這是上天給我的考驗嗎？
(Is this a test from god?)

This is the question I've been trying to avoid and answer at the same time through the course of these couple of weeks. Whatever happened can be written into a cliche channel 8 drama, yet it happened to me in real life. What the freaking hell is happening?

I shall stay far away from using the actual 4-letter F word in this post, since I'm supposed to be clean of everything within the next 2 months.

Sighz. Everything that's happening is taking a piece of my life, be it physically or emotionally. I really feel like just taking a break from everything for a while, yet I know it's VERY (F-word warning #1) impossible.

Perhaps I shall let this be an apology letter to everyone. Yet some part of me want to keep everything to myself. What's the point right? Rant everything here, and what? Expect people to sympathize with me? Expect people to just let me go? Hell, no. That's irresponsible and selfish of me.

I don't know what's keeping me together. Is it what Emily said to me the other day while I uncontrollably let my tears (F-word warning #2) roll down my (F-word warning #3) cheeks? (F-word warning #4) Freak man! She's darn right! I don't want my grandma to see me let go of everything I've got just because I (F-word warning #5) THINK I don't have the capacity of containing every ounce of workload.

Yet, this amount of workload isn't what I was expecting.

Hey peeps, if you're reading this, I need you to understand I just need some space to blabber EVERY (F-word warning #6) little thing that happened. 10 years down the road, I sure want to read this (F-word warning #7) entry.

Let's start at the very beginning (cue: Sound of Music where Maria starts the Do-Re-Mi song).

It was the second day of application for the exchange, and I was still hesitating if I should take it up. Taking it up would mean I can run away from everything for a while. For a semester rather. All these school things is making me breathless and that 2 weeks in Taiwan made me wanna go experience another country's life. I'm desperate for it.

Yet, somehow, there's something holding me back. I could give an excuse saying it's the hall production that I'm scripting for, I could say it's that I'm hoping to stay in NTU for more practicums, I could say it's because I'm lazy to do all the paperwork needed.

Then, came the trigger. That night during the hall production meeting, I was so (F-word warning #8) tired with all the problems amounting due to my exchange and I decided to just stay and help out.

So I made my decision: I'm not going on exchange.

Next day, I made known my decision to the first person who asked me, and incidentally, she's looking for someone to succeed her in her role in CI Club. So, upon hearing it, she was pulled me in. I was like, heck, I shall do it, since I got the extra time now. And I was already contemplating about running for a position whenever the idea that "maybe if i'm not going on exchange" came to my head.

So I started running for CI Club social mag role.

Then, it so happens Rongshan has to pull out from the presidential role. And somehow, due to all the things that I was thinking of, I came to a conclusion I shall be running for it. I don't know why I managed to garner so much courage. Maybe I felt I was finally ready for such a role after being afraid of authoritarian roles for so many years.

So, I submitted my form running for presidential position. Then the whole week of campaigning and stuff came. And somehow I got it. The school population believed in me. And I should be believing in myself. So here I am, with something new to add to my resume.

Then, the next day after the results were released, and when I thought I could take a rest from all the stress and school workload for a while, my mum has to be hospitalized. She hasn't been well these recent years but for the past one year or so, she has been totally okay, and her symptoms have not been surfacing, so I thought she has gotten all well, until I forgot about her illness, until that saturday morning, when I woke up, ready to go for paparazzi rehearsal and I realized I got missed calls and a few messages from my sis. "Call me now! Urgent! Mom's hospitalized!"

I had to cancel my rehearsal at the last minute, hoping to rush down to the hospital. but mum wants me to go back home to wait for her as she told me she'll be discharged that afternoon.

I finally knew what was holding me back from exchange. My mom. I never felt okay about leaving my mom for a long period of time. And this was it.

I got home, she told me everything was okay (like real), and she'll be having medical examinations with A.H. rather than the shitty not-helpful N.U.H.. I got more relieved when I heard A.H. seems to be having a better idea of what my mum is suffering from than the stupid NUH which keeps insisting nothing's wrong.

So i put that aside and decided to concentrate on getting my ci club matters together. how to get more people in? who to get? who not to get? which combination of people will work best (esp with the little number of people I get to 'work' with)? and that's another week passed.

then comes paparazzi, and radio fusion, and union, and hall-prod. paparazzi started to get more intensive and I need to keep my energy up at every rehearsal, if not, things just don't turn out well. something's always lacking if I don't. and I discovered I'm growing more and more resistant to coffee and red-bull.

the week of radio fusion passed, with my first week of programmes done with immense satisfaction and pride, but it's also taking up all of my night life as well.

then comes the week of paparazzi, with everything (including projects and assignments) put on hold just to get this badly organized production into a shape that doesn't look all that bad on stage. rachel, sera, scott, j-en and gang had been extremely supportive, tho irritating things do happen here and there, like doing publicity in the wee hours in the morning when I need my minutes-worth-of sleep.

union stuff is not letting me go too, forcing me to go down for every meeting, wasting my time away there unproductively. and all i was thinking of during these meetings were "to maintain good image of SCI people and that all of us wants a better life in NTU, and we're not all talk and no 'do's."

paparazzi bunking in. i felt i was just trying my best to entertain whenever I go onto stage. over the days I started developing this 'chemistry' with scott and we kept getting better and yet still had fun during our scenes, tho energy draining. then came the night before the production day. thursday. after all the rehearsals i checked my handphone, expecting more ci club matters for me to postpone, and yet sis message again. "Call home immediately! Urgent!"

(F-word warning #... I lost count) All i could do while taking my break was panic and quickly rang up my sis, thinking my mum got hospitalized again. "no, grandma's illness worsened today. she may not be able to make it any more soon." grandma's back in kedah, and I hadnt been a filial grandson as I can only make it back to kedah when I had the ample time to spare in between school terms. and that's like average once in every 3 years.

to date, two important calls, and I couldn't be there to answer them at the first minute. I felt useless. I felt handicapped. I felt like crap. I felt like I took all my time and energy and concentrated on school things that I had totally ignored my family. I felt like a piece of crap who realized I came out of an asshole. and I couldn't hold back any longer, and I cried, the first time so painfully since jc times.

and I had to hold back. I had to tell myself I need to finish whatever I need to do. I need to start planning if something were to happen soon. I WANT to be by my grandma's side. I WANT to send her on her last journey.

I managed to pull through the first night, after the "wakening" talk with emily.

before the second night, I received the message. my grandma passed away. my performance on the second night dropped significantly. not enough energy. I just felt like getting it over and done with.

the next day, sunday, i left singapore after all the emailing to do, and rushed back to kedah. the three days there, I had to hold back every emotions i have, 'cos I know I cannot cry. I have to swallow every millilitre of tear that started swelling in my eyes. if i cry, everyone will cry, but we cannot cry, it's according to our religion, we just cannot cry.

i hadn't cry.

i rushed back from kedah and just touched down at midnight just now. and i felt i was totally drained of all the energy and power to do anything else, which includes studying for the CS201 midterm later.

i'm still not studying. i'm still thinking of the wake and the funeral. i'm still having the images of grandma lying in the coffin and when her coffin was pushed away to be furnaced. i'm thinking that what if within a year or so i have to deal with this again.

my mother's illness still hasn't seen light. and i'm very scared to know the worst truth. i don't know if i have the capacity to deal with it together with all the other matters that i've landed myself in.

Why must every ounce of shit be falling on me right at this moment? before I can wipe myself totally clean, another load of it comes crashing down. i felt stinky, i felt that i cannot get out of this shit.

i know i have to hold on at least for a while longer, but for how long can i go? i dun noe. I really hope it's one year, then it'll all be over, and I can be victorious and say i've conquered it all. but it's always, ALWAYS the question of 'what if i can't?' right? yar, i know, the modal answer is "if you don't try, u never know". i've said this to people myself too.

the question now is whether i want to try, and whether the people around me can tolerate my mistakes. then again, I shouldn't be trying right? if i wan to do, i should go all the way. then the question is 'what is all the way?'

it's 5:06am, and midterm's at 8:30am. i don't have the energy to study. emotion energy: 5%; physical energy 10% (after a cup of coffee, courtesy of Kopitiam @ City Harvest).

will the world forgive me?



Ah Yong

PS. And why must all my recent entries be so disgustingly dull and all about my ramblings about the presidential role?