I won't be blogging here anymore, Microsoft is quite a hassle. Instead, check out http://ben--low.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading everyone :)

Politicians, please make sure your country turns out nice and linear. Historians will thank you for it.

To SEA: your (or our?) histories are marked by anti-colonialism with little solidarity beyond it. Your ethnic tensions admit of various degrees of internal colonialism. Your politic are either very undemocratic or embody the worst form of anarchism imaginable (laying siege on an airport!? YOUR airport?? What will that do). Please be rational, inclusive, respectful of peoples' autonomy and identity, and don't get carried away by nationalist fervour - which tends to turn awry in times of peace of prosperity.

P.s. I know capitalism brings many ills along with its blessings, but recognise that it is human nature that's to blame, not the system or a particular class. Go ahead with socialist economics - indeed you should - but work within the laws of economics. We only conquer nature by obeying it.

As a history student, I am at times inspired by SEA, sometimes aghast at its atrocities. I do not believe in nationalism, only fraternity, collective necessity, and compassion. Truly, the heroism of humanity arise from its horrors, and I would rather not have the former if that means having to suffer the latter. No, don't bring God into the picture - men make gods devils - we'll probably end up with blood on the streets. Keep the monks and priests out of politics, for unholy tragedy has often followed their holy footsteps.

That was today's KI tuition topic. I was confident, more so than I had ever been in awhile. I've slept well, my school work is in order and I've brought my literature back to the pre-Condition 'C' grade. My classmates are a lot of fun and I'm getting to know them better each day, laughing and learning. With this mood I stepped out of the house in optimism and arrived at Mr. Spencer's place.

We covered politics recently and despite my readings about Marxist theory and my history background, it was still rather unfamiliar. Today, we covered history, a field I'm more at home in. It wasn't too difficult. We covered truth, evidence, and society in how they all play a part in history. Because I asked for historiography notes as well, I managed to find out who it was that said "the history of the world is the history of great men" and of course, EH Carr with "history is a series of accepted judgements". Interestingly enough, he notes also covered historicism and prediction as well as how cultural relativism hampers historical inquiry, along with the problems of verstehen. This is not to say that history is rubbish, but rather our understanding of it is incomplete and even if we had chanced upon the 'true' version of how things were, I say we would not know it.

History deals not just with what occurred, but also why it occurred. Suppose I ask "why did Ben Low leave Mr. Spencer's place demoralised?" Simply stating "because Mr. Spencer asked "did you do your essay on whether government needs theory?" - no, that would only explain what occurred. We need to state that that question was asked because of the preceding lesson's content and Ben's unfamiliarity with it, and the fact that Ben couldn't finish the essay to his own satisfaction and when asked about it, he was reminded of his history of sudden and drastic essay failures. That recollection, coupled with his unfinished essay, is what CAUSED him to head home with a heavy heart.

As a consequence, he will not be revising today's KI lesson on historical inquiry, nor will he attempt the question "Are there no standards by which we can call historians right or wrong, good or bad?" lest it turn out another farce. Indeed, he has cooked two bowls of instant noodles and finished a whole can of pork in bean paste. That will be his dinner and comfort food, their saltiness replacing the salt of his heart's tears.

"What is history?" "Its just one fucking thing after another" - The History Boys (movie)

I looked through my old essays:

PAE – A (19/25)

JAE – B (16/25)

J1 – C

J2 – D, S

What went wrong? If the poems got harder, it means I didn’t improve fast enough. If they didn’t, something went wrong with my head.

I need to work on my language as well, something beyond regular expository writing. Perhaps the long absence of formal discussion and non-expository writing is to blame for my appalling phrasing, sentencing and vocabulary.

That’s how long it took me to write my essay. It was a critical analysis of poem 21 lines long. I chose it because it spoke right out like a paragraph and didn’t take obscure twists and turns – gosh I hate those.

4 hours comprised of: selecting from a list of poems I short-listed; finding enough content to fill 3 pages; getting over the phobia of writing; fighting the sense of futility; and lastly, writing it – together with all the cancelling and liquid-paper corrections.

Am I going to hand it up? Another interesting question. I could use the feedback, but I won’t want any poor marks. I didn’t write about the human condition, although the poem displayed the private nature of grief and meaning. At least that’s what I saw in it.

