My new blog is at exakr.tumblr.com.

My current LiveJournal account will be retained for the groups here.

No, I'm not dead.

Yes, I neglect my blog too much.

Yes, I procrastinate too much.

I need to take care of my blog and LiveJournal profile more...

I really don’t know how to begin to describe these past few weeks. On one hand, I have begun to adopt a more positive, forward-looking outlook in life, but at the same time the status quo is pretty much unchanged, save for one thing: I have begun helping out my mother at her food stall inside a school canteen, which is also taking away some of my free time but also gives me a feeling of purpose. It’s tough work though, and it’s motivating me to find a job of my own faster so I could get working somewhere more preferable.

I think why the status quo remains pretty much unchanged may all be because of the cold I caught about a fortnight ago; that really made sure I was kept down and out (save for moments where I did unproductive things, like surfing the internet aimlessly). Worse still, my sleeping patterns became haywire during the cold, and the past week has been very, very tiring for me as my body tries to compensate for the lost sleep. That took away even more time that I could have spent on more useful things.

This will be a long and difficult journey for me, but I’m not going to give up easily this time. Indeed, for someone like me who had given up once and bore the consequences, I can’t afford to give up again, lest even more terrible things cometh this way.

In some way the difficulties I’m encountering here is also kind of driving me to get out of the hole I dug myself into even faster. I really can’t put up with where I am right now any longer, and I really want to get out of here, fast.

I have already planned ahead for next week: I’m going to seriously get started on my e-learning courses that I signed up for but haven’t had the time or energy to do, and also start spending quality time learning how to draw – something I have really been wanting to do. There are also a number of other things that I hope can be done this week, and I hope they can be the little steps onto a path that will eventually take me out of this hole I dug myself into.

I really don’t want to give up again. No more laziness and excuses.

(or so I hope)

More or less just a general life update: I have been rather down with a mild bout of illness. I really hope it's not the H1N1 flu, and thankfully signs are pointing more to the common cold than to H1N1. If I have the flu, I usually will be completely down and out for a few days, not sitting around watching random things on the internet and being too tired and lazy to do anything!

So anyway, my room is in a mess right now and there's a backlog of things I need to do. I hope I can get over this soon and get my life back on track.

Later.

These past 24 hours has been the most painful, trying, and agonising time in my life.

Not many people go through their day having realisation after sickening realisation. The realisation that my dreams are down the drain. The realisation that the milk is spilt. The realisation that I don't really have any true friends in real life. The realisation that I have been doing things wrong. And many more.

It's painful and agonising. My chest feels like it's on fire right now despite the fact that I'm sitting in an air-conditioned room right now while the weather outside has cooled off after a bout of thunderstorm.

I talked to my sister and her boyfriend over several matters this afternoon through the phone while I was out cycling (trying to think my mind through via exercise). I asked my sister if she could introduce some of her friends to me to get me started, seeing as how I don't have any friends in real life and that I need to be shown the way. She shot back by saying that I'm just expecting people to spoon-feed me for all of the things in my life.

In a way she was right. The fact that I'm so used to being guided throughout my life could have only meant disaster in the end.

I requested her to do this, though, because I really, really didn't know where and how to begin. All of my previous friending attempts have either gone horribly wrong, epically failed, or failed to last. I won't go into details other than to state that one of my "friends" turned into my sworn enemy.

She also chastised me for trying to know people from junior colleges, especially from those two I mentioned in my last post; she thought I wanted to be one of them when I know I can't.

That wasn't my point. I know I can never ever be part of them.

My point wasn't to try and pretend to be part of them. My point was to be able to hang out with people like them.

I realised today that many of my attempts have went wrong in the past partly because of how I was, and partly because I was mixing with the wrong people. I realised that I was never meant to have been together with any of the people I tried to socialise with in the past, but was meant to be with the people that could had been a part of my social circle had my dreams had never been shattered into pieces.

I realised I was destined for higher skies than where I kept myself to.

In a way, I admit, I'm trying to pick up as many pieces of my shattered dreams as possible here. By mixing with them (among other things, such as completing by 'O' and 'A' Levels privately and moving onto my other dreams - to become an artist and graphics designer), I can try to live my dream as best as I can.

Call it a compensatory tactic. It's akin to trying to contain the milk spill and cleaning up the mess left behind.

If I can't experience what has been denied to me, at least let me be around the people who had. Let me be around the people that could had been part of my social circle. Let me know what it's like to be around with them.

It may sound silly, and you can call me stubborn, but apart from this I really don't know how else I can go about containing and cleaning up this mess.

My sister's boyfriend then implied to me that I can't just simply try to borrow someone else's social circle. He suggested that I try and get out there and find out what exactly I want. He told me that, if I had real difficulty stepping out, I should try internet social networking sites like Facebook or Friendster (which I usually shun) and try to find friends on such sites.

I relented. He was right. As much as I hate Facebook, I guess this might be the only way forward for me, in addition to broadening my circle here on LiveJournal.

As I was heading home, a lot of things were going through my mind. I was thinking and questioning about every little aspect of my life, from the mundane to the bizarre - from what I should do next, to whether I should continue hating SMRT (those who know me well online, and read some of my previous posts will know what that is about), to trying to be honest and frank with myself. I quickly realised that all of this - every little thing in there - is going to take some time to go through, and I have planned to write all of them down on paper over the next few days.

This, plus the fact that I have gone through quite a lot mentally in the past 24 hours (at least), makes me feel really tired, and I feel like taking some downtime to contemplate things. I will also need some time to carefully think about the kind of people I want to meet, prepare myself to explain to them the truth, prepare myself mentally for possible rejections, and most importantly of all, think carefully about my future, and what exactly do I really need and want.

It may take a day or two, it may take a week, a month, or several months. I don't know how long it might take.

What I know is that I have been through something today - and been through a tough time in my life - that could had taken me down, but yet I endured through it, somehow. As they often say, what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, and I know that this is one of those experiences that could have killed me, but that I survived. And when I finally come through all of this, I know I will only emerge stronger, more resilient to what life has to throw at me next.

It's like the phoenix, rising renewed out of the ashes.

Eventually, I hope, I can come back here in the future and remember that today, 13th day of June, year 2009 A.D., is the day that I finally got past the ghosts of my past and moved on to a brighter, shining future.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it beckons me to go to it. What awaits there is my future, the rest of my dreams that have not been shattered, waiting for me to eventually realise it. And I simply can't wait to be in that light.

Bye for now. I will be back.

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"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong

"You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back." - Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), from the movie «Gattaca»