Saturday, November 26, 2005
its a nice cool saturday afternooon. and no ballet. still. no ballet till january next year! why? because we didnt pay our fees and in exasperation and frustration, ms ong cancelled the rest of the term.
but im enjoying nice quiet time at home. just slacking around.
finally got down to packing my files and its a whole lotta things. and looking at the notes ive been staring at for two years. i feel sad. and i still think im unfamiliar with 70% of them. gosh. i didnt really study enough. now i realise.
cleared out work in 2001. when i was 14. haha. what a joke now. i realised ive been dealing with 'tourism and why people travel' since sec two. since the arrival of mr andy koh. and now handed over to ms lum, it's still tourism and such. maybe a little further into case studies and sustainable..blah blah. but looking at the things i wrote then and the way i write now. i dont feel any different or smarter. still seem to be messing around with the same stuff. saw a 10 mark qtn in my mid yr exam paper. yes! i still have it! but its gonna be thrown out today. it sAys "with specific examples, state the problems of development'. examples..equates case studies. problems of dev are what i was still learning in jc!! so where's the change?! browsing thru my geog file, i realised i actually knew the term infant mortality rate 4 years ago! it wasnt a 'past two years' kinda new knowledge.
ok maybe the whole point of jc education is not so much the content or knowledge. its more of how you write your essays and answer to the point--the discipline of it. and well..i think after two years, i still havent mastered the art of that-organised planned writing, not just mindless words.yet thinking of how i mindlessly rattled on for some A level papers..now that's a saddening thought.
anyway, the truckloads of files are just so many! and so much!~ i dont know where to put it. i look around my room and at the mess..and i think..'ok this has just got to stay cos there's no other way!'
and i dont quite know the reason behind keeping your stuff. work at 14 seemed precious to me then but now im all ready to chuck it out without a second thought..looking at it in such a foreign manner, as if i never had anything to do with it. given the funny rounded handwriting..totally unlike my writing now too! so two years later, i'd look at my jc notes and think the same things! the coloured pc's we did in class with all the annotations. those will become foreign too! and i'll chuck it out! the lovley geog notes. and ok..even econs ok!
but maybe jc's different. cos u worked on it more. i dont know, time will tell.
so looking at the geog file from sec school..i dunno to throw it out because it no longer has meaning to me. or to continue keeping it for the value it once had? even tho i recall none of it now. argh! it's just a bloddy file. but its a piece of my 'younger youth days'.its so funny. i saw a piece of lydia's work around too. on top of the worksheet --'lydia adlina class:2E1' and its so funny. if she ever wants it back i can still produce it and hand it to her! but who remembers eh?
four years is really a long time!
and i looked at the chinese tests i had. all of which i failed. man. those were the days. in retrospect i think they were actually quite horrid. having to do all that xi zhi and zhuowens! ee! im glad its over.
i just dont know why i hoard all my junk so much when later in time. i forget. yet the very purpose i hoarded it then was for memory's sake. and ok..even if i do remember..so what?
even found a 2001 copy of streats. and i think. hmm..how many people still have streats in their house now adays?
i guess this junk hoarding thing somewhat links to the theory behind antique collection. or how tt object even became antique in the first place.
memory memory.. mammary(argh! not tt!)
it just suddenly dawned on me that trying to hoard old memories are useless cos its something like centrifugal movment or filtering/invasion. it'll just be taken over by newer things as your course of life changes. and then old memories will be left behind and forgotten. unless u take extra effort to remember certain more important things.
and yet. amidst the transcience of it all. you can't forsake it. cos its precious.
so i guess i'll just work harder at remembering. cos precious things are to be treasured and cherished.
this whole thing sounds so cheesy. but its really real! i feel rather stupid for hoarding all that junk few yrs back! n yet at the same time special cos no one else wld prolly remember it!
hmm enough about schoolwork. its even worse and loserfied tt i tried to hold on to memories like tt..which no one will ever take notice of. like seriously at the end of the day, who really cares abt your academic achievements, much less your secondary sch exams or the assignments u did in sch?! what matters are the friends and the emo parts of things.
ok. now i feel a lil like silas marner.or rather, the great feeder of cockroaches. but you know, i dont think its true tt they eat paper.
anyway, on to more emo things. i found a card chris wrote to me when i was 14. a birthday card. and it said sth like 'finally! you're 14 after sucha long time!' i look at it today and go..hmm... 14..4 yrs ago. and yet when i was a tiny 13 yr old..i was supposedly eager to turn 14?
but it was nice and sweet of her. it brought a smile to my face.
even more interesting!!! i found a letter i really forgot about... from jackson nakuyo. haha! who's that?!
he was a form 4 student (2001) my sunday school class supported, as part of the mission my church has in kenya--they set up a secondary sch. africa! its very bad that we werent serious about it. in puttting money in the box aunty chin meant for his sch funds. i feel guilty for what i did. chris n i often found ourselves short of cash n put in 1 cents or 5 cents thinking tt..the 'strong sg currency' will be worth quite a lot in kenya. sometimes we dump in sweets so as to 'let him try our singapore sweets' gosh! those acts were so terrible!! but you know..how silly of us. they actually use US currency there. so will anyone care for sg 5 cents?! what a snob.
its nice to have him write a personalised letter. i think tts cos we wrote one to him wen luke went in 2001 to visit the mission. it reads,
'hi charlene;
i am very glad to have this wonderful opportunity to say a word of hallo to you charlene.'..(and so it goes on' )
he just sounds really happy to hear from us. and i feel so in the spot whenever people address me more than once in the same sentence by my name. it feels very 'all e attn's on you'.
but anyway.. he went on to say how he's finished his exams, and knows we were having end of yr hols. and talk abt the weather. he said it 'is very cool and no rain'( haha! semi arid conditions!).
and he talked about how he;d wish to see us face to face. either in kenya or singapore.
and because i was stupid then.. i asked him how to milk cows. so another half of the letter is about how he milks cows. and since i re read the letter. i'll tell everyone else.
he says, he does herding and also milks the cow. you milk a cow when e calf suckles cos it provides stimulation to the udder to produce milk. hmm..and you milk twice a day..morning n eveing. he even added ' i am an agricultural student so i know more abt cows'. nomadic herding? or subsistence farming?? :P
well. its bad i never replied to that letter. so here the singapore kids are just joking around and he on the other hand.. so earnest and all. so by now he graduated frm tt sch already and well..is working now i guess. and i bet he still rmbrs this ss class which once supported him. but i dunno if there's any way to contact anymore.
shall tell chris abt this on sunday.
back to packing conditions. my room is really like a halfway house. literally. everythings halfway. and the mess is still around. i moved my files out into the study causing something like 'urban sprawl' into the next zone. cos my room's experiencing congestion.
ok going to have dinner at marina with og4 tonight! what a wonderful reunion it'll be! the first bunch of people i knew in jjc. and now jjc is over.
but the people arent :)
charlene said a lil' prayer for you at 3:43 PM
