Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Secrets

There is a reason why I don't openly let people know my blog address. Well, actually... there is more than a reason really. I mean, in a way, one's blog is one's secret hiding spot from everyone else; a place that no one else is able to see except the really, really close ones or the ones whom you allow to see into your inner thoughts. You may argue that what I am referring to is actually the brain, where no one except the brain's master is able to gain excess into, and not a blog. I agree with that to an extent but you have to agree with me that sometimes there is just so much on our minds that we have to jot our thoughts somewhere, anywhere. Hence, the existence of personal blogs: a place to jot thoughts down.

I feel that by blatantly telling the whole world your blog address, you are trying to gain the whole world's attention. Perhaps, it's just me but I would rather stay quiet and be in the shadows. Letting everyone know your blog address would only be letting your inner thoughts be allowed to be pried by unwanted eyes; In a way, you are now an open book which is 'predictable' and 'boring'.

Then again, everyone is entitled to their own thoughts. I'm merely sharing my personal opinion on blogs. Feel free to disagree with me.

I'm happy in this secret haven of my own.

“Give me a break, God. I’m about to do a great service for you.”

It was quiet. I sat there on the toilet bowl, appreciating the rare silence. It seemed to me as though God was finally on my side. Then, the bell rang and all hell broke loose. Demons of all kind emerged into the corridors. Imps ran out towards the doors, shrieking an unknown evil language. Succubi were scattered along the hallways, waiting for their next victims. Leviathans stood in the middle of the corridors, eagerly anticipating anyone who crossed their paths.

I looked up at the brightly glowing light bulb on the ceiling and murmured, “Give me a break, God. I’m about to do a great service for you.”

As though acknowledging what I said, the light bulb flickered and I knew that God was trying to show me his gratitude. I gave an elaborate bow and continued to stare into space

Now, it was my free time. I could think whatever I wanted before I executed my mission. God had chosen me to do a favor for him. Not anyone could be chosen; only a select few were special enough to do favors for God. I was grateful that God had thought of me so highly. I will definitely not fail him. I wondered how God would reward me, how heaven was like. As I continued wondering, thousands of questions raced past in my mind. The chosen ones had their names on the newspapers all over the world. Would my name be there too? Would the other faithful followers of God worship me just as how I worshipped the rest of the chosen ones? Would there be a church named after me after my service?

I shook my head violently, attempting to shake these questions off my mind. Thinking of the rewards now would only distract me. I had to stay focused on the mission at hand. There was one thing I was sure though. I would definitely take down more demons than the chosen ones before me. When I had seen reports of these chosen ones on the newspapers, I was at first in awe but over time, I sneered at their feeble attempts to appease God. There was only one of them who I had the deepest respect for. This particular person was Ax Ishmael.

Ax Ishmael, also known as Seung-hui Cho, had taken down thirty-two demons and wounded twenty-five others in his duty for God. He was a brave soldier of God and I was sure God was pleased by his acts. I was particularly impressed that he managed to escape into the heavens before the demons got to him. I had studied his strategies and methods extensively in hopes that I would be able to achieve the high standards he had set and more.

Even though I had done thorough examinations and thought I was prepared, I could not help but to feel nervous. There were butterflies in my stomach and I could not seem to move; I was rooted to the toilet seat in nervousness. Doubtful questions crossed my mind and I gave myself a tight slap, scolding myself for thinking these silly thoughts. My hands felt shaky and I almost lost my grip on Sanctimonia, my demon-killing weapon. I was losing control of my body due to nervousness. This was not good. How could a soldier of God lose his touch due to some stupid human emotion? I looked around desperately but there was nothing I thought could be useful to regain control of my body. In an urgent attempt, I kicked my foot against the cubicle door, moaning as I felt the intense pain in my foot that began to grow with each second that passed after contact. I was relieved though. I could feel myself regaining control of my body.

