You know it's funny how freedom can make us feel contained

It feels almost surreal that the surge of exams/preparation/studying is about to come
It's like we strapped ourselves onto our seats on the roller coaster, and we are slowly ascending upwards.
Knowing what is ahead yet gripping the handlebars as if we don't.
And when we fall, we scream, but we fall.

Mr Ng's attempts to get us motivated included a survey for a motivational workshop.
One of the questions included, Why do you not feel motivated? And it had those annoying asterisks that meant you had to answer it.
"I feel like I am running on a track and every time I push myself to complete and reach the 100m mark, I realise that there is another 100m ahead of me. And every 100m symbolises a new supposed target of success. Score below 10 for L1R5, Score below 8, Score 6. Maintain 6. Score all A1s.
Whenever I think about the never ending track, I feel unmotivated
What am I studying for?"

 Although somehow I think this is a reason for me to NOT study and constantly watch episodes of Law and Order, which are brilliant btw.

It also scares me that in 8 months time, my time in fairfield will be gone and a new season of change is arriving.
Quite like the uncertain feeling of when sunshine will arrive after rain and assault your face, and that longing for the cool air to linger on forever.
Yet, you know for certain that it is coming and that the change is inevitable.
 I always feel foolish for thinking that things that are inevitable will not arrive as long as I do not think about it.
Out of sight, out of mind?

When I think about leaving fairfield, i just want to go up to every single lovely person I have met in fairfield and hug them and tell them that they are beautiful, wonderful people who are going to do so well in life and impact everyone around them with their loveliness and fluff.

On a side note, would love this /temporary/ tattoo:

Good reminder. 

No, I am not okay.
No, winning isn't everything.
No, I do not want to hear your motivational quotes or speeches.
No, I am not in control of my emotions right now
No, I will not choose to be optimistic
No, I will not sugar coat this and make this a 'learning experience'.

Now shut up and let me upset dammit.
Life is not always about being optimistic. 

ahh

When I was in the car back to S'pore I totally has this blog post in my head but rn I'm just like.. meh.

In summary what I was gonna say was:

7 and 8 year olds can speak fluent Cantonese while I can't.
Blame Billingualism. Also they learn English Chinese AND Malay. Overachievers much.

Malaysia has ridiculously cheap food.
Not fair.

Read John Green's Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns.
One was disappointing and one was not.

Though Looking for Alaska was the better of the two, I hope I'll never have to be in the situation.

Watched a movie called Restless about a girl dying in 3 months and the guy loves her and AHH but i know she's another MPDG. The beautiful girl who dies and the boy who learns to let go of his anger management.

I wish MPDG would stop making me feel like I want to be one of them and be perfect and pretty and have nice hair and nice dresses and clothes.

THEY DONT EXIST GRACIA.

..... nobody asked you Patrice.  

It is a pasta competition

Mum made Ikea meatballs and I was SO looking forward to eating it with the sauce but when I reached home and opened all the saucepans, all I saw was a crap load of tomato sauce and I was confused.
Then my mum told me she actually made pasta with the tomato base and she made the meatballs so we could put it with the pasta.
Dinner=ruined.
It's not that I hate tomato base pasta (hate it), it is just that I very much prefer cream base pasta, which I'm sure my mum didn't know.
Thinking about it and painfully eating the pasta mouthful by mouthful as my mum put more sauce on my plate made me think that this is exactly how my first week of academic school has been.

So you see, it is like a pasta competition.
All the chefs, ranging from super good, to can't even boil water, are going to take part in it.
The end goal is for all chefs to get a good rating, and they have mentors pushing them towards this goal.
The chefs are told, study hard study hard this is THE year of the competition and don't you want to do well?
They even send the chefs for viewing of the judging for the previous batch of chefs.
Watching the chefs which tried so hard, fail under the judging made chef gracia so scared of failure that the only motivation for her to work towards that pasta competition, was the fear of failure.
Her mentors continued pushing her and her culinary class towards making that perfect pasta, yet all she felt was that the culinary gods were just dumping more and more dreaded tomato sauce on her plate and that she was the only one gorging it down while everyone happily took it in.
The fear of failure overwhelmed chef gracia as she felt so lost and hopeless in every class, that no matter how many times she read how pasta is made, she could only memorise "put pasta in boiling water for 2 mins", without actually understanding why.
Memorising was easy for chef gracia, yet all she felt was just a sense of hopelessness as she continued and forced herself to study, planning her days to study all the best culinary cookbooks.
Yet, whenever she touched or opened one of these cookbooks, all she felt was this irrational fear and a wave of emotions coming over her, wanting to consume her and make her crawl into a corner.
Chef gracia could already picture herself being one of the chefs who failed miserably in the judging, with all her hardwork turning into dry pasta and stale sauce.
Chef gracia continued to push herself to persevere, yet this was definitely not the type of meatballs she had expected when she excitedly took on the challenge of this competition.
Chef gracia just wanted to quit and cry and sleep and not even try, for trying for the sake of the fear of failure was as good as not trying at all.
What happened to all the motivation that chef gracia felt when making pizza the previous year?
The process of learning how to make the perfect pizza was so enjoyable for her, as she eagerly read through all the books and made notes.
yet now, all she felt was hopelessness and dread whenever she opened any of her books to learn the 'ways' to make the best pasta.

