友情，可遇不可求

看过那么多是是非非
懂了。

友情
那种真挚的友情
难得
可贵

说起来 其实我也算不错了
有的是那么好几个真实的朋友
无论什么时候都不会抛弃我的朋友

奇怪的是有些耐得久久的朋友
竟然一开始跟我没太熟的
在网上谈久了
才开始熟了起来
虽然真正做朋友的时间短暂
持久的关心让我觉得很温暖

谢谢
是你们让我觉得世界很美
我们没有太熟
你们也能很有耐心地让我把心事堆在你们的头上
谢谢谢谢
我很爱你们 也很感激你们

反而是一开始认为很好的朋友
结果都变了
变成不像样了
没有人的错
只能说我们的缘分很短
没有人太会珍惜
那过了就算了
为什么还要浪费力气去追求一段逝去的友情？

不要傻了
改不了的是变了的个性
从前的你很好
现在的你变了  也改不回了
没有怪你
只是希望你能开心地生活
那我也开心了
不需要挽回什么样的知心程度的友谊

爱我的人，会继续爱我
因为他们相信我
我也会努力爱你们
其他人
我祝福你们快乐
也就
好了

Night Serenity # Blessed Life

It's 2am and everything is silent. I stayed up because I slept way too much in the evening and I am fully awake now. Also I have to study for tomorrow's Econs test, and I've been rewriting notes as revision. It's all pretty straightforward but I'm a little worried I might forget something.

I'm listening to soft piano music as I do my things because it's really calming. I usually prefer silence, but occasionally a little music keeps me going. My housemates are all still awake as usual. I'm the one being unusual here.

I guess I love the night to some extent. It can get quite cold for me, so I don't like it when I'm feeling chills. But I like the quiet and darkness, so it's okay. I like evenings better, but nights will do too. I love being completely awake at night, but usually this comes with the cost of being very sleepy the next morning, so if I can't sleep in, I can't stay up.

I feel serene at night because everything is just so quiet and unobstrusive. You know how in the day all the huzz and buzz of people around and they just keep getting in your way? I'm not antisocial, but I like being alone with myself, and there's just so much social interaction to do all the time, and if you don't do them, people think you don't like them/antisocial/crazy. Social norms.

But at night everyone is asleep and I can finally be with myself again, doing the things I love like blogging and listening to piano music at the same time. Being in the IB isn't easy and I post much less often now, but having this luxury once in a while is refreshing, even for a moment. You tend to stop and feel content about life when you're just so perfectly happy.

And because of being happy, I feel thankful. I feel blessed to have people who actually care about me here. Sometimes I'm way too individualistic for my own good, and I don't really care about many people because a lot of them are fakes, and I just can't bring myself to socialise and interact with them even though it might potentially elevate my status or something. Thus sometimes I feel isolated because I'm not "in the gang", but then I remind myself that I choose not to, so there's no one to blame.

But I'm grateful that even though I don't like networking and too much human interaction, I have friends, best friends here who would look after me without asking much in return. I don't have many best friends, but I am thankful for the few who actually made it to the best friends circle. And I'm really happy that so many other people have been kind to me and accept me for who I really am and do not force me to conform.

Life is simple. Love people who love you, and forgive those who hate you or couldn't see the beauty in you. Live for yourself, live for the beauty in life. Whatever happens, you're still alive, and you can make a difference in yourself. Those who matters don't mind, and those who mind, well they don't matter much, do they? :)

I should catch some sleep now or I'll fail my test tomorrow. Here's a shoutout to all my best friends out there: you know who you are, I love you guys and you mean a lot to me! <3

Good night people of the world. :)

失望了安静了

还是会失望。那么多的自我保护，还是不够。
对自己说过，会好好保护自己，不让自己再受伤害。
一直以来觉得过得还不错
结果
还是一样
还是失望
还是哭了
还是对不起自己。

会沦落到哪里去，会结束得什么样子？
没有一次能够洒脱不顾发生的一切
直到花都死了
直到自己都可以预测往后的日子会是怎样的折磨
还是无法逃脱。

冷冷的
自己或许不爱自己了
或许不曾爱过自己
心冷了
再多的解释 也无法让我心安
太多太多的背叛
我不知道要怎样明白
不知道要怎样懂
那种感觉 你明白吗？

你爱我  我知道
你和别人的思路不一样  我知道
一个机会 也许你最值得拥有
不过机会是给你的，还是给我的？
给机会，是为了让你改过，还是纯粹不想你走？
说穿了，自己还能够保护自己吗？

到底要往哪走 我也不懂
你很正常 照样和我谈天  照样对我很好
不过我不正常了
那种感觉在我们之间绕着
我怕了
我不明白了
我都不懂要怎样了
静静地   一个人
哭了

过去的总是不能过去
一直在别的情况里出现
我
累了

不管你对多少异性失望，你都没有理由对爱情失望。因为爱情本身就是希望，永远是生命的一种希望。

学弟学妹的成绩...

