in my 22 years, i have lived through the deaths of 3 close relatives, all occurring in the past 10 years. my grandmother, brother and merely five days ago, my aunt.

for both my grandmother and my aunt, i sort of already knew they were gonna die. when my mother arrived in school one day for the former and called me out of the blue in the morning for the latter, my first question was, 'did she die?' and both times i was right *to the eternal chagrin of my mum that phrase seems to be something i tend to use for old, frail relatives*

i didn't cry at my grandmother's funeral. neither did i shed a single tear when i received news of my aunt's death. i prefer to not go into the psychology of my non-reaction, only that, i couldn't feel the grief.

but i cried when my brother died. not as much as my mother or any of my relatives but considered a lot for me. till this day, i still dream of him and think of him and sometimes cry for him. i miss him so, so much. the fact that his death was so sudden, so unexpected made it even harder for me to accept the fact that he is forever gone. in my dreams, he was always still alive and his presence felt so perfectly normal.

today's the 7th year anniversary of his death. and i still remember the exact moment my mum called me and tearfully told me my older brother's dead. i remember breaking down in tears, alternating between grief and disbelief. i still remember dressing him one last time in the clothes he was to be buried in. and i remember fighting back tears every single time i visit his grave.

tomorrow my aunt will be buried, probably in a plot somewhere near my grandmother and brother. the last time we went to my brother's grave, my aunt was with us. i cannot believe that the next time i visit my brother's grave, i will be visiting her grave as well. i had grown to be quite fond of my aunt, who had mellowed quite a fair bit over the years. and even though i couldn't find the tears for her now, i think i will definitely cry when i see her grave and her death finally hits me.

but the tears i shed today as i type this post, they're for my older brother, whom i might not have been the greatest sister to but honest to God, i loved him more than i've loved anyone else before.

so i was attempting to study for my last paper, virology, which is on the 26th. *this is where i intended to gloat on a certain mid sem test a month back but i decided not to, what's the point?*

i started to procrastinate. what's new. as such, i was reading previous posts of these 2 friends who don't ever update their blogs anymore. i'm assuming they're so busy actually living their lives that they don't have time to make an entry every once in a blue moon. and i stumbled upon a few amusing posts. a few navel gazing ones and quite a few cryptic ones. ah, young naive self of the past, when all our troubles seems too big for our tiny brains.

had the weirdest dream last night. was at my old high school in the big assembly hall. only, the hall was converted into this kick ass lab research centre and there were quarantine areas and what nots. the place was like a maze! i remember feeling quite disoriented and wanted to get out of there asap. which is weird because i love big shiny labs *the nerd in me, hah* but come to think of it, the recurring theme of my high school years was me wanting to be out the minute i stepped in so i suppose even in my dreams i couldn't escape that.

do i ever envy the humans who loved their high school years? claiming them to be the best years of their lives? not really. good for them but in all honesty i look at it in a rather cynical yeah well way. don't think i've experienced my best years yet. which is good, i suppose. i don't have anything to anchor me in the past and there's always hope that my best years would come. whatever that means.

somethings are just meant to be taken lightly. or as a sort of ego boost, nothing more. the deeper you read into it, the more you start thinking too much about and sooner or later, things just go south. so this is me, taking a deep breath before i speak, or even think.

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today is the day my counsellor chose not to reschedule another appointment with me. which could mean 2 things- that she finally thinks that she'd fixed me or that she thinks that i'm a lost case. either way, i was relieved yet disappointed. i was waiting for a big realization about how i f*cked up my own life but nothing close to the sort occurred. although she did leave me with a few pointers:

1. treat others the way you want to be treated.
2. think, and think again, before you speak.
3. no one is born being good at anything, they learn and become good.

i swear, the number of quips i have trying to come out of my mouth when she said no.3 was unbearable to keep in but i managed to do it. these are basically the things people have been trying to tell me my whole life but somehow i refuse to take them in. i will try. or do, she says. 