Oh, now my perfectionist self urges me to incorporate that and rewrite – or type out – the whole darn thing. Not a bad idea actually… should I?

(rhetorical question. My unknown self decided it before it asked)

I wish I could pause time in this dimension and take a holiday in an exact copy of this world. That would be nice.

“A sound interrupted him; a frail quivering sound, a voice bubbling up without direction, vigour, beginning or end, running weakly and shrilly and with an absence of all human meaning into

ee um fah um so
foo swee too eem oo -

the voice of no age or sex, the voice of an ancient spring sprouting from the earth; which issued, just opposite Regent Park’s Tube Station, from a tall quivering shape, like a funnel, like a rusty pump, like a wind-beaten tree for ever barren of leaves which lets the wind run up and down its branches singing

ee um fah um so
foo swee too eem oo

and rocks and creaks and moans in the eternal breeze”

- a 118-word sentence from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (found in Practical Criticism by Lindy Miller)

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To me, it was a fearful scene. A voice “quivering”, “bubbling”, “weakly”, “shrilly” like a pained and tortured weeping. The strange sounds added to this effect, as if a monstrous creature lay lurking in the “tall quivering shape”, desperate to get out. A dreadful fascination with this fearsome mystery invokes a dark trepidation in me.

If only we could express our feelings like that. Though the words would make no sense, the sentence would.

In an attempt to improve productive efficiency, I’ve been reading up on critics A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It’s quite futile.

Bull, bird, Lucifer, Jesus, flight, eagle, Prometheus, Thoth, Daedalus and Icarus, Parsimonae, Minos – an endless list of religio-mythical characters that fuel so many divergent opinions among critics that one wonders whether the artistry is in the novel or in the critics’ mind (one of the central issues I’ve come across in aesthetics for KI).

Yes, humans like mythical issues even though most of us don’t believe in them. The mere suggestion of its truth, together with the magic of fiction, enthrals and ensnares the human imagination. I won’t be surprised if someone comes to believe in myths simply by studying them.

Myth and religion – thin line, but that’s for another day.

Clarity of thought is necessary for clarity of expression, but it doesn’t create it. No, expression demands intuition, and different types at that. Expository writing – or thinking, for that matter – remains in the realm of fact and science, never to set foot in the hallowed halls of the literary world.

I seek clarification on a number of points:

1. Why is art studied, not simply enjoyed or at worst/best, leisurely contemplated?

2. Why did the NY literature department choose two highly cryptic and obscure texts for the identity paper? (A local free-verse poet and Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist)

3. Why are NY’s history and economics notes written with such poor grammar?

4. Why am I asking these frivolous questions when I should be asking how I may obtain clarity of mind and expression?

5. Why am I still typing when it’s late and my driving test is tomorrow?

Honestly, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an interesting and engaging novel(ty). Any literature student in his right mind wouldn’t choose such a dense work for his exam, but it would be nice for a casual read. The novel is rich and full of interesting motifs. Critics have many interesting things to say about it… but I wouldn’t bet my exams on it, nor will my peers. Unfortunately, that choice isn’t ours to make anymore.

1) Foucault’s Pendulum – named after an actual physics experiment

2) The Name of the Rose

Author: Umberto Eco

The reviews for both are THROUGH THE ROOF! According to them, both books are oozing with the OCCULT, HISTORY, and THEOLOGY while being excellent works of literature in themselves.

I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I probably won’t have the time to read them, but nevertheless, I WANT!!!)

I like light pink, lime green, light blue. I like these lovely gay colours, not the gaudy “hot pink” or moss green or faded dark blue shades.

My cousin and I wrote some poems when we had the time, amidst our busy and disturbing lives, to take a bohemian vacation of beer and sushi. Somehow, pain and melancholy seem to be the stuff of the best poems.

I won’t pretend to know what good poetry is, but I do know what art is and what it can do. I won’t claim to be an artist either, because I can’t derive aesthetic ability from aesthetic theory. Frisson, catharsis, transcendence, form, sentiment – these things seem to be derived from art more than art is derived from them.

But then again, I could be wrong. In the meantime, KI has proven to be a panacea for the ills of muddled thinking. After picking up “Conceptions of Inquiry”, an Open University set text, I can feel my clarity of thought and expression slowly returning. Granted, heavy academic writing isn’t ideal – especially when the reader is on sleep-inducing medication – but it helps.

