What's the point of knowing with your eyes or with your mind the full brimming potential that a person has inside if at the end of the day, he or she simply disintegrates into a piece of paper?

How well those marks on that piece of paper are, is how much potential he or she has.

Wrong?

Oh but that's what the world thinks.

You can't tell people you're talented in this or that. You can't tell them about your experiences or your life. You can't tell them about your character or how much you've grown and changed for the better. What the world wants are numbers. They don't want to listen to you. They don't trust you. They trust little flimsy pieces of papers you can use to wipe your backside once they're done sniffing its aroma of excellence. They want hard facts that states very clearly and very plainly what you've done and what you've scored. Everything that you are, everything that you've done, your whole entire life, is nothing more than a single sheet of paper that determines your future.

And I'm starting to believe them... Goodness.

Got a wake up call from Mr Tan today. And the thing is, he didn't have to tell me because it was one of my silent fears all along. Now I have one more tangibly and very much solid reason to carry this fear with me on my heavy back, and its driving me up the wall. I'm scared. And there are nightmares that haunt me and these nightmares have alphabets in them like "E" and even ghastly "C"s and snatches of phrases like "too late" but mostly "screwed" and "help me, I don't even know where to begin anymore". How can the differences in mere alphabets get to me? A or B? C or D? I'm disgusted and disappointed with myself. Damn the block tests. Damn the 'A' Levels. Haha.

I really really really want to go overseas to study. But I don't have the money and my parents don't have the money and I don't think I'm smart enough to get a scholarship or hardworking enough and my grades are seriously dropping and I'm panicking. But I can't see myself getting stuck in this system anymore. I've had enough. Even if systems will always be oppressive all over the world, at least I'm out of Singapore's for once and that will satisfy me. To be out of what it meant to nearly go to EM3 or what it meant to have been in Normal Acad or hell, even what it means now being in the art stream of what rank of JC. To be out of thinking too much and second guessing myself all the time because I'm weak and I don't believe in myself and the insecurities comes with the constant branding by society of who you are through what instituitions you study in and what subjects you take. At least over there, over in a new place, I can start anew. Perhaps it's just a form of escapism.

"Why care about what they think?" you say. "Who gives a shit about society or about what people think?" But somehow you can't help getting affected when these people are your friends and your family. They are people you love and care about. There are expectations you have to fulfill, and you can't simply just go ahead and lead your own life without taking into consideration the lives that they want you to lead. I'm not saying to conform. I'm saying to consider. Because the moment you were born, your life was connected to that of many others. You can't simply extricate yourself from this web, pick up and go off on your own without thinking or doing something for them. Am I making any sense?

I also can't see myself being able to generously fuel my passion for studying for art or for literature in Singapore anymore. I hate the word "study". What happened to "enjoying" subjects? I see black and white monotony and I see dead solemnity and realistic people who are pragmatic and selfish and who don't really care about anything other than themselves getting those straight 'A's. Then again, maybe I'm just plain paranoid. But how can that be when even now the closest of my friends compete with me so viciously and are so desperate to know my results just so they can compare it with theirs' and frustrate and gratify themselves further? They frighten me. It doesn't mean I am not aware of their existences just because I don't say a word. But it's only human nature to be selfish. How far do you go? What is right anymore?

I get hurt whenever my mom tells me that I am doing badly and that it is all my fault and I should just study study study and study harder because its not enough. It's never enough. I am never good enough. Sometimes I just tear out my hair and uselessly ask her, "Do you know how much I'm struggling? Do you know how hard I'm trying? Do you know how tired I am?"

Sometimes I talk to you but you don't want to listen to me. After which subsequently you accuse me of not telling you anything at all because honestly, I am used to your oblivion. I'm used to you wanting only to know my successes and not wanting to know about my failures because they make you worry and they make you depressed and you don't have all the answers to my questions anymore- it's not a simple case of dropping a sweet or getting bullied by a classmate. You think only of grades, while I think of character, of friends, of helping, of learning, of teaching, of laughing... of so much more than just grades, which sometimes I feel are much much more important than grades, which I know amounts to utter rubbish to you. I know you are right in your own way and life has told you to be hard and to be harsh. I know you mean well. I know you only want the best for me. But I can't tear myself away from my dreams. I can't tear myself away from all the responsibilities that I have already dedicated myself to, or relationships that I have to spend more time mending or building, or friends that I have to spend more time talking to, or subjects that I indulge too much into for pure pleasure. I try to juggle this and juggle that, but somehow, some balls gets lost in the midst of the act, and I'm caught in another act of constantly just trying to maintain balance and trying to stay focused but am wavering from left to right, hanging on a breaking thread, and am on the verge of breaking and falling down into the pits of black. I am so close to giving up.

But if there is anything left in this stupid and silly cowardly girl that I am, who is pretty much nothing at all, it is that I still believe in Him. I believe that I am not alone. I believe that He watches over me. I believe that there are unseen mechanisms moving as we speak, and that somehow, things will work out and everything will be fine.

I still believe in seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. And maybe I am prepared to pay the consequences for it.

On the bright side, shall not lose more time. The juggling act continues. Part 2. It's never too late. I'm stronger than you think. I have not come this far just to crack under mounting pressure. Move on, comrades. There's a lovely challenge up ahead. It's only just the beginning of the end. :)