昨天学弟学妹的SPM成绩上榜，前一晚一堆的“好紧张”在面子书出现，让我想起一年前的自己。那时的自己虽然在朋友家和一大堆的朋友过那个漫长的夜，还是紧张得睡不着，五个女生里只有一个真的睡着了，其他人是辗转难眠的情况，却没有人敢坐起来说自己睡不下。

于是我是第一个坐起来说自己不能睡，结果大家都停止假假睡觉，都醒来 =.=

结果我们就讲话讲到4点早上，什么担心什么紧张都讲。连几个月前的考试题目也可以拿来讨论。明天，是时候面对事实了。没办法，社会就是那么爱考试，那么爱一张漂亮的成绩单。说着说着，还是睡去了。隔天，五个里的四个成功拿到全A，大家开心得不得了，都不懂做么前一晚那么紧张。

今年，轮到学弟学妹了，他们的紧张，他们的快乐与悲伤，很熟悉。
我不清楚到底多少人全A, 多少个A+, 但是我知道那张成绩对我来说就只有两个用处。
1. 令我父母以我为傲
2. 拿奖学金去读自己想读的东西

仅此而已，却让我苦读了那么多年。

现在在我的学院，我同样的还是继续苦读。真的是学海无涯。
好的一点是我终于可以选择自己喜欢的科目。那些苦，淡了点点。
但是还是要继续努力的，努力以政府奖学金进入自己憧憬的外国大学，获得一张最美最优秀的文凭。那会是我至今最大的成就。

SPM, 仅是一关，却也是那么重要的一关。因为我家不像我现在的朋友的富裕家庭背景，不是很有钱的那种，没有奖学金，没有优秀的成绩，就没能进入最好的学校，选择最好的教育课程。
我有自知之明，也是家长灌输我的一种思想，也就只好努力，再苦也不能放弃。

但是SPM考得不好，也并非绝路，还是有好多不一样的道路可以走，还是可以在生活里出人头地，活得精彩的。考得好可喜可贺，考得不好不需要消极也并不代表自己很差，只是说明这条路不适合自己而已。

学弟学妹，我想说的是，SPM成绩真的真的很重要。可是它不是人生的全部，若失败了，当你找到属于自己的路时，还是可以很成功的，真的！

Shirin Neshat - The Art of Hope

“...the knowledge that literature gives us: it enlarges our sense of human experience beyond the narrow limits within which we live our own lives, it takes us imaginatively into lives and parts of the world far different from our own. It can give us understanding of others unlike ourselves, and possibly opens us to caring.” 

 -Theory of Knowledge Textbook

Hmm. I don't have much thoughtful stuff to post lately. I only post events usually which are mostly half-baked because I don't have the time to polish them to perfection. Hence I shall post up something I wrote for my TOK (Theory of Knowledge) class. It's something like thinking skills, or perhaps a little of philosophy, and to me it's kinda boring at times because I'm not interested (although I do like theoretical abstract philosophy stuff). 

So for this assignment we had to choose a particular work of art and relate it to the quote above. Note: I chose the first photograph to write an essay on. Subsequent photographs are used as dividers for blocks of text only. So all the references will be made toward the first photograph.

Here's my piece:

I have selected photography, in particular Shirin Neshat's photography of Middle Eastern women and their lives. Photography is the most realistic work of art one can get to reality, and to be able to accurately capture the moment, a photographer not only has to perfect his photography skills such as controlling the amount of light that goes into the camera and the angles he has to shoot from, he has to also be quick in pressing the shutter, lest the moment is gone. It is unlike art, where the subject can be there for as long as the artist wants, or like theatre and dance, where the performances are practised to perfection. Photography is, for most of the time, a matter of a couple of seconds.

Having said that, there are also portrait and landscape photography, where the subject will not be gone in a flash, but the techniques to capture the desired feel. War photographers and photographers working in other countries bring us pictures of knowledge: from the photographs, we can see the vibrancy of other cultures, the sufferings of war-stricken countries, and the differences between each and every part of the world. Through actual situations captured in frames, we can understand the world further—how others live, work and play, and this brings us closer to them without even stepping foot on their home soil.