Ok, I’m tired, that’s why things aren’t coming out right. No, I just mean my words and ideas.

Mr. Spent and I did politics for today’s KI session. It was… not part of the KI course but it helped get my brains working again. I spent the rest of the day – i.e. from 4 pm till now, 830 pm – on the philosophy of science, which IS part of KI.

I worked on falsification and its competing theories. Indeed, it is logically impossible to derive ‘true’ theories from facts. A phenomenon might occur for various reasons and we may theorise about how this happens, but we’re completely unable to prove the factuality of our theories beyond all doubt. We may stumble across the ‘correct’ explanation, but we wouldn’t know it even if we did. There’s simply no answer sheet.

Scientists often plod along taking certain theories as premises. It is only when a number of them find that theory and fact do not match that those premises are called into question. Quite like life actually: we think that we’re going somewhere because of premise xyz but then things go wrong. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to experiment and find out what went wrong, no time to stop.

By the way, new theories that murder the competition with Ockham’s razor or a whole new viewpoint requires creativity and insight, which seems to be something occurring randomly.

Students of literature are required to be creative and offer fresh insights in order to succeed, qualities which in turn require happy, healthy minds (God help me with lit). Care to try falsifying this one?

[If you’d like to know more, read ‘Truth’ and ‘Conceptions of Inquiry’. The authors are listed on my fav books list]

“How did it go?”

I messaged so many people, only two replied. Of course I was curious, that’s why I got some information from a back-channel. Shock, misfortune, sympathy… so many didn’t get their As despite all the promise shown.

I wondered if it was the teachers who were to blame. We changed teachers for two subjects during our JC2 – or, more accurately, their JC2. I’ve always hedged my bets, making sure I have access to multiple conduits of information, but I always believed – or at least wanted to – in my teachers. Is that faith deserved?

What does that spell for me? I am behind the syllabus and all portents indicate I will never catch up. If I am to have any measure of success, my efforts must be spent solely on digesting and analysing notes. I don’t have time to spruce up paltry lecture notes or waste time on feckless lectures. Put it simply, I don’t have the time for mediocrity on the teachers’ part.

I’ve either failed or marginally passed through every assignment given this year. Each time an assignment is returned, I look straight at the marks. If it’s unacceptable to me, I tear and dispose of it on the spot. I know it’s the content that’s lacking, I just lack the sound memory that comes with sleep. Of course, personal confidence would also aid confident, lucid writing – evidently lacking in this post.

On a brighter note, kudos to POH XIAO YAN, Class of 0730, who got AAC !!!  I will take that as my benchmark, my minimum. It’s not out of my reach as long as things remain stable.

Today, I slept for 14 hours. Well, at least i tried to. I think I’m having an easier time suppressing the ruminations now.

I realised that I don’t want to strive on anymore. I just want to curl up and retreat into some dark corner where I can freeze into ice or become a petrified marble statue. It’s a symptom of anomie, a condition where an individual is unable to attain socially-valued goals and this discrepancy between the self and one’s ideal state (i.e. self discrepancy) tends to result in crime, purposelessness, retreatism, among other symptoms.

My rationality, which is often called upon to assess my status quo and determine the best course of action, has painted a very bleak picture. This realistic and non-delusional outlook has put me in a state of depressive realism – a depressive state where the mind’s self-serving cognitive functions are hampered or negated by a realistic world-view – which triggered the anomic state mentioned above.

Or maybe its attribution theory at work. Maybe I’m simply appealing to the most salient explanations in an attempt to improve cognitive coherence and preserve my self-esteem. Doesn’t seem to be working though.

How nice it is to \hide behind these theories, these paper shields, as if they’re talismans to ward off demons. For once, something doesn’t point its finger at me and say it’s my fault, because it simply isn’t. In any case, I am reluctantly forcing myself to study, emphasis on forcing, that doesn’t seem lead to progress or hope.

That’s why I’m in a state of withdrawal. I guess you could call it escapism (what the hell would I care now) and the dissipating world of novels, anime, and alcohol (as soon as I get my Kahlua and sparkling wine) are very comforting…

…in a world where nothing seems headed away from gloom and doom. Looks like the medicine came to late to save my besieged spirit.

The little things make all the difference.