I thought about the demons that were lurking in the corridors. These demons had tried to bring me to the dark side by pretending to befriend me. However, my faith in God allowed me to see their true colors and I was not tempted by their attempts at all. When they realized that their plan was not working out, they started showing their true colors, thinking that by bullying me, they would eventually convince me to join their side. However, they were wrong. I was not swayed from leaving God’s side. These disgusting naïve fools that tortured me endlessly and mercilessly for the past few years… Soon, I will have my revenge on them. I remembered a particular incident, just months back, when they put my head into the toilet bowl and tried to flush it off. In fact, the toilet bowl in which they used to torture me with was the exact one I was sitting on right now. The thought of that incident made me see red and I spat at the ground in anger. I took deep breaths and tried to keep myself calm.

I made my final preparations. I jumped on the spot to loosen my muscles, allowing me the much-required reflexes to combat these demons later in the battle. I took a look at Sanctimonia, making sure that it was in working conditions and that it was ready to drink the blood of the demons I would slay soon. I said a short prayer and took a deep breath, opened the cubicle door and slammed the toilet door open, bracing myself for the battle that would ensue very soon.

The slamming open of the toilet door alerted the horde of demons and they stared at my direction.

‘Shit!’ I exclaimed as I realized my mistake.

However, this was not the time to pause and reflect on my mistake. I gripped Sanctimonia hard and aimed it at the head of the nearest imp. With a pull of the trigger, blood splattered everywhere. The imp stood still with a hole in his head before he finally collapsed in defeat. Adrenaline rush flowed into my head and I began to gain momentum and rhythm.

With a swirl of my hand, I took down three other demons, their blood splattered all over me. I licked my lips and savored the taste of demonic blood. It was fresh and delicious.

“AHAHAHAHAHAH!” I exclaimed as I aimed Sanctimonia wildly around me.

The demonic blood seemed to have the ability to make me look intimidating as the demons started fleeing.

“DON’T RUN! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? I THOUGHT YOU GUYS WANTED TO BE MY FRIENDS?!” I shouted in their direction.

They refused to turn back and acknowledge my questions. This made me feel angry and I held Sanctimonia with a vice grip. I reloaded Sanctimonia and started hunting down the demons. Whenever there were any movements around me, I would turn and shoot at that particular direction, hoping to take down a demon or two. I was in a mad rage by now. I started to fire Sanctimonia wildly.

I heard a creak of a door behind me and I swirled around.

“COME OUT YOU FOUL DEMON!” I shouted madly at the door.

There was no response. I walked slowly into the room and saw a male imp hiding under a desk, shaking in utter fear. I laughed in a savage voice and approached him.

“Come out boy… don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you.” I whispered to him, smiling evilly.

A calm, familiar voice came from behind me unexpectedly, “Stop, Aries. Put that gun down.”

I spun and to my horror, it was my form teacher, Mr. Silva.

“…hello there… Mr. Silva” I whispered.

“Hello, Aries.”

“What are you doing here, Mr. Silva?”

“Stopping you. Now put down that gun.”

His words made me remember the job at hand and I aimed my gun at the imp.

“This is my mission, Mr. Silva. God gave me this mission! To eradicate the demons in this school!”

“Rubbish. Just put down that gun and we will talk about this, okay? Don’t harm the poor boy.”

I aimed a shot at the wall and fired, “Do you think I’m kidding, Mr. Silva? I said God gave me this mission!”

“Don’t be stupid, Aries.” he said softly and approached me.

“WHY ARE YOU HELPING THESE DEMONS, MR. SILVA?” I was furious by now. Why was Mr. Silva helping these foul beasts? He was the only man of God in this entire school. He should be helping me terminate these demons instead of standing on their side.

“Now, Aries, I know that your fellow students haven’t been the nicest bunch of people around. They have been bullying you for years but you should have known better. They are just immature. They don’t really mean any harm.”

“STILL…” I began in a feeble attempt.

“Just pass me the gun, Aries.” He approached me gently, nearly reaching me by now.

