Turn my mic up louder I got to say something
Light weights step to the side when we come in

Feel it in your chest the syllables get pumping
People on the street they panic and start running

Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming
I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme, I'm dumping

Healing the blind I promise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drum and

Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping
Fuck that I wanna see some fists pumping

Risk something, take back what's yours
Say something that you know they might attack you for

Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before
Like it's stupid standing for what I'm standing for

Like this war's really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn't cater the rich and abandon poor

Like they understand you in the back of the jet
When you can't put gas in your tank

These fuckers are laughing their way to the bank and cashing the cheque
Asking you to have compassion and have some respect

For a leader so nervous in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
In their living room laughing like "what did he say?"

[Chorus:]
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

In my living room watching but I am not laughing
Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen

World is cold the bold men take action
Have to react or get blown into fractions

Ten years old it's something to see
Another kid my age drugged under a jeep

Taken and bound and found later under a tree
I wonder if he had thought the next one could be me

Do you see the soldiers they're out today
They brush the dust from bullet proof vests away

It's ironic at times like this you pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday

There's bombs in the buses, bikes, roads
Inside your market, your shops, your clothes

My dad he's got a lot of fear I know
But enough pride inside not to let that show

My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back, he hand-wrote a quote inside
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
both scared and angry like "what did he say?"

[Chorus x6]

[x6]
With hands held high into the sky so blue,
As the ocean opens up to swallow you.
I feel invisible.

I'm just drifting around class like a fucking ghost. Sure, so sometimes I do like to be on my own, because the others are really noisy. But the only time when people can tolerate noise is when they're a part of it. And I'm certainly not a part of it.

After En left, at all assemblies and all other things, I'm standing or sitting alone. Without anyone to stick to.

Not to say I haven't considered joining a clique. But the thing is, every single person ALREADY is in a clique, and it's just disheartening, and the one that actually has a semi-possibility - Cara's clique, complete with Miriam, Daniele, Agnes, Agatha, Nat and Melody - they're all Christians, and while they don't discriminate against me for not being one, I feel odd around them.

And today she said that my fringe was disgusting and asked if I'd cut it by myself. And that she is the person that I like, because she's a nice person. No, I'm not lesbian.

And I don't know why but I think I felt that I was satisfied with my hair - maybe because I cut it, and my mother trimmed it so that it was neater, but I thought it was okay.

And to hear her say that...

I mean like I CUT IT MYSELF AND I THINK MY FRINGE IS OKAY, SO STOP SAYING IT'S UGLY! It's meant to be weird. I told her that and she was like "No it's not weird, it's downright disgusting."

Fuck.
English:
36/50 for the Common Test. 73.6 for the overall score.

Chinese:
30/50 for the Common Test.

E Math:
15/30 for the Common Test. I don't think I'll pass overall because I failed the homework section.

A Math:
20/30 for the Common Test. I have no hopes for this, as long as I pass I'm happy.

Bio:
19.5/30. But I'm not happy because I think I don't deserve that mark.

Chem:
I'm getting it back in two minutes.

Hist:
Will be served on a platter to me tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Social Studies:
I screwed up this one. 11/25.

Lit:
17/25. It's not high but it's the highest in my class - and I think it's not that good, still.


Stay tuned for more updates on 'triggers for the death of this author!' Thank you for viewing this article. More to come!
It is all over, and yet, there is no catharsis.


English:
36 or 39/50. Something like that for the common test.

HCL:
Haven't gotten it back but I'm pretty sure I'm screwed because I didn't finish the paper. I only finished inking out half the summary and I didn't do the last two compre questions.

Bio:
Haven't received the paper, but I think I should be alright for the paper. I'm not THAT bad at bio. I should pass.

Chem:
Fucking screwed. It was the last paper. I tried committing so much to memory that I kinda had a system overload. I couldn't call up any data at all. For calculations I think I didn't get a single question right. I understand whatever Mrs Lau is saying, but my answers just seem odd. Acids, Bases, Salts and Calculations, you are my downfall. Screw that, CHEM IS MY DOWNFALL.

A Math:
Ms Mansi (our nineteen year old teacher) said that the class didn't do very well, and quite a few people failed, and it wasn't just one or two people. She said some people actually had a single digit score. So I thought it was me, naturally, because it's a case of 'SINCE WHEN DO I PASS A MATH?!' So I was pleasantly surprised when I got a 19/30. And it was even better for about one and a half minutes when I got an extra mark. 20/30.

