to materialise, thanks to the arrangement (or mis-arrangement) of W, that cute girl. Originally, I was over the moon when the tutor arranged for us to be in the same group. Later on, her impromptu creativity and tardiness created a few problems for the group, though her creativity earned us an A in the end, but it took a hell lot of effort for our paper. And it sure did not help having a year 1 student in our group. It is similar to having a player red-carded from your own team when you are in an important football match. Apart from impressing me for a pre-submission presentation of our paper draft with her wonderful visual design template, her contribution was practically nil, particularly for the final paper which was the one that actually mattered. Unfortunately, this was the only group project that had a peer evaluation, unlike for the computing group project, which was the one that really pissed me off and changed my entire opinion of a particular friend.
For the second project, I was assigned by the group to work WITH another friend and we were supposed to do a small research and presentation of our results TOGETHER. But somehow I ended doing everything all by myself. Apparently, something went wrong somewhere but I just can't put my finger on it. I remember that somebody was supposed to share the workload with me but who is it... Well, somehow the ridiculous reason of "If you did the research, you present la!" stood and the guy who did absolutely nothing will get the same amount of credit as those who did work. Picking out the positives, there is something to be learnt here, and it is to try to not take the same module with this friend ever again. XY was right after all...
October was also the month for my quantitative research, and it was a comparatively easier one as data from SPSS was used. That saves a huge amount of work, leaving only the analysis and literature review to be done. In a bid to make some sense out of my life, I decided on hypothesizing that the more education an individual receives, the less likely he is to feel that life is dull. And to see if marriage is worth all the trouble, my control variable was whether the individual in question is married or not. Well, as it appears, education does improve the life condition of an individual after all, so I guess what I am doing now will be worthwhile, but it is a weak relationship. Seems like the modern man wants something more out of life - the insatiability of the contemporary man. Marriage does not enhances an individual's life too, which could explain the breakdown of marriage as an institution today. The search for the meaning of life continues...
My perception of Al-Jazeera took a turn for the better too. After learning about the multi-perspectivity of matters and how the perspective of the underdog must be valued, I watched a documentary about Al-Jazeera and felt glad, yet cheated. Glad in knowing how certain people are willing to go that extra mile and risk their lives in search for the truth and they are trying to reach out to the masses in a bid to challenge the mainstream media. And cheated as to how I was tricked all these years into believing that Singapore was the best in this and that, in rankings that did not mean a thing. Straits Times and the local papers are all just the lapdogs of the dominant government, carrying meaningless news reports and self-congratulatory articles. Though I got a sneaky feeling that I might not do well for this mass media and culture module, what I have learnt and benefitted from it is priceless.
November
Bernard, please remember this date for the rest of your life! (Even though it may not matter anymore in the future.) The special date - Friday, 2nd November. Time - about 1330hrs & 1915hrs. A particular girl caught my eye while on board 151 on the way to school. Somehow I have the familiar feeling of having seen her somewhere before. She last alighted at SRC to switch to the NUS shuttle service. My day went on as usual and surprisingly (and happily) she appeared again before my japanese language lecture, talking to Xy and Serene! They know each other! There is a god after all. Well, that girl is Peishan, who is a not-so-close-because-of-certain-misunderstanding friend of Xy. For some inexplicable reason (because she is different from my typical ideal girl), she swept me off my feet. But as I write this entry in December, I can safely say that the chances of me getting to know her better are as slim as Singapore's chances of qualifying from their World Cup Qualifying Group with Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Lebanon. All I can do now is to cross my fingers and hope for the best, just like what Raddy Avramovic would do.
November marked the end of lessons and the start of serious studying and revising. My path towards revision was filled with obstacles, catching a slight flu during the beginning of reading week. Having the World Pool Championships on during this period of time is another form of distraction for me. I struggled to get started and eventually got going. For this round of revision, I must say that my studying stamina has greatly decreased, as I had to take frequent breaks after about half an hour or so in order for me to refresh myself and gather my thoughts. Hopefully, I will still have enough left in my tank before I can finally click the "File for Graduation" button.
I would like to think that I should have moved on pretty well from Y-gate, trying to bring normalcy back into . Certain matters can get too complicated than we had originally expected them to be. But one thing I can be sure of is that all the happy, joyous, sad and depressing experiences I gathered in my impressive 'resume' just confirms that I would very much like things to remain the way they are, and a single life suits me just fine. Nothing so far can change my mind, not even when Jayeel questioned me for my somewhat peculiar life choice when he knew about it back in September. My time here on earth is limited, and being happy and satisfied is the way I want to spend this time of mine.
It has been about a year since the perpetrator cruelly snatched H away from me. Maybe the rage inside me died, maybe I felt enough was enough, maybe it was just fate or maybe I just missed my ps2, but somehow this month became the reconciliation month. It is about time too, with Christmas just around the corner, and like how my religion teaches "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sinned against us." So I guess everything is gradually falling back in shape as they were at the beginning.
December
6th December was to be a very special day for me. For two reasons, firstly, it was the last day of my exams and my semester, and secondly, I get a chance of catching Peishan in school as it was also her last paper, albeit a slim one given the huge number of exam candidates clustered together at SRC. Well, the exams did come to an end and the slim chance of me meeting Peishan failed terribly. Nothing much I can do about it though... *shrug.
My super efficient job agent found me a temporary one month job straight after my exams and I took it without hesitation. Why would anybody turn down a money making opportunity? But that would mean, 1) lesser time for me to take a good break and 2) not being able to join my family for a short trip. On the other hand, it also meant that, 1) I get to increase my bank account and pay for my radiofrequency and 2) I get to drive the new car around for a week! Sounds pretty good to me. Being left alone during the Christmas period may not be that bad after all. Besides, I should have learnt to cope with loneliness during festive periods pretty well now, given my years of experience. That should not be a problem for me.
I also got to meet up with my old colleagues from ETP while working too! Although it has been only about 4 or 5 months, things seem to have changed so much and it felt like a long time. But it was absolutely great to be able to see Zi Yen, Kenneth, Kelvin and company again.
And that brings me to this current point in time. That was the past 5 months summed up in quite a number of words, some words which could inevitably cause repercussions in my life, but it was of my own will and a great necessity to record them down for these are my emotions, my feelings, my memories and my life. There is no point in employing self-censorship for my own blog, for Serene's blog had taught me to blog every detail of life if possible, and I can also be rest assured that almost nobody mentioned will be actually reading this long entry as this blog has become like a wasteland. But for me, it is a treasure chest of memories and my personal record of emotions. Hopefully, there will be more to come.