I knew that if he was to reach me, I would surrender and the demons would eventually get me. I would rather die than let the demons get hold of me. There was only one way out of this. I took the gun in my hand and aimed it at my throat, closing my eyes as I fired.

Journal Entry 12

Monday, November 2nd 2009

Gwahah! I felt like being in an evil mood today. I have finished the required 10 journals for ‘Creative Writing’, whereas, my classmates have yet to finish it. Hence, I could not help it but to laugh at some of them, especially poor old Deborah who was unfortunate enough to become the target of my teasing. She got so annoyed by me that she slapped me across my stomach. Doing that did not help her situation at all; it merely made me tease her even more.

Today, I went for ‘Orientation Training Camp’ interview with QiMing. ‘Orientation Training Camp’ was a camp where you were required to attend to be able to help out in events such as ‘TPRawks’ and ‘Freshmen Orientation Camp’. We both signed up as ‘Group Leaders’. Our interviewee shocked me though; before the interview, she came to us and leaned against my shoulder, texting away on her cell phone. I did not expect the interviewee to be so… friendly.

The interview went smoothly. I thought I had done quite well in the interview. With each question she shot at us, my trusty mind raced at nanoseconds to cough up a satisfying answer. Though I had to admit, I did not expect the interview to be filled with so many questions; I was half-expecting my mind to fail me. However, my trust pal surprised me, yet again, by how well it could function under pressure.

After the interview, I rushed to class, expecting myself to barely make the 15 minutes grace before I was counted as late. To my surprise, the whole class was waiting outside the studio. Apparently, the 12 pm class before us had started late and they were still occupying the studio. We waited patiently and by the time we started class, it was already 3.30 pm. The lesson today was rather dry and I struggled to remain awake. At 4.30 pm, Pat, my lecturer, announced that class was over for the day. We remained transfixed in our seats. ‘Did we hear correctly?’ we wondered. She repeated her words and like magic, we recovered from our frozen state. Today was a pretty relaxing day!

Journal Entry 10

Saturday, October 31th 2009

Today, I woke up early to go around town taking photos of food-related signage. After that, I headed to school to work on my ‘Typography and Layout’ assignment. On the way to school, I fell asleep and missed my stop. When I woke up, I looked around me and found myself in an unfamiliar area. I panicked and rushed down the bus at its next stop. A young lady stared at me as I turned around and took a good hard look at my surroundings. She was probably thinking that I was an idiot who took the wrong bus and found myself lost. I crossed the road and took the bus back to Temasek Polytechnic.

After I was done with my assignment, I went out with the usual bunch to Sentosa for a Halloween event. We were supposed to meet at the Harbour front MRT station at 5.45 pm, however, as expected, some of them arrived late and by the time we finally arrived at Sentosa, it was already 8.15 pm. When we arrived at the location, the sheer number of people there took me aback. It seemed as though the whole youth population in Singapore was there. We rushed to collect our tickets, which were sold to us at a student price of $16, fearing that we were going to have to queen for an extremely long time.

Indeed, we had to queue up to enter the ‘haunted house’. We made the dreaded walk down the queue, our sense of horror increasing with each step we took; the queue was just terribly long. It seemed like ages by the time we reached the end of the queue.

In the end, we queued for 3 hours straight. Expecting the ‘night walk’ to be good due to the large amount of time spent queuing, we entered the ‘haunted house’ in an excited mood. However, it was a major letdown; even the Design Orientation Camp’s night walk was better than it! It was my first time celebrating Halloween and it turned out to be a major disappointment… just great.

Journal Entry 11

Sunday, November 1st 2009

Today, I woke up early to do my ‘Typography and Layout’ assignment which was due the next day. However, the desktop refused to start up. I was on the verge of panicking. What do I do?’ I asked myself desperately, ‘I’m so screwed! Shit!’

As I was about to break into a panic attack, my dad suggested that I went to his office to do my work. I agreed with much gratitude.