E Math:
I think this subject is quite screwed too. I don't do well in Math, and I think all my Further Trigo questions that I attempted for this paper are not done properly, and I don't think I have a snowball's chances in hell of passing.

Social Studies:
Not good. 11/25. I studied... Really. And I REALLY PAID ATTENTION IN CLASS. I COPIED DOWN ALL THE MAGIC EMO WORDS: ANGER, RESENTMENT AND TENSION. I don't know what happened, I just forgot it all.

History:
I don't know, I think it was moderately okay, because I managed to finish the paper, but I've never passed History so I think it's gonna be not very hopeful.

Lit:
Bad. I don't think I did well, and Ms Bong said she was worried about some of the inferences that we were making. She said that this assessment is merely a gauge of your ability, to let her and us know what we should do and how to improve. BULLSHIT. I think she's just trying to break it gently to us.

I think that's all the subjects I take. If there were additional ones I think I would be committed to Woodbridge for insanity. Just sitting at my desk and trying to do homework makes me feel frustrated, whether or not I'm actually able to do it or not.

It's all over, but I don't feel any cathartic relief which Ms Bong was talking about yesterday in Lit class. Yesterday she was going on about the process of grieving in F451, and how the five stages of grief were basically cut to none in that dystopic world. Five minutes after a man's dead, he's on his way to the Big Flue, ten minutes later he's a speck of dust. So basically there's no grieving time. And that's not an exact quote, but it's quite close.

So because there's no grieving time, the people are forced to suppress their emotions. (I got that one!) And because they suppress their emotions, then they have to have an outlet. So the people in F451 use violence as their outlet, you know, through all the violent parlour wall shows and the speeding in the cars in town, and the bumper cars and the supposed amusement parks in town which should really be called a violence farm...

And I was wondering, isn't that just what we're doing all the time? Suppressing and compartmentalising? Bottling up? Going sleepless and being frustrated and angry and depressed because of it?

I swear it's just teenage angst, maybe, but I think every single one of us in class identified.
I like Eminem.

Some people think that rap isn't music, but the definition of music is an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. So I think rap is music, because there's a background melody.

And his songs make sense. Like Stan makes sense.
I want to learn to dance. And cook. But not to sing.

The cooking bit is easy. After EOYs I'm going to search for recipes online and beg money off my parents and get ingredients. So I'll start with fish. Then vegetables. And rice/noodles/carbs like potatoes. Then yoghurt and dessert. And bake. And there, I've just exhausted my diet. Notice that I don't eat meat.

Learning to dance is the tricky bit.

I've ruled out all the ballroom dances, like tango or foxtrot or what-have-you.I've ruled out ballet. I've ruled out all classical forms and other forms of things that are traditionally graceful, like Chinese dance or Indian dance, in whatever form.

Specifically, I want to learn to dance like...Oh, I don't know.

Damnit.

But what I think is cool is the following:
b-boying
hip hop
popping/locking
those dances you see in Korean boyband music videos
c-walking

But I don't think I'll ever learn. Ah well, back to studying first.
It's good for that adrenaline rush, dancing and singing next to others who look more competent than me, but then again it feels good, to be on stage again. Then after we all bow and exit, and do the celebratory things when we win, it starts all over again.

ALL O-FUCKING-VER AGAIN.

And you're back to the daily grind, tasting blood and sweat with more unshed tears, because you're the one without no one beside them. Burying your freaking nose in your book because you don't have anywhere to stick your nose in.
I NEED 18/30 FOR MY A MATH TEST. DESPERATELY.

because if not i can't continue taekwondo, and it's the only thing that's keeping me mildly sane.
I am an irresponsible child.

I am irresponsible, stupid, ugly, fat, useless, worthless, and...did I mention stupid? And untrustworthy too.

I leave my homework too the last minute. I don't plan my things properly so I end up rushing. I don't always try hard enough. I don't try most of the time, period. I do homework and don't care whether it's correct (even though I have the answers). I don't do things properly and leave things half done. I don't study well, I keep procrastinating. I don't play the piano well. I have terrible handwriting and time management. I'm not good at doing things.