I’m studying as hard as I would in school, but being at home in casual clothes makes it seem… weird. Maybe it’s the whole student persona that’s lacking, or the atmosphere, or simply feeling that I should be studying. At home, I feel as if I should be relaxing, sleeping and working on the piano instead.

My fucking printers are out of order so before I see my psychiatrist tomorrow, I’ll be popping by the school library to use its printer. Their printer is really fast, the pages come out very sharp, and the ink is so pretty and glossy. I never get any eye strain reading notes that come out of it.

Monday, get black belt. I’m not excited at all. In fact, I’m dreading it a little. It will mean change, but I don’t like change anymore. It’s unsettling and stressful managing it on top of everything else… and I’ll feel that I always have to perform well. Visible symbols of grade often do that don’t they?

I didn’t take all my pills last night. I stayed up till 6 AM reading up on unemployment, then I had the best sleep I had in ages – not exactly fantastic, but good enough for today’s study. Economic strategies of Burma and Vietnam… economic growth… oh, i forgot to get some piano practise. How did my cousin cope with chronic insomnia?

Food, more food, better food. Always always always, partly due to the excessively oily food my maid cooks all the time. Mcdelivery sends me my comfort food, but I mustn’t make it a habit. I gotta get out of the house, but I feel so vulnerable outside. But still I want food – rich food – food for the hedonist!

So tired…

Maybe it’s the sense of success, or even just a sense of progress. Is this a symptom of anomie? Of status anxiety? Strange how rationality isn’t able to rationalise these feelings away.

I want to eat and be satisfied, not just full. I want to drink, not just tasty liquids but intoxicating ones. I want to get high, maybe because I’m not going anywhere these days. If only there were others like me, also suspended and lost, not knowing where to go or how to get there.

Hedonism is such a lovely thing… but even then, I feel guilty spending. I feel guilty about my current position in life. It seems wrong – more than just a discrepancy between my ideal life and current state – but actually immoral. It’s not my fault I’m here, but still…

Insularity is nice, but not when it becomes entrapment. I wish I’d have a blissful sleep tonight, or maybe a nice dream. Haven’t had a nice dream for ages, haven’t had a dream in life for quite some time too.

Maybe it’s impossible to dream in nightmares.

I do not deserve this. I do not deserve to have my efforts thwarted at every turn. I do not deserve to be put in a state where every step forward is negated and turned into a step down into further depression. I DO NOT DESERVE THIS, PERIOD!

Damn the fucking situation. Can’t sleep, can’t anything. Why can’t I just fucking die!? Yea sure, the cancer patient fighting to do her ‘A’ levels is a heroine but the dude who can’t sleep and HASN’T GOT THE DEATH CURE can be ignored, tossed aside, left to study without full academic support. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE BASTARDS!? I’M WORSE OFF DAMN IT

And I don’t even know who to talk to, or what to say…

No one understands, no one can. I’m all alone even though some are standing right beside me – and all I can do is groan within. Its a pain the resists words, an emptiness that is full of hurt and raw wounds that each sleepless night rips open again and again and again!

I have dreams too, hopes and aspirations like everyone else. Why are mine shattered like that? Is it fair? Is it sane? To taste success and then see if dissipate into thin air as if it never existed?! Why the bloody fuck!? WHERE THE FUCKING HELL IS GOD!?

Fine, I have to pull out of school now. Its the best solution least of two evils. I’ll study alone, ALONE, and hire costly tutors. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. Can’t sleep, can’t anything. I feel so wronged by everything, everyone. I just want to sleep and never wake up, since there is nothing to wake up to.

Kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me

I wish I never knew what God is, what religion is, then I could take my own life and make things easier all around.

My JC life, robbed of me! So cruelly, unjustly, I AM WRONGED!

This evil is not one that revels in the public eye. It does not smirk when the world gasps in horror. This subterfuge makes it all the more potent, malicious, as it inflicts its agony behind a veil of normalcy so that my pleas for help fail to resonate with compassionate hearts accustomed to compassion for the dying and the lame of body – for there lies poetic tragedy. My deformity is unseen, eliciting no compassion, yet death will not come to cure me of this hideous disease which has no name.

I wonder who suffers more: those whose ailment trumpets to the world, or those with ailments of insidious cunning which, in its unrelenting sadism, denies me that nocturnal peace that every man has a natural right to.