The reason for choosing Shirin Neshat's photograph to elaborate further on the quote above is due to her poignant, often stark representations of Middle Eastern women and their sufferings. She is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York, and her works are mainly on film, video and photography. Unlike other Middle Eastern families, Neshat's parents had modern and westernised views, and her father encouraged her daughters to be an individual and to see the world, and Neshat was sent to college along with her siblings. When she returned to Iran after her studies, she was appalled at the change in Iranian culture, which serves the basis of her future artworks.

Her earliest works were photographs, for example the Unveiling from 1993 and Women of Allah from 1993-1997. Her photographs explore feminism themes related to Islamic views, especially those in Iran. To cope with the differences between the culture she was raised in and the one she experienced much later after the Iran Revolution, she developed a series of portrait photographs of women, on which the visible parts of their bodies (such as faces and hands) were entirely inscribed with Persian calligraphy. The interesting part about her photographs is that Neshat is not the photographer; rather, she is the model in the photos, posing for the pictures. Her photographs are taken by a Cynthia Preston, in shades black and white, and she would overlay them with Farsi text afterward.

In the photograph attached, the Muslim woman in the picture is looking straight at the camera, armed with a long thin stick as if defending herself. However, she is still wearing traditional, plain black clothing that almost fully covers herself, and the posture can be interpreted as a univesal sign for silence. Her gaze, while brave enough to stare directly at the lens, looks like she has given up and is tired. The paradox in the photograph suggests that beneath the surface, the reality is far more complex. Her face is completely over-written with text from poetry by contemporary Iranian female poets on the subject of the role of women in the Revolution. This gives the photograph a sense of hope: that despite strict and unfair restrictions on women, there is still hope through literature by women poets of the country.

Through the photographs, I have come to appreciate not only the technical beauty of photography, but also my own feelings and interpretation when I look at them, not to mention the intentions of the artist and the photographer in offering these artworks to the world. The difference between Iranian culture and Malaysian culture is a world apart, hence my knowledge through the photos expands beyond where I live. I have come to understand more about the culture of Middle East, especially on their women, and this has helped me immensely on one of the books I am also doing for the World Literature component in English HL in the IB. The interest to know further has also motivated me to find more information about it online, and as the culture there is far more restrictive than Malaysian culture on social norms, I also begin to appreciate my own country's culture.

值得吗

有时候想想
到底值得吗
那么多复杂混乱的情绪
吵架打架
值得吗

学会不把感情看得太认真
要来就来 要走就走
保持一些距离
保护自己

太投入 最终还是伤害自己
知道自己没有那么坚强
就不要冒险害死自己
对自己好一点  自己比任何人重要多了
有个朋友对我说
凡事看开，一个人让你不开心又怎样 还有别人可以谈天
这样  也很好

所有的人事物
纯粹只是路过风云
要好的朋友 值得珍惜
其他的
随便啦  想怎样就怎样
我过得还很好  不缺什么

Where's MH370?

First of all I must admit that I haven't been closely following any sort of news. IB has taken up all of my time that all I do has something to do with it. If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I haven't posted for ages. The only reason I'm even writing a post right now is only because there are LESS work to do, instead of no work to do :/

As a Malaysian I guess I should be concerned about the tragedy and disappearance of MAS flight MH370. I am, but it's hard to follow the news when I'm busy. Nevertheless Facebook is a good way to know about big news, and there are plenty of speculations about what happened to it, ranging from explosions mid-air to time-travel. Here's some of them:

> Terrorism attack, plane is hijacked
> Shot down by military defense
> Exploded in mid-air
> Abducted by aliens
> Traveled away in time
> Crash due to engine failure
> Pilots commit suicide with the plane
> Political conspiracies

Given how Malaysians ourselves distrust the Malaysian government, it is no surprise to read many fellow friends feeling that the government is probably up to no good by covering up the facts. The conflicting information given to the public and families of the 239 passengers and crew on board the plane has not helped their credibility one bit. Our people has gotten used to this sort of thing, but I imagine the government should at least be more transparent and straightforward since this largely involves China (2/3 of the passengers are Chinese nationals) and the news has attracted the whole world's attention. God, sometimes I am afraid of even going abroad for studies. Imagine what kind of scrutiny and questions I would need to face there.