I take calls from friends in the middle of homework and go on 'yakking and yakking' for more than half an hour. I am addicted to things like the Internet, reading and daydreaming. I cannot be trusted to do my homework when I have my phone next to me because I may be texting people. I am stupid because I don't understand A Math and E Math and need an expensive tutor, and I still have to do homework and not care about whether I got it right or not.

I only care about reading, writing, daydreaming, the Internet and taekwondo. I don't care about my studies, and I don't care about my future, I don't have plans - I seem to not have taken heed of the fact that I NEED to study to get good grades and get a good fucking job so that I can actually live and support people.

I am ugly. I do not like smiling, except for when I am with my friends. I am not very friendly. I do not have a pretty face. I do not have a good body - I am FAT. And I know it, yet cannot push myself to exercise. I want things but I don't like the process of getting there. I am utterly lazy.

Did I mention that I was stupid?

Did I mention that I was useless and worthless, and is utterly of no use at all in writing essays or poetry or anything of the sort? I am not good at drawing, asking me to draw is the equivalent of handing an infant a crayon. I have no self-control, I do things impulsively. I spend time on things that are less important and neglect the things that I ought to do first.

In other words, I do not like myself.

To be truthful, I hate who I am.

And I am too lazy, stupid and unable to change it.

Finally, I am already at the edge. I am unable to study, I am unable to absorb information, my brain is too useless to be a sponge.

And last of all - my heart is dead.
You ask why I spend a lot of time online. You ask why I read. You ask why I love taekwondo.

I can lose myself in it, that's why. I can escape, for the moment, I can not think about the abject failures, the failures to come, the things which I have not done... Things which I cannot do, things which I don't understand - basically almost everything.

I escape through it. And I know I'm not supposed to escape, but the thing is, I can't really stop wanting to.

And I just want to put my head down, have that curtain of black come down, because when I stand up I don't see straight, and after climbing up the stairs I'm not really breathing properly. I don't want to open my eyes to see Math, Chem, everything. Myself.

Am I running from myself?
Drained.

Common tests start on Wednesday. There's Social Studies and A Math. Social Studies should be fine, I hope. I've studied.

I'm worrying about A Math, E Math, Chemistry and History...

It's all the subjects that I do badly in. I don't understand A Math, E Math and Chemistry. Fine, so I understand all the facts in Chemistry, and all the basics in A and E, but I don't know how to put the basics together to get the answer. I don't know how I'm going to even pass these subjects. No matter how many pages I write for History, no matter how much I squeeze my brain desperately for those last droplets of brain juice, I don't get the levels. Like, I don't get past L5 for History.

I just feel so tired of studying. I've studied and studied, and I'm at breaking point, or so I think. I come away from Math tuition, Ms Wang's class, realising that I've forgotten whether I was hungry or not, forgotten how to drink water (that happened before), forgot how to spot my father's car in a sea of others in the carpark. I've come down the lift in a daze, only realising when I get into the car that my mouth is hanging open.

I go home and I open my textbooks, I face rows and rows of precise marching ants, drilling for space in my brain. I see all that, and it repulses me so much I want to rip up the textbook, just throw it out of the window and watch the bits and pieces and fragments of paper just flutter crazily on the way down to the slick wet road. I dreamt once, while I fell asleep on my textbook, that all the information would move via osmosis into my brain, from a higher concentration gradient to a lower concentration gradient, into my brain. I woke up to a small puddle of drool on my textbook and a smudge of ink on my hand.

At this rate I'm not getting the marks I need to continue taekwondo (tkd). And what happens if I don't continue tkd? I have no outlet. I'm running out of skin space, and my blade's broken anyway. Tkd is more or less this thing that actually responds, like (amount of effort put in) - (physical setbacks, eg flexibility) - (time constraints, eg I can't train daily) - (the three months between each grading) = (next belt) + (new stuff learnt). It's physically rewarding. It feels good to sweat it out, kick the blue MOOTO shield, punch the black Champ or MOOTO target, and then see the coaches do it and vow "I'm going to do that someday."

Unlike studying. In studying, I just don't have "save document" command. It's being entered, the information, but it's just not staying. It's not being saved. Sure so I retain some stuff from Bio. The facts I somehow retain, and I retain the vocabulary I have from books, but I don't retain Math. Numbers and figures and graphs and those obscure, unintelligible signs mean nothing to me.