At his office, I worked for 9 hours straight, I was quite surprised by how quickly time passed; it seemed to pass with a twinkling of the eye. It seemed like noon just minutes ago…

The speed at which time flew made me contemplate though. My friend, Bane, had told me the night before that I was being a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ by working so hard and ‘not having a social life’. I was not offended by what he said. In fact, I was pretty amused by his words. However, at that particular moment, while sitting in front of my dad’s desk, his words came back to me and made me wonder. ‘Am I workaholic?’ I wondered aloud, ‘… I hope and think not. Hey… wait a minute. I’m only 17. An age when I should enjoy life and not think so much! Why the hell am I thinking about this?’

I guess though, the reason why I am working so hard is because I think a lot for my future. I do not want to be an ordinary designer struggling to make ends meet with his freelancing jobs. I want to be an accomplished graphic designer… or at least, have people think that my works are great and refreshing. I think that life is short… why waste time? If I want to accomplish something with my life, I should start working on it now. I do not want to be forgotten just like that after I pass away. I want to be remembered.

Yes, I know. I sound stupid but that’s just me… and my over-thinking brain.

journal Entry 9

Friday, October 30th 2009

I had a real scare today. I came to school early to add the finishing touches to the assignment that was due at 3 pm. After that, I went to the print shop to get my work printed out. However, after printing them, I forgot about my external hard drive and left it there on top of the computer. I conveniently forgot all about it until the ‘Typography and Layout’ class nearly ended. I panicked and asked Pat to excuse me for I had left my external hard drive in the print shop. She immediately let me go and I made a mad dash for the print shop.

I asked the lady who worked at the print shop whether she had seen an external hard drive left on top of the computer. She shook her head. My heart sank. All the work that I had done since the start of school was in it and I had not made a backup copy on the desktop at home. A huge portion of work which I could use for my portfolio in the future was gone and all the blood, sweat and tears put into working on them had gone to waste. I walked dejectedly out of the print shop and back into class.

Seeing my body language, my friends asked me what had happened. I told them about it and they suggested that I should go back to the print shop one more time to ask. Thinking that they were right, I rushed to the print shop yet again. This time however, I noticed a familiar-looking external hard drive on top of a mountain of thumb drives at the corner of the print shop. Indeed, after further inspection, the external hard drive was mine. I heaved a sigh of relief and then, politely asked the print shop lady whether I could take back my external hard drive. She gladly asked me to take it back.

On the way back, I felt my chest. My heart was pounding madly. It felt as though it was going to beat out of my chest. First thing I do when I get home later is to save a backup copy of the contents in my external hard drive on my desktop. I should have known better that after the last time I lost my thumb drive. Let it be a lesson learnt, yet again.

Journal Entry 8

Thursday, October 29th 2009

Sometimes I feel as though life is a mean joke. You may have a hundred ways you want to live it but since you only have one life, you can’t live your life in all one hundred ways. Even if you have a hundred years to live, an age most people are not able to live up to, you can’t possibly do all one hundred things you aspire to be; it’s an average of one lifestyle per year. You may want to be a graphic designer, a writer, a photographer, a traveler, a game designer, a tattoo artist or a filmmaker but due to only having one life, you can’t do it all.

Many a times, we have heard about stories of people who dreamt of being an architect, for example, and yet, they ended up being an office clerk at some unknown company. It makes you think that life is a mean joke. A lifetime is almost gone and nothing you have done in it is really what you wanted. Well, its cruel reality, my friend. Sometimes, to survive in this world, we have to abandon our little dreams and do things we are not interested in. Of course, there are always the exception here and there of people who were able to survive working as what they had always dreamed of being but these lucky ones are few by the number and most people are better off being told to forget about their dreams and ambitions.

Yes, I know I sound really bitter now for no apparent reasons. I have no complaints about my life; it’s been a hell of a ride on board the rollercoaster tracks named ‘Life’. It’s just me and my thoughts… or maybe it’s just the morning grumpiness.