It's all a pasta competition.

of sickness and results

Been sick this week, and I realise how much I appreciate sleep and rest
First week of being Sec 4 is almost over and in all melodramatic-ness, i'm so tired 
After seeing the release of the O level results today, I feel so scared and stressed
And starting to wonder what I've been doing with my holidays and my life these 2 months during the break.
And what I really want to score for O levels, is it 8? Where do I want to go? How am I going to achieve my goal? When are you gonna go hardcore grauiv?
QUESTIONS. 

Kind of really clueless for Bio, which worries me because I took for granted the A for EOY and was a sotong during extended curriculum so now I'm all DDDD:
Chinese is also stressing me out because my teacher enjoys giving us all the answers while we just copy and when I try I always feel like I have so many ideas but I can't put them into words.
The chinese department also printed all the cheng yus from Sec 1-4 that are in our TB which is nice, but also incredibly stressful :(
Over the weekend, I guess I have to catch up on revision for Bio, Chinese, Chem and my Combined Humans.
Jam packed weekend ahead :/

In other news, my sister's co-worker keeps stealing money from her.
People nowadays.
Tsk.

trying my best

......
To listen to all the T-swizzle songs on RED.
It's not easy, like Speak Now, it takes time to appreciate everything.
But because I am a hungry and food deprived person, the songs just sound like whining to me.
Grrrr.

Anyhoo, I'm writing this post as a reminder to myself that I need to get my butt down to doing homework and planning devotion for cell retreat and packing for Melbourne.

GET YO BUTT DOWN TO DOING THINGS GRACIA.

So

Recently, my life has been reduced to either
A) Spending ALL my time in school
Like 9-5 or on lucky days, 8-6
Which really doesn't make me upset, it makes me busy so I don't end up doing B
Speaking of B...
B) Sitting at home watching all my favourite shows and going on the internet
I've seriously started a Sunday lazy schedule.
10.45-2.55.
3 episodes of Castle, followed by 2 episodes of Body of Proof
I'm not that much of a Body of Proof fan, mostly because I HATE this guy.
Like, HATE HIM.
Worst character ever.

Look at that ugly face.
Okay I'm being quite biased but hey, the dude is annoying, immature and just downright hate-able.
And he isn't even a villain! He's one of the good guys.
Makes me so mad.
But then again they make up by making a really nice couple of Peter (Detective) and Dani (Medical Examiner)
BUT THEN.... dun dun dun
They killed off Dani's character.
I was SO mad.
With that, I was done following Body of Proof

How can you kill her?!
RAGE.
Castle still makes me happy though, they're showing Season 2 which is my fav season so yay.
yay for staying in bed for 4 hours watching TV.
On to the internet... everyday I find new things that blow my mind.
Previous blog post was about my new found interest in Victoria Secret Models (Perfectionnnn)
Now I've found a new interest!
Food bloggers.
Like, how amazing is it to just bake food, take photos and blog about it?
Uhhuh.
And all this baking is making me want to bake too!
Except I have to remind myself that I cannot bake, and I will never be able to.
/insert sad face/

Anyhoo, another exciting part of my life is that Council Camp is tomorrow!
I don't know if I'm excited or not
I haven't packed anything and I'm prolly one of the most unenthusiastic campers around
I just want to stick my tongue out and be like..
LET ME SLEEP IN.
I haven't touched any of my holiday homework either, except my emath worksheet.
I got on pretty alright till I got to coordinate geometry
and I'm the (self proclaimed) queen of that.
There has never been a Amath practice paper/EOY paper that I've done that I haven't gotten full marks for coordinate geo.
BUT THEN.
Emath, everything wrong!
I got so frustrated cause I checked and I was right and the answer sheet was wrong
Making me feel that the answer sheet wasnt credible at all
SO WHAT IF ALL MY OTHER ANSWERS WERE WRONG?!
That sent me into a flurry
And i decided not to touch Emath anymore
And seeing that it is the least complicated homework,
I foresee I won't be touching homework for awhile.

Anyhoo that's all for now folks,
need to pack for council camp and find something to wear for Farewell.
Whoop dee do