No matter what happened, whether it is a terrorist attack, or an accident, or anything, I think the government should be more responsible and proactive toward search and rescue. The news about phones belonging to passengers still being able to be contacted offers a glimmer of hope that some, if not all, of the people on board are still alive. Since humans cannot stay afloat on sea for a week without food and water, this probably rules out the accident or explosion theory, since the phones would have exploded along with everything. What then, has happened to these people? 

No one in the world has any idea so far, and search and rescue operations are still ongoing. The search has been expanded to as far as the Indian Ocean and many other countries have been enlisted for the search mission, such as Singapore, Vietnam and China. US has deployed investigators to dig into this matter. A plane could not possibly have stayed vanished for this long...or could it?

Here's a link for you to see the comparison to the idiom "searching for a needle in a haystack": CLICK

Walls of signatures praying for the safe return of the plane has been erected everywhere in Malaysia, and there is one in Plaza Damas, where I pass by everyday on my way to food. B and I decided to put our signatures on the wall too just to show that we care and are hoping for the plane to appear safely with everyone safe and alive. It is indeed a dark time for both heavily affected countries Malaysia and China, and let's not point fingers now, but hope for the truth to surface. 
Let's observe what Sherlock Holmes famously said in his cases: 

“Once you’ve ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”

No matter what, we have to know the truth, however impossible it may be. The people, especially the suffering families, have a right to know. 
Let us all pray for the safety of the people on board MH370, and may the truth shine soon. 

First Sniff on Universities

*sniffs*

So half of sem 2 is gone. ._. it's incredibly scary that time is passing SO fast. The mid-sem report has once again come in. I got a 40/42. :)
Got 7s for everything except English (which falls back to a 5). I misinterpreted the unseen text ENTIRELY wrong. :(
Now that there's only one more examination left toward my predicted grades, it goes without saying that I have to buck up on my English. Plus this is only mid-sem, I'm still very unsure about all my Higher Levels. :(  haih. How can one ever be sure about anything.

I guess I must start sniffing around universities for real, as I have to apply around September?
I'm very (like veryyy) set on a linguistics degree. Well I actually want to do speech therapy. But UK universities (the ones that I'm looking at) don't offer a specific speech therapy degree as an undergraduate course. The closest I can find is linguistics. But linguistics is not speech therapy. So I'm confused.

Do I go for the specific course that I want, or do I study a more general field in the country that I want? Cause there is a speech degree at HKU, but I've always wanted to go UK, and indeed it is exactly that dream that motivated me to get scholarships to go. So it would probably feel like a let-down if I didn't go there. :/

I've got all the UK universities in that JPA list that offer linguistics or something very close to it narrowed down during the holidays.

• Cambridge -Linguistics
• Edinburgh -Linguistics /Linguistics&Psychology /Linguistics&EnglishLanguage
• UCL -Psychology & Language Sciences /Linguistics
• Warwick -Language, Culture & Communication
• Lancaster -Linguistics /Linguistics&EnglishLanguage

I'm only interested in the first three though. Oxbridge is because of its reputation and architecture (I love ancient, traditional buildings!). Edinburgh is probably my most hoped-for university because its linguistics programme is consistently one of the best in UK (and I think the world?), and recently ranked first, topping Oxbridge. And also because it's very pretty and is significantly more possible for me to get in. UCL is great too, they have an actual psych and speech sciences degree (which is the closest I can get). If I get both UCL and UoE, it would be really hard for me to decide lolz.
But I guess I'll be applying to all of them since I have five spots in the UCAS. :)

(Manchester offers Linguistics too, but apparently they do not accept English Literature HL. They want English Literature and Language HL. Zzz)

I can't apply for Aussie anymore, cause the timing is very different. I'm a bit sad cause I wanted to try USyd or UQ, but I guess it's not going to happen. And I'm not going to apply to US (I'm quite, quite sure) cause I've always wanted to go to UK and the US application system is too demanding for me to care (esp as it's not my first choice you see).

Actually I don't even know why I'm taking IB. There's university advanced credits given to IB students with good grades in Aussie, US and HK, and I'm going somewhere where they don't really care about the difficulty of IB =.=
Sometimes I think I'm better off studying A-Levels and stop tormenting myself.
But then I'm not doing it for advanced credits, I'm doing it for myself, so that's invalid anyway lol.

It would be risky to only apply to UK, cause they might all reject me or something :'(
I hate how they all gave offers so late next year cause then if I don't hold any offer, I'm doomed. .__.
Or I might stupidly have firm and insurance choices with the same conditional offers. =.=
:(
I'm worrieds! Time to work really really hard on all those IAs .____.