Of course, I’ve tried to call out. My hails are met with scorn by many; few extend their hands, fewer know how to assuage the hurt. They do not understand it, but it isn’t their fault. Even I struggle to name this evil. The best I can do is to seal up the pain inside, at least I’ll keep my dignity. To thicken the wall of seeming that shelters my plague… life’s ironies trumps fiction’s genius.

____________________________________________________________________________

Hey I think I’m getting better at this! Now if I could only find a similar eloquence when juggling the copious amount of data in history and economics…

Oh, I heard that in the army, some people think that academia is a kind of nut (macadamia), though if the stereotypical professor really existed, this notion might not be too far from the truth.

Of the mind – and mind.

Osama, Khomeini, the UN and it’s charter… somewhere while running through these notes my mind is somewhere else, just a small part of it, ruminating…

…Where can I go? I can’t let go of the past, of old hopes and dreams. I hate the this lack of purpose, this general alienation from… everyone. Fight on…

Discipline, tenacious effort, the struggle… but I’m out by the first lesson, too drowsy, just too out… back home, still can’t sleep, but struggling still. The lectures continue, their cold heartless pace almost coercing me out of the system, saying “you’re not welcome here”.

So where do I go? As I walk through the passing days, my mind is as clenched as my jaw, the storm showing in my brows and sighs escaping my shoulder. I do not have words for insipidity, bleakness, except this: unacceptable.

I had been running just fine until something tripped me. My friends turned back to look, reaching out to help, but they were pushed along by the surge of others also running. I tried to get up again but my legs were wounded, so I crawled to the side of the track and watched everyone run by… their piteous glances all alike, all equally distant.

I rested by the track till I managed to get back on my feet. I tried to run. I couldn’t. I limped forward with clenched teeth, stopping every few steps. Double the effort and half the distance, horrid horrid fate that let me run free before making me lame, the cruel jokes that life plays in its sadistic joy…

I haven’t accepted this fall of fortune. If you were in my shoes, would you? Would you see your hopes and dreams become dreamy fantasy? Would you bear the bleak and dreary torture of living lost? Or would you cling on to the last dregs of hope somewhere between reality and delusion, hoping against hope that fortune, in her same whimsical streak, would restore the sunrise on your horizon?

Or perhaps we were all like angels in ascendance and my wings broke a la Icarus and I fell till a dark cloud caught me. Carried by the updraft, friends could not come to my aid. Is that a better metaphor?

In our age, saccharine words hide sour truths. In a way, metaphors can do the same thing. Euphemisms are still lies.

My classmates, they’re too young, too full of life and all its colours, hopes, aspirations. Life ages us more than time does. Majestic palaces and gleaming skyscrapers all fade in colour with time, but not by time. No, they fade into their bleak backdrop because of the lashing rains and howling winds.

I confess: I am addicted to fantasy.

The sort of fantasy I’m addicted to:

a) Fiction (but I lack the mood)

b) alcohol (but I lack the cash)

c) video games (of late)

Life is too dull, too bleak in reality. Fantasy is my relief, relief my addiction, and addiction - the procrastinator in me.

Put off the work, it will never stop coming. Moderation is more difficult than extremism. They’ve… we’ve begun to have some awkwardness. I don’t know what to do. The urge to just crumble in resolve and hide from the truth is so great that to resist is torturous. To live a lie is easier.

Lie no. 1: I can get off school whenever I want without any dire consequence

Lie no. 2: It is ok for me to neglect my work

Lie no. 3: I am on top of things

Lie 3 is the hardest to live with, or rather to keep alive. One probing question and my buffer shatters, and I begin to crack. 5 days without peaceful sleep… I’m falling into the despondency trap. Again.

Relief… I need relief… but I’m immune to the masses’ opiate.

Black squiggles, themselves meaningless, form to create codified sentences that bear meaning. This we call language.

Distinct sounds, in themselves meaningless, are strung to create aesthetic meaning. This we call music.

Distinct moments, themselves indistinct, soon turn into a continuum we call history.

Apology: I’m sorry I haven’t been reading friends’ blogs for so long. The workload is on the other end of the see-saw and I’m trying to balance my sanity.

Wait, that doesn’t make sense.

Bought star wars PSP game and star trek (the latter is only $10!!) on impulse. Thought it’d be nice to have varied sources of entertainment (read: relief).

Prozac (10) + Remeron (15) + Sodium Valporate (500!) –> sleep

I still remember my chem, hehe…