Saturday, May 29, 2004
I have a strong feeling that IBO will be the death of me. Received quite a shock just now when I checked my mail and found the training schedule for June. The third week's all taken up with full-time residential training at NIE/NTU. Not to mention all the other sessions scattered across the rest of my rapidly vanishing holidays.
It would be so much better if only I had been guaranteed a place on the final team. But as it stands, nothing has been decided, we _have_ to attend all the sessions regardless of the final outcome. And regardless of the fact that
Block Test 2 lies in wait when school reopens and with all these odysseys to far-flung NIE and NUS I sure as hell won't have enough time to revise. Anyway, with regard to the final outcome, there's no doubt in my mind at all. My personal belief is that I won't make it, and the conviction grows stronger day by day. With every new session I get increasingly despondent about my chances.
Hence, the inevitable, depressing conclusion: I'm going to screw up on both sides - IBO
and block test. I don't think I'll be excused from BT2, since the final selection has not been done yet. I can't concentrate on anything! I simply don't have the ability to handle both: it's either one or the other. If I attempt some great feat of stupidity and take on both... I'll be overreaching myself.
But I can't go up to the IBO professors and simply hand in my withdrawal notice, can I?
I'm not in Yifan or Weixin's league. I don't even think they like me all that much. I feel hopelessly inadequate next to them. Nowadays, whenever we see one another, I get the nagging suspicion that they... hold me in contempt. It's a terrible thought, and I'm probably being paranoid again, but I have my reasons for suspecting that this is so, and ... it's getting so bad I feel that I can't possibly endure a full week's joyless residential trapped with the same group of people day in day out, being miserable, deprived of all emotional refuge, with no comfort to be obtained anywhere. The IBO group is a cold lot. I'll choke on all the Bio crash-course material and die there.
The past few weeks have made me extremely grateful for the safety and refuge of my CCA room. It's a good place to hide during embarrassing episodes, like having a emotional breakdown for no good reason other than getting hit in the face by a stray football. Towards the end I was fraying badly - getting forgetful, disorganised, apathetic, hysterical, swinging between extremes of mood. I really, really need a good rest to recover and straighten out stuff. But now the promise of rest seems depressingly distant. I can't deal with the important things in this mental state. Stuff that, I don't feel like I am up to dealing with
anything.
What can I do, what can I do. Go to bed, maybe things will look brighter in the morning? Somehow I can't connect with the optimism of that statement.
words were spilled on Saturday, May 29, 2004
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Friday, May 28, 2004
Last day of school term. Oh, I am
glad. I'm rapidly running out of patience with school, getting increasingly restless, bored... blogging during lessons. :)
Social life has taken a nosedive lately. It's shrunk all the way down to almost nothing. Most of the isolation is probably self-imposed but... oh heck, I think I need a break from people. It always gets this way when holidays draw near and I start salivating at the prospect of blissful freedom from duty and work. When I can finally be alone without feeling, well, lonely.
I'm fed up and feeling rebellious. Unfortunately, my idea of rebellion is skipping Maths revision lecture to hide in the library and read about ancient civilisations and barbarian cultures - all of which have nothing to do with Biology, which I'm frankly quite tired of.
IBO training continues. I have absolutely no confidence in getting a ticket to Brisbane. The training sessions, by themselves, are actually interesting, but still. I'm not doing too well at the interpersonal stuff.
Let today end soon.
Please.
words were spilled on Friday, May 28, 2004
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Sunday, May 02, 2004
In Praise of Film Music
I'm something of a film music buff. Half my CD collection and most of my MP3 hoard consists of OSTs. And it's not just the contemporary classical orchestral stuff either. There's also techno, jazz, Broadway musical, rock, pop, synth etc. Of course, even the orchestral scores by Hollywood composers span a range of styles, instrumentation, cultural flavours - and it's fascinating.
With film music, I'm diversifying my musical palate all the time. I started off my dalliance with soundtracks in primary school when my English teacher let us listen to excerpts from the music of 'Titanic', which I hadn't watched yet. She played the 'Leaving Southampton' theme, and then asked for our emotional response to the music. For myself, I distinctly recall that the music evoked sensations of freedom and
flying - which turned out to be pretty accurate.
At the moment I'm listening to John Barry's 'Somewhere in Time' theme, which also weaves in Rachmaninov's 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paginini'. The combined effect is achingly beautiful. I love it so much that I'm extremely reluctant to go to bed, late though it undoubtedly is.
Yes, late. I'm so going to die for this week.
words were spilled on Sunday, May 02, 2004
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