I just had the idea that about five years down the road, I might like to remember what it was like when I had to leave my home for a long period for the first time ever.
I never ever ever expected to go overseas for uni. EVER. Perhaps when I was young and worshipped the West (embarassing as that sounds) I dreamed of going to either the UK or the US to study. When I got into RGS after primary school, I felt like a smart person. Because everyone whom I told my school too had the same reaction - OMG YOU MUST BE VERY SMART. Ok I probably have above average intelligence at best but in RGS and RJC I really was mediocre. That's besides the point. I began to think that I had to keep going to such elite institutions for the rest of my life because I was getting used to the 'WOW' reaction. So I wanted to go to Cambridge, or Oxford, or Harvard. Mind, that was when I was about thirteen or fourteen. As I grew older I realized that I would never be able to get into such institutions and my expectations grew more realistic. I knew how attached I was to my home and Singapore (not because it's Singapore, but because it's where I grew up in - I'd be just as attached to it had it been any other country). So I told myself that I would never go overseas. I planned to go to NUS and study medicine. That was something which never changed. I always wanted to be a doctor, save that period of time when I was really young and wanted to be a princess or the President. So that's what I told everyone who asked me what I wanted to do for uni. NUS medicine. Why didn't I want to leave the country and go overseas? people asked. Because I could never survive on my own, I said.
Little did I know that while I dearly wanted NUS med, NUS med might not necessarily want me. I began to suspect that somewhere around J2. Perhaps I would not be able to get in. I knew that I needed my As for A levels, plus...what? I wasn't even sure. Internships at clinics and hospitals? Yeah that sounded correct. And I assumed that was it. If I had known earlier maybe I'd have taken on some community service projects or went on one of those overseas service learning trips. One word on those. How the hell do they expect to spot the truly kind and caring people who really want to help people by selecting those who go on overseas trips?? Does that really say a lot about a person's character? I won't make generalizations - no doubt there are people who go on those trips truly intending to help others. Most of the time though? I know people who have gone on those trips. Their reasons - because a cute guy is going too, because it'll be great fun with friends, because it'll look good on their resumes. And believe me, I know of some - if not nasty - pretty unpleasant people who have been super enthusiastic about those trips. They're not mean people, but they certainly aren't those full of moral fibre or whatever traits the interview panel looks for. Take a look at how they treat some of their classmates. They simply think it glamorous to say that they have gone overseas to help the poor. I don't believe it's help at all. They paint murals. They take about a thousand pictures of themselves with the kids. Murals - well, they're nice and all, but do they fill the starving children with food? Money?
I will say no more about this because this is not supposed to be a rant about NUS med and the people who got in.
Anyway, NUS med sent me into a super depression. I realized that I had to leave my home if I still wanted to be a doctor. This sounds like nothing to some (for instance, those who have gone on aforesaid overseas trips and who most ironically are IN NUS MED SO THEY DON'T NEED TO LEAVE THEIR HOMES WHEN THEY ARE THE ONES WHO COULD ACTUALLY SURVIVE DOING THAT). But it means a lot to me. Shut up about all the "great experiences" I will have, the "independence" I will gain, the "meeting people from all over the world". I don't want all that. I want to have my great experiences with my friends and family in Singapore, to be able to visit my cousins whenever I want, to go to school and go home at the end of the day to my warm bedroom and my mother's fantastic cooking. I want to sit on the couch after school and watch TV with my dad and listen to my mum nagging me to study. I want to gain my independence the slow way. I don't want to meet people from all over the world. I want to stay with Singaporeans for the rest of my life.
I cried over having to leave and at times when I lie in bed at night I just started thinking about how it'd be like all alone in a foregin land and a strange room with everyone I love back home in Singapore without me. When I saw the pictures of the halls I cried because they looked like prison cells. I may be a bit spoilt, yes, but those rooms were so tiny that they gave me a claustrophobic feeling. Why did I have to be condemned to this? I hated NUS with all my heart.
I refused to pack. I was in denial. I didn't believe that I was going, because I didn't want to. I imagined that I was going to go on staying in Singapore. Sometimes I even thought - should I really be a doctor after all? My mum did everything. She pulled out all the luggage bags in the house, made lists and packed in everything she could think of. She forced me to do the same. Otherwise I might well have curled up on my bed right to the day of my departure and cried and wasted away. I was that depressed. No words can describe the extent to which I love my home and my room. I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE.
