Pain, being kind and uni rants, among others

Glad that I at least have my weekends to myself. :)

For starters, I completely take back that casual remark I made about the past week being 'lazy' (refer to previous post). From the day right after I said that, everything began to spiral downwards into some whirlpool of internal chaos as we got on to the physically taxing 'meat' of the week's schedule. That's the thing about physical pain, I guess – I wouldn't dare say it was unimaginably tough, because no matter how much it may seem to be draining from you in that moment, I'll know it myself that everything I went through in that week will have to end at some point, and that everything will have to settle again, especially those wars waged between my head and my flesh. I've been through that enough times to not know about this simple fact, and I don't expect this to end soon.

And I guess the same goes for pain in general. I've always kinda believed that one of the things which makes us proud to be humans would be the ability to consciously draw capacity from within ourselves to add purpose to whatever pain we're going through, no matter how harsh that pain may be. And we can do that retrospectively, concurrently, or prospectively, as long as we're willing to. To turn it into a memory embraced, or a hope that the unknown will yield something sweet, or even something worth anticipating, because somehow you'll know that it'll lead you to better places. In a sense, although we're just as fragile now as we were one moment ago in our skin and bones, there's immense strength within each and every one of us. Yet it's all about making that conscious decision between from the start – "as much as our light belongs to us, so too does our darkness". And this entire human race is really but an ensemble cast, with each person equally important in bringing the best out of someone else, or at least, in letting that someone else know even the simplest love. Just what I realised after reflecting upon this as of late – NS just grants so much time for reflection (and I hope it really did come out as eloquently as possible in here, haha).

So that's that for those hopefully-leading-to-self-discovery ramblings. In other news, I've been keeping myself occupied with MORE university applications this weekend, but I shall aim to quickly wrap it up and hopefully send in my final application next week. I'm also surprised at how these days, writing personal essays actually tire me more than I thought it would. Perhaps it has to do with everything I've done in the past 2 years leading up to now. It just occurred to me that I've been way too involved in society to think about doing something productive in my own terms. Even then, all these applications to educational institutions expect some inclination towards success and accomplishment in society's terms. To be very, very honest, I'm already quite worn down by all the pondering about my leadership experiences, my engagements with sport and intellect, etc. As if all this would necessarily suggest my character and potential. It's really inefficient, now that I think about it. And it's always about working around inefficiencies, because there's just so much unknown out there. So many ideals to measure and concretise. So many applicants to govern. Sometimes I can't help but feel that I take the shorter end of the stick, but then again, with everything this arbitrary, one can probably turn the whole situation around by spending some effort blowing something seemingly substantial out of nothing at all. And this goes back to the reason behind why personal essays tire me so much.

So... blabla, and I shall just cross my fingers now and hope that my time later will be spent well enough.

Crossroads

Not expected to be here judging from the fact that I'm in camp during weekdays, but thank God for long admin breaks. :)

This week has been a pretty lazy one so far and it kinda gave me quite some room to think about all the decisions I've made over the weekend. Went to NUS for the open day last Saturday and I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed, at least in the most shallow of ways, because U-Town looked exactly like those too-good-to-be-true artistic impressions you see in adverts for future construction projects, just that they have actually manifested in real life. Of course, "looks can be deceiving" and (insert wise quote here), but I just couldn't see myself passing off a truly constructive judgment after simply spending less than a day in that place. After all, isn't that the whole point of making things look really glorious and attractive?

This is not to say that I was only enthralled by the look of the campus though. Faithfully sat in for talks and visited the booths about the courses I've more or less marked out in my head, and when it was about time to leave I could sense that I managed to settle on a decision. Though I admit that this extraordinary decisiveness (I'm usually irredeemably fickle) probably came by because I didn't have many options to choose from by default, I guess it's safe to say that the sharings and info only served to provide more backing for my intention to venture into Sociology.

Speaking of Sociology, I also came to this decision about the course I want to take if I manage to enter Uni not long ago; in fact, I kinda made it after I received my A-Level results. It's not because I didn't really have anywhere else to go (even now there's a huge risk of rejection), rather, it's simply because I managed to find a course that represented what I was actually really interested in. I'm glad that GP during my JC days made me realise the importance of knowing about current affairs and the societies that bind people together, as well as the satisfaction from being able to think critically and to write in clear prose. I think this pretty much validated Sociology, so it was only up to me then to inform myself that such a course actually existed. But from where I'm standing now, I wouldn't dare say that I certainly understand what would be in store for me should I really be accepted (and I'm referring to potentially thick notes and hard-to-grasp theories). Note to self: bask in the comfort that the unknown can be something compelling and really, really rewarding.

On another note, I have yet to continue opening up my options while I still have the chance to. Didn't really get to know much about SMU despite its rather attractive social sciences programme, and I also intend to apply to NTU. Need to consider almost every local university, just in case everything falls apart. And as much as I'm feeling the pinch from my 'danger zone' grades, I should be thankful that at the very least, they affirmed the direction I intended to take from the start.