it is always a little daunting to know that your friends have achieved so much more than you, in terms of life experiences. friends who'd graduated, found stable jobs, moved off into post-grad, moved on into new lives, settling into something that seems new and shiny. when i read my friends' blogs or their wall posts, they seem  so happy and at peace with where they are. and i am so happy for them. yet at the same time, selfishly, i wonder, will there ever be a day in my life where i feel the same way? this elusive peace and satisfaction. the sense of finally arriving at where you are meant to be. i wish that there is a purpose in what i'm doing. i wish that there is a clear direction instead of just guesses. because this meandering. this wandering and searching. this senseless breathing and routine motions. it is killing me. it is killing me that after more than 22 years, i still have no idea of anything at all.

i can't sleep again. another one of those nights when something out of the ordinary happens before i hit my bed. brain is going on overdrive, which it probably shouldn't. what the fuck am i doing? i have an 8am class tomorrow and a meeting with a prospective supervisor that i can't afford to screw up. and yet, my brain refuses to shut down. and somewhere at the back of my head, you probably shouldn't have taken that nap between 5.30- 7.00pm. this is all your own making. but i was tired. i hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. and i hate it. i love my sleep time. so here i am. god knows doing what. trying to not care too much about whatever's out of my scope to care about. late night posts. don't you just love them?

yes and no. that's all i can say. 

some things are seriously cathartic, yet traumatic at the same time. if it feels hard to imagine, just think of rollercoaster rides. don't pretend that you've never been so scared before a ride that it feels as if you're going to crap in your pants.

last night, was one of those nights. the result of which left me unable to sleep well afterwards. adrenaline? or just my neurons working overtime to combat the unfamiliar terrain? like playing wii for the first time and getting scared shitless by those demented bunnies throwing toilet plungers. i could not believe how stupid some of the games were. and i could not believe the amount of noise we make over something so seemingly simple and brainless. more than once, the term 'degenerated' was used. and i had to agree. yet it felt really great to do something that did not require that much brain activity.

a friend said that i am an over-analyzer. i don't know how she figured that one out. and i am a bit reluctant to use that term on myself. but how else to explain the fact that whenever something different- it doesn't have to be out of the ordinary, just different- happens, i find that i couldn't sleep right after? scenarios and images would play themselves endlessly in my head and i would imagine different course of actions, different endings. the sad part is, most of the time, it's involuntary. i know i'm tired and i want to sleep but it's like my brain has to work overtime to adapt to even the slightest of changes. it is exhausting sometimes and it makes me think twice about the things i do.

that said, at the back of my mind, i somehow know that that wasn't really the reason that i couldn't sleep. and as much as it pisses me off to admit it, where else can i be so brutally honest to myself but here? que sera sera.  

i had to gloat. i really should grow up. sheesh.

i got my immunology mid semester test results back yesterday. i was the girl who cried when i got a 87 in science class back in secondary two, although, seriously, that episode of waterworks was more likely a cry for attention than a real ohmygodigotlessthan90 bawl. i think, to a certain extent, i am still that girl, though i have become more fatalistic about it the higher, so to speak, i get in education and the less i devote myself to senseless crying over split milk. a lot of tears would've been wasted if i'd insisted on going down that road.

so i got an 80 out of 100. which is sort of like a pass for me. don't hate me for having higher expectations on myself. when i look at the number of people who got between 80-100 i.e. those who scored higher than me, i am reminded yet again that i am nowhere near the best. never was. perhaps will never be. when i think about the fact that i  will be competing against these people for an honours spot next year, it freaks the hell out of me.

it is times like these when i illogically blame my parents for believing that taoist priest that the original chinese name they gave me would be too good for me, literal translation would be too prosperous, and had them change it to the name i have now. which is not a bad name but a girl would love to have some of that prosperity that should've been mine in the first place.

i mentioned that it is not a very logical blame, and in my hearts of hearts, i know that whatever they named me had nothing to do with what i make of myself in the world. admittedly, i did not put in as much effort as i should and it seems that the luck that had carried me through the years has finally started to run out. perhaps it is time to be more serious in this quest for honours-dom.

the viruses mid semester test results came out today. i haven't checked it yet. you reap what you sow, yea?

aaarghhhh. this is frustrating.