Two weeks before leaving I went into full-on depression. I would look around my room and think about how much I would miss everything. I went to the clinic where I grew up in and wondered when I would see it again. Every time I went somewhere, I would think, "This is the last time I'll be here before I leave." Every time I met someone - my friends or my cousins, I would think, "This is the last time I'll see them before I leave." At all my farewell gatherings, I would leave reluctantly and look back at my friends. I met up with Yiyin and Shurou at a Japanese restaurant in Ion and when I left, going up the escalator with them at the bottom, I just kept looking at them and thinking about how much I'd miss them. I met up with Zhihua at Vivocity and when I got into my car with her waving goodbye outisde I just felt so sad. On the day before my departure, Szelin called up from UK and I had spoken barely two sentences to her before bursting into tears. I passed the phone to my mum, then sat at the window crying my heart out. Behind me, I heard my mum's voice breaking as she talked to Szelin, then she started crying too. I knew she would miss me a lot because I had never left her side before, and at that moment, hearing my mum cry, I just hated NUS med so much that I think I cursed the entire faculty, the people in it, and the people who decided who could get in and who couldn't. How could anyone be capable of such cruelty? Three times I applied/appealed, and three times they turned me down flat. Did they really think me so incapable of becoming a doctor? Were they really so certain that I could never be a good doctor that they had to turn me away again and again, banish me overseas away from my family?
That night I met up with my other cousins Eiffel and Aigner and I was close to tears many times during the evening. We swam together in the pool and I thought about how they could still come and swim with my family, go on with life like normal, while I couldn't because I would be FREAKING OVERSEAS. When I hugged them goodbye, tears were already in my eyes. The next day, when I had to leave, I was reluctant to take all phone calls. I cried all day, and whenever I heard anyone's voice saying goodbye to me or an sms wishing me luck, I would start crying all over again. Side note: Thanks to NUS, I spent Valentine's Day doing last minute packing and crying my eyes out. I mean, Valentine's Day had never been particularly enjoyable for me, but this one took the cake. It was a day of love but all I felt was lost love. Love for my family, love for my friends, love for my cousins, love for him. People I would be separated from in a matter of hours.
With everything packed, doors locked, windows shut and my luggage standing at the gate, I sat on my bed, hugged my pillow and yes, cried. I cried harder than I ever did before. I REALLY did not want to go. I wanted to stay on this bed and in this room for the rest of my life and I didn't care if I died there. My dad came in and comforted me, telling me I'd see my room again soon, but it didn't help. I just could not stop. I felt like my heart was being ripped from me and that it would stay here in my room while I left.
Eventually I did manage to calm down, and with a last look at everything, I turned the light off and left my home. In the taxi, I tried my best not to cry but when my cousin smsed me, I felt like starting again. She said this - 'When are u flying? Cant bear. U at the airport nw? Can u dun go?' Now any farewell message of any form would already get me sad, but the last line, "Can you don't go?", really hit me. That was the very question I had been asking myself all these past months. Can I not go? I asked myself that, and I asked NUS that. I begged NUS, in my mind, to accept me. Can you please accept me, can you please let me stay in Singapore, can I please not go? And each time, the answer was no.
I told her I didn't want to go. I really did not. But I had to. Because that was the only way I could become a doctor.
It was perhaps a good thing that no one was there to send me off because I suspect I would have simply burst into tears in front of everyone. My mum bought me a thin silver ring as a farewell/Valentine's Day present at the airport's jewellery shop. I'm wearing it now as I type this. Then I was on the plane, and it was taking off, taking me away from the place I was born in, the place which had spurned me when I wanted to pursue my dream, the place which did not want me, the place which felt I was not fit to become a doctor, the place which I was going to miss so damn much. Unrequitted love, anyone? And on Valentine's Day too. It was strangely fitting.
This post is getting far too long and too emotionally exhausting to type so I'll leave it here for now. Stay tuned for the second installment which I hope will be slightly more cheerful.
I spent the whole of yesterday re-living primary school. I read all the encyclopedias my mum bought me when I was young, "Dr Pat Benson's Power Science Guide" (which was my PSLE bible - I mugged it so hard for science!) and even dug out Appreciating Poetry from Sec 1 Lit. No, I'm not mad. I was just mugging for the ISAT. And based on the sample questions I found on the net, the topics tested were all like primary school science! That's not to say it's easy. They asked stuff about simple machines (the names of which I've almost completely forgotten), the solar system (one question which got on my nerves: Which of the following is a new moon? You can guess what THAT reminded me of XD), and the types of rocks (Sec 1 geog = completely forgotten too!).
Anyway, I never realized how cute I was in primary school. I found all sorts of interesting stuff scribbled on my primary school textbook while reading it. For instance, on one page showing food chains, I made up my own extension to one food chain.
Original food chain:
Rotting leaf < Earthworm < Centipede
My creative extension:
Rotting leaf < Earthworm < Centipede < Bird < Cat < Fox < Wolf < Tiger < Lion < People < Cannibal (LOL!) < Shark < Whale < Dinosaur < T-Rex
Ignoring for a while the fact that whales don't eat sharks, lions don't eat tigers, people don't eat lions (civilized people, anyway) and T-Rexes are a kind of dinosaur, I wonder how I got A+ for PSLE science with such a warped idea of food chains. XD
Then there was this message I wrote on one page, presumably when I was in a temper:
"IALIAVML. IHMFAM. TAOGAHSWEO, OAE, FTM. IWICJDDAD. IWBHIHAAG, RTWMSPHSADL --- Written when I was angry!!"
Yes, the "written when I was angry!!" is part of the message. OMG SO CUTE. :) 12-year-old Yinfei was so mad at something that she vented her frustrations on her science textbook. I wrote in code, by the way. The alphabets were the first letter of each word of the real message. For instance, for "IHMFAM", it was supposed to read "I hate my father and mother." Oops! >< That's the only sentence I can decipher. I can't even remember what the rest was supposed to mean. No wonder I wrote in code - so no one could understand. Anyone who can break it, please tell me. XD I'm very curious to know what I wrote!
Ok I'm going off to watch ATP World Tour now. XD
Dare I try to revive this? After changing my profile to a much less childish one (honestly, I blush upon reading what I wrote just a couple of years ago), I'm tempted to continue this blog now that I'm free of exams (for now at least!). But blogs aren't as big as they were a few years ago. :( It's all facebook and twitter now. And I wonder if anyone still reads this. XD Still. Even if I'm talking to the air I think I'd like to continue writing here at last.
I'MGOINGTOTHEMASTERSCUPI'MGOINGTOTHEMASTERSCUPI'MGOINGTOTHEMASTERSCUP!
And because of that, I couldn't care less if I wouldn't be able to go for any other holiday this year. Yes, I don't mind even if this means sacrificing my annual Japan trip. Shurou finds it strange that I should only be going to Shanghai for four days, cos apparently I seem like the type who would spend weeks at some exotic place. But omg, to me nothing beats this. For the first time I don't feel envious when I hear about other people's holiday plans cos in my perhaps rather insane mind, Shanghai's the best place to be in this november. And yes, it's because Rafa's going to be there. XD
So right now, checking the TMC website everyday is a must for me. I mean, I want to know who I'll be watching, right? And for the first time since I started watching tennis, I don't follow Rafa's matches all the time. I mean, he's already confirmed for Shanghai (since July, in fact!), and because of Fed's loss to Andy M at Madrid (HAHAHAHAHA), he's also already clinched the year-end no. 1 ranking. So he's in a pretty safe position right now. That's why I have switched my worries over to the fact that I don't want to travel all the way to Shanghai just to see a, say, Blake vs Ferrer match. Currently, Rafa, Fed, Novak and Andy M have been confirmed, and that is definitely sufficient incentive for me to go. Still, I want to see some other people. Oh, and Kolya has been confirmed too, but actually I'm not too keen on watching him. A-rod was confirmed last night after he beat Gilles. :( Not that I don't want to see A-rod, but I'm afraid it might wreck Gilles's chances of qualifying. Still, I'm glad that Ferrer's safely out of the way, having lost at round two in Paris. That leaves Blake >:( and Tsonga. And Nalby.
And would anyone believe that if Rafa had to play round one against Gilles or JM I would actually wish him to lose? Gosh, that's like a first for me. I mean, Rafa's safe on his throne now, and safely confirmed for Shanghai, so he can afford to lose a little. Whereas I do want to see JM and Gilles in Shanghai, and a round one loss is definitely not going to help that to happen. Anyway Rafa's safely in the quarters against Kolya, and I know either result will do nothing to change the line-up in Shanghai, so it's back to support-Rafa time. :D Next quarter's between Fed and Blake, and this time I want Fed to win (more firsts!), cos I DO NOT WANT JAMES BLAKE TO GO TO SHANGHAI. >:(
Third quarter: A-rod vs Tsonga. A-rod has to win, cos I don't want Tsonga in Shanghai either. Final quarter, Andy vs Nalby. Similarly, Andy for the win. I wouldn't mind Nalby in Shanghai, but if it's to be at the expense of JM or Gilles...no way. By the way I'm starting to really like Gilles, his smile is soooo cute. :)
7) JM - 369
8) Gilles - 356
9) Ferrer - OUT
10) Blake - 335
Actually it's a pretty safe situation. Blake will stay put at 335 points if he loses to Fed, which I think he most probably will, cos (I hate to say this) Fed's getting good again. If the two Andys keep their heads, they can win too. Phew. It's extremely tiring to go bothering about so many matches when usually I only seriously bother about Rafa's. I usually only bother about other matches if I happen to hate someone a lot (like how I used to hate Novak so much!), or if they are strong players who might potentially meet Rafa. But hey, if I'm going for the season-ending championships (omg, that gave me such a thrill), then I don't want to bring my binoculars for nothing. ;)
Rafa and Fed both lost at Indian Wells, with identical scorelines. 6-3 6-2. Ouch. That hurts. Like, what's the matter with them? Are they on strike or something? Rafa's loss, though more painful to me, is more justifiable than Fed's one though. After all, Rafa lost to (GRRRRRRRRRRR) the Djerk, who's no. 3 in the world, as opposed to Fed's losing to Mardy Fish, the no. 98 in the world. Still, I'd rather Rafa lose to Mardy Fish than to Djokovic, anyday, ANYTIME! Actually, I'd rather Rafa lose to anyone but Djokovic. Nothing hurts more than Rafa losing a match, but losing a match to the Djerk is an indescribable pain.
