Something very unattractive:

Ignorance coupled with no desire to try and open one's mind and give something a chance. Wallowing in your pool of bleak and pitiable intolerance, waiting for others to fit themselves around your say, your views, your world.

Are there people in this world who we just can't change?

Last day of unit 3/4 classes.

More like the last day of school classes EVER.

It hasn't sunk in yet, and I'm thinking it won't sink in until after exams.

I said goodbye to my childhood on my first day at Killester.

I said goodbye to my adolescence when I turned 18 a few months ago.

And now I'm going to say goodbye to both my childhood and my adolescence, and say hello to the adult world.

I already feel so old.

At the start of this year my chemistry teacher made us fill in a self-evaluation thing. Dated as 12/02/2011, it asked things like:

- What do you think this year holds for you?

- What are your current goals?

- What is your favourite/least favourite subject?

- What do you plan to do after Mac.Rob?

and finally,

- If you could say/ask one thing to yourself about anything at the end of year 12, what would it be?

I'm glad I took this task seriously and didn't flippantly dismiss it as lame. It's really interesting.. what I wrote down as my "favourite subject" is now my mortal enemy. My writing's changed a lot too, which could be saying something about myself.. or am I looking a tad too deeply into this?

I don't want to display my answers to these questions.. they're pretty personal and some stuff I wrote was lame.

What did strike me though was how I promised myself not to become a study-bot and here I am. Everyday I'm a-studyin'.

Sometimes our views and attitudes toward things can change very slowly over time without us noticing. I'm sure we've all noticed this. If you read an excerpt of an old blog post, or a diary entry you'll be thinking "wow.. that really used to be me." When this happens, I feel glad. It makes me feel like I'm actually growing because I kid you not, I wasn't too fond of who I used to be.

It gives a sense of satisfaction seeing how far you've come, and I think that being able to perceive and fully appreciate the distance you've journeyed is what keeps you going. At least for me. If I couldn't see that I was making any progress in life I'd start to wonder what the point of anything was. I would lose ambition and motivation, and I would hit a standstill.. or even decline.

I think it's good to write your thoughts down. I'm going to do that thing in HIMYM where Marshall writes a letter to his 30-year-old self.

On a brighter note, I'm excited!

For the premiere of the year 12 video tmr.

For muck-up day (more like dress-up day) tmr.

For valedictory? Idk, Louise fully bagged it and said it was a boring event last year. We'll see.

I'm worried about the medley I'm doing with Joy during the farewell assembly though. We've barely practised.. probably a total of 3 sessions. And we've had a new addition to our duo.. on quite short notice. I'm not even a professional guitar player and after Ivy and my Mac.Rob formal performance I've felt a bit wary toward playing in public again T_T.

Dots.

I only wanted to take a quick glimpse of this video before getting back to studying. I ended up watching the whole thing.

His speech is really appropriate for me especially at this moment in my life. I've been fretting about what I might spend my future doing. I know I should be choosing a career path that will give me a stable job and a sustainable income, but that type of job implies banality. At the same time, having an exciting and fulfilling job is usually hard to earn a good living with, and most of those jobs are volatile and liable to change.

I know there is probably a middle ground between these, but that doesn't make the future any less scary. What's pushing me more toward receding into the stable lifestyle -- despite the countless times I've heard that loss and failure are inevitable parts of life -- is pretty much.. the fear of loss and failure. That's why listening to Steve Jobs' speech drew me in so deeply. Before he became the successful man he was, he grew up with a very unconventional life and went through quite an amount of crap.

My brother told us Jobs' story during Christmas dinner last year but I didn't think much of it back then. I just wanted to eat and talk about the possible family trip to China. I can't believe that up until now I've been missing out on this man's inspiring story. Or in this video, three stories: connecting the dots, love and loss, and death.

My favourite part of the speech was:
"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

-- Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
Rest in peace.

A little insecure

People can say they'll get over things and they probably do, but do people have that one sensitive area that they can't help being insecure about? That one subject that can't be joked about without it hurting a little? The other person doesn't even have to have any malicious intent when they mention or joke about it.. And it doesn't matter how far you've moved past that issue.. For some reason that area just hits home.


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Putting books in their proper place

I found this beautiful, uplifting video on youtube. They couldn't have used a better analogy and the piano score is lovely.

Open your mind, but not so much so that ideas pass straight through it.

Q: Why are there jerks and assholes?

Because they know that to be otherwise is to get stepped on -- to be used and disposed of.

We like to think that if we gave our hearts out and worked hard for people, gave away our extra time to finish a job or furnish the details, we'd get rewarded for it. Slaving away behind the scenes in the vain hope that we'll be appreciated. That's what happens in fiction.. the good always get rewarded in some way, shape or form.

The reality is that there are a lot more selfish than selfless people than we'd like to think this world breeds.

Yes, doing good deeds can make you feel good on the inside but it can be hard to consistently find that inherent and intangible reward in the good act itself.. especially if it flies under the radar too many times. In this day and age not a lot of people care about anyone other than themselves, or whoever's pants they're trying to get into or whoever can help them up the social ladder.

Maybe some people choose to be a dickhead because they'd rather work and help themselves -- where they'll definitely feel the benefit through self-reward -- than work for others who will probably acknowledge and/or appreciate them.. or probably not.

I was born in a pirate ship

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence."

- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth