New Hostel Semester

Ever since I moved into boarding, I never found time to write. That is mainly because I did not want to find time to write, as I thought that it was a pain to do so, a feeling rather freshly encountered. To a bystander, living in hostel should have ameliorated my life, with an astronomical reduction in travelling time and more time to spend with friends; however it had only done so less than I expected.

Before I entered boarding, school life and home life were pretty detached. I wake up in the morning, prepare for school, fall asleep in the MRT and when I wake up, I enter into a whole new realm. Not anymore; I feel like I have became a full time student, and the burden of having to cope with so many aspects of my life in such a scholastic environment upsets my sanity.

It started all well at first, but that is easy for many. The hard thing is to sustain one's energy and keep their morale throughout 6 months. I started becoming more messy over time and there were nights when I started sleeping without a mattress cover. I stopped running in mornings, and I stopped drinking water regularly. I couldn't be bothered to replace my drinking cups. Then I stopped sleeping early, and stayed up into dawns to complete work that should have been done with the time I spent wondering how I should spend the time. And I started doing badly (by my standards at least) for tests, and got kicked out of Chem O this semester (Along with many others of course, who didn't hit the mark)

I decided that I want to be in top form in the imminent semester. I have decided such things many times already. "Next semester, I'm going to do my best in every subject" "Next semester, I'm going to run every day" But none of it worked. It is only after the semester is ending, I see how much I have slackened and how much more I could have achieved. And then I become determined again and the cyclic process continues.

But something is different this semester. It is the busiest one I am about to encounter. I will have my violin to practice, so many math and science modules to handle, my music course, attachment project at DSO and my regular consumption and not to mention production of English essays. Hopefully, this additional stress will make a difference in me by warning me that there is definitely no time to slack off this semester. I want to unleash my true prowess and show myself (and perhaps others)what I'm capable of.

To come back to the topic of why I find writing a pain; before boarding, I found writing as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings, so that I can better organize them. However, due to reasons that cannot be expressed laconically within this phrase, and will thus be put off into a later post probably at the end of the year, thoughts alone, without being penned down, overwhelm me. I can't even control the maelstorm of unchained ideas and fragmented thoughts within my mind, let alone pen them down. With the complexities of having to juggle and manipulate the unique, yet intertwining aspects of my life, from my academics, musical practice, daily life and not to mention relationships (important note here), there is little brainpower left for me to allow words flow across the page.

That is why writing has turned into a pain. I will have to upgrade my personal RAM first.

I hope by the end of boarding, I will be able to get my mind to think straighter, and conjure a full fledged account of all the things I have always been wanting to mention.

Coming out of boarding during this holiday has allowed me to change my paradigm of many things. I realised that in the hostel, there is this ubiquitous feeling of imprisonment, which leads to depression, but its not immediately apparent. Like a hocrux, or for non Harry Potter readers, a malignant tumour, or a frog in boiling water, residing within and gradually devouring one, without one noticing at all until one feels the extreme difference by escaping from that place.

Whenever I can, I would like to go have a run from school to commonwealth for dinner. I get exercise, time away from that hocrux of a boarding school (elaboration in my year end post), and better food. Three birds with one stone!

By the way, I am considering whether to appeal for chem o. It might be too much for me to handle, but to think of giving up of an opportunity to learn more feels like a waste. And there is also the factor of seeing some people too often.

Dreaming Returns - Counterstrike in a Castle

It had been a long time since I last had a lucid dream, let alone one that I could control. Back in primary school, my days (or nights) were deluged with such remote adventures and fantasies, that sleeping became but a different life beginning. However, yesterday, I had a dream, similar in style, which repeated in two episodes. It wasn't a dream I could control (To do so one would first have to know that one is in a dream), but nevertheless, the amount of details I could capture was overwhelming. It it was thrilling too...

I was on a school trip to a castle. Let us assume Hogwarts Castle. It was not one of those grey and dull stone castles depicted in shows, where knights in rusty armour trudge around. It was one with florid decorations; the floor was extensively carpetted and chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. But it was not an abandoned castle. It was private property, and there were anachronistic security guards and information counter, sort of the type of setting one will expect in a shopping mall.

We followed the leader, in one large group to make our way through the castle, although split into cliques within. As in a typical field trip through a one-way trail at the botanic gardens, some were faster while others were slower. I happened to be with one group, which did not put too much effort into keeping sight of the rest, and we reached a T junction, walls faced with medieval portraits. They took the right turn, and I followed behind. Within sight was a door with striking resemblance to one of those wide and massive auditorium doors at school with the huge longitudinal handle. There was a hint in the way the door was designed that told me it was an emergency exit, not to be used unnecessarily.

I shouted for them not to open the door, but it was too late. They pushed the door open, and in an instant, retreated, for a loud wailing siren echoed through the corridors of the castle. They ran to the left prong of the T junction, not before pulling me along. We were greeted by stairs, followed by a typical wooden door with a rectangular window often associated with staff rooms. We entered a small, yet spacious room made from marble, our every footstep reverberating loudly. Further ahead were similar stairs made from marble and another wooden door that led out of the room.

Just as we were halfway across the room, both doors from either side exploded open, with police officers accompanied by special forces, counterstrike character lookalikes; many of them wore gas masks and held tactical shields. "Don't move!" they shouted. "We noticed someone open the emergency exit."

Thereafter, we were held in detainment in this royal-looking chamber which was as usual, surrounded by portraits. The floor was fully carpetted too, with intricate designs. I was scared, because guns were everywhere. And guns means death. I was worried that the slightest movement might make the policecshoot. Then, while the police were having their break, someone from the group stood up and told us that everyone was too make a run later when the police returned, or he will shoot whoever does not. That sounded ludicrous, but he clarified that it was because he was going to shoot the wooden door ahead, so everyone has to get out of the way.

I was in a dilemma, the police were likely to shoot should they see us running away. When it happened, all of us ran for the back door. What happened next was unclear.

The next thing the entered the scene was me lying on the ground, with the police applying some excruciating ointment on my back, although I do not remember myself getting injured at all. Then, more forces suddenly burst through the door and told us to keep our bodies down and shake our heads and wrists ridiculously if we did not want to be shot.

The adventure more or less ended here.

'Round two' was in a similar setting, but now we got information that there were terrorists roaming about in the castle. We rushed towards the security post to make a police report, but they retorted, "Then why did you come to us? We are not the police." We asked them where we could find the police and they told us that they were sunbathing at the poolside on the first floor. Our next challenge would be to get to the first floor without being shot first. The idea of 'sides' and 'teams' seem to have faded away in this castle. Friendly fire was going to be a likely occurrence, thus we had to be very careful. I can't remember anything beyond the security post.

That's about all of my adventure in the castle. Later I somehow dreamt that a couple of year 5 drama club members joined orchestra, but I never saw their faces because they were away at a camp.