I find that the only time I ever root for Fed to win is when he plays against the Djerk. Usually I want him to lose. But at last year's USO final, I was all "FED! FED! FED!". At this year's AO semi, I gave the Djerk the voodoo doll treatment when he played against Fed, something which I usually reserve for Rafa opponents only. You really gotta feel sorry for Fed sometimes. It's terrible losing to the world no. 98 when you're the world no. 1. To others it's not so bad for the world no. 2 to lose to the world no. 3, but to me it's such a big deal! I fume, let loose a stream of insults directed at the Djerk on the only forum which I can do so without people throwing similar insults back at me: VB. GAH. What I wouldn't give for him to do something so outrageous on court that he gets a life-time ban. Oh bliss. Maybe flash? Wouldn't put that past him.
Everytime he loses, he comes up with a whole bunch of excuses, whining about sprained ankles, strained shoulders, pulled stomach muscles, the flu, and his most brilliant excuse to date: breathing difficulties. Uh...riiiiiiight. When he wins, it's a totally different story. He runs down his opponents, saying in the case of Fed or Rafa that their time is over and so on. He wants the Roger's Masters to be renamed Novak's Masters. Whenever Rafa loses, he doesn't bring up every one of his ailments. He's had injuries in his knees, shoulders, and most recently, the ankle. Yet he said after his loss to David Ferrer at last year's USO: "I don't want to use injuries as an excuse. Today he played better than me, and that's why he won." This is what I call being gracious in defeat!
Now the other players don't like the Djerk either. Fed usually praises his opponents whenever he loses. He says they're really good. EXCEPT when he loses to the Djerk. He says the Djerk is NOT the most talented young player around, it's Andy Murray, despite the fact that he had just lost to the said Murray. Like what my dad says, "It's because Djokovic really deserves it!"
Rafa and Fed fans often unite against the Djerk now. One website calls out, "Fedal fans unite!" Even the girls at VB root for Fed when he plays against the Djerk. They go "vamos rogi!" despite the fact that we only call out "vamos!" to Rafa and the other spanish armada players.
Maybe I should call for a mass voodoo doll-ing.
I simply HAD to post this. It's what you could call a prayer, written by Maggy of VB, and I have to say I totally love it.
Presenting the Rafa prayer:
O Rafael, Rafael...
Mighty Mallorcan,
Most Glorious King of Clay,
Gladiator of the Grass,
Lord of the Locker Room,
Gracious Signer of Autographs and Setter of Fashion
Trends,
Drop-Shotter Extraordinaire,
Attila the Honey,
Cutie Pie of Cutie Pies,
Possessor of EPIC Biceps and VERY NICE TEETH,
We humbly salute thee and pray most passionately for
thy success, that thou might DOMINATE the World of
Tennis
Even as Thou already DOMINATE OUR HEARTS.
In the name of Obsession,
AMEN
C'mon let's all say it together! :D
People who are Intuitive Investigators have multiple talents and can do anything they set their mind to. They're able to detect numerical patterns easily and are able to grasp the true complexity of the world, both in its details and in a more abstract form. You've got a sharp logical mind and are adept at using words to get even a difficult point across. The combination of all these things makes them truly brilliant.
V day! :)
To celebrate it, VB (vamos brigade) called for us to say why we love Rafa, in not more than ten words, not including "I love Rafa because...".
Go see the homepage. I insist. See if you can find my sentence there. ;) And we have a very very nice banner on the homepage too. Coincidentally, it's the one I voted for, so you can see why I like our homepage so much. :) Please don't laugh at my sentence. Actually I had a much nicer one, but it was eleven words long and thus rejected. :( So I had to go with my second choice, the ten word one which is currently on the homepage. :) One of the VBers said both my one-liners were perfect, so that's good. :) Sorry, I can't stop smiling. :) :) :)
Yup and happy v day everyone! :)
P.S.: Zhihua, let's do our meaningful nods. ;)