So A + B + cos/tan/sin Something = Something. It doesn't stay inside. Give me the same problem a few days later and I don't know how to do it again.

Not to mention I think I caught Winnie/Sue/Geraldine's cold. I think it could be passing to Jean next, then Hilarie, then Cara, then Crystal. Then the class. It's a pandemic. It's the first time in three years that I've caught a bug, any bug or some virus of the sort.




It's been a long, long time since everything was cool
I shoulda seen it coming but I guess I'm not the only fool
There's something growin' on the outside
Too much missin' on the inside
Should I waste my time and let you lead me on and on and on and on

Waiting on the day when I'm complete
Without you I'm doing what I can to let you be
Making sure there's nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside

I've got a bruised up heart
But I'm still hangin' out
I should take it easy but I'm still gonna get around
There's something growing on the outside
Too much missing on the inside
Should I waste more time when everything is done and done and overdone

Waiting for the day when I'm complete
Without you I'm doing what I can to let you be
Making sure there's

Nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside

I'll see you on the flipside
Nothin' showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside

Waiting for the day when I'm complete
Doing what I can to let you be

Nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside


Flipside by The Click Five.

I don't know what happens if we aren't able to cope. I don't think I want to end up dead. At least I know I will never commit suicide. At least that's my point of view at the moment. I don't think I'm suicidal. At least I think I'm still there. Not over the cliff.

Do we end up like Maeghan? (Oh you know what I'm referring to.)

So you swallow everything. 'Something's dying on the inside' 'I've got a bruised up heart'.

You swallow everything, you hope, you wait - and force yourself not to go around the bend, over the cliff.
Do you know what's worth fighting for?
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?

Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You're in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I

When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul

Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I

Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone?

When it's time to live and let die
And you can't get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You're in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I





That's 21 Guns by Green Day. There's stuff in it that speaks, frankly. Like 'throw down your arms'. It doesn't mean for you to amputate your limbs and throw the bloody soggy mess on the floor, it means for you to put down your weapons. People like us carry weapons around with us all day - you just don't know it. We're carrying words for bullets, arms for spears and our own brain for the tank that spearheads everything. I still don't know why people discriminate against people who are different from others. They're just being odd - are they afraid of what's different, because they don't know what's there? Maybe they just haven't tried. They just condemn people.

Like people shun the LGBT community because they think someone's gonna fall for them just because they're LGBT.

Like people shun others in class because they like different things and maybe have different views in things like religion.

Like people fit stereotypes to everything, like no one expects me to be vegetarian or to love playing my piano.

Like people just think that hanging out with people outside your clique of friends is bad. Like Sarah Dahlberg put up black boards around her desk to keep her from seeing Agatha and Miriam. So you don't like them, fine. Why block them out and tell them (without words, that's the worst thing) "I HATE YOU, I DON'T WANT TO EVEN SEE YOU."



Do you know what's worth fighting for?
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?

Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You're in ruins


Why fight so much over just something as simple as a boyfriend? (I'm referring to some in class.) Why fight and show that you hate someone and hurt the other person just because you don't wanna sit next to them? (Again I'm referring to people in class.)

I don't know why we fight. I don't know why North Korea still has Taepodong under construction, why Germany wanted to conquer Europe, why Japan wanted to conquer Asia either, why the Catholics and the Protestants were fighting in Northern Ireland, why the Sinhalese and the Tamils were fighting in Sri Lanka. Fine, I know the reasons behind the conflict. It's in my SS notes.

But what I DON'T know is why we can't all just lay down our arms, recognize that we're all broken-hearted people inside, that we've fought since the breaking of dawn, the consciousness of mankind, and that it's time to stop.

I know we're never going to stop arguing in between humans. Humans just have an innate nature to argue. I know we're never going to stop feeling angry, and I'm not advocating that, because I think excising emotion, any kind of emotion at all, is wrong.

But what I think we all need to realise is the fact that humans have been fighting against every single one of their kind for eons, since the dawn of humankind. And we need to stop, slowly. We're all the same, underneath. We're all humans, with screams trapped inside, with dreams longing to burst free, we're all people with feelings, thoughts, emotions...

And no matter how different we may seem, we're still all the same inside, really.