Little Updates and a Wisp of Shame

The little Updates:

1. For those who know and those who don't...I'm out of pre-u already. Finished in May. Getting IB results next Monday. *Teeth chattering (with fear, not cold)*

2. Subsequent to finishing school, which had been a martini and a tap dance away from complete pandemonium (that didn't make sense did it? It wasn't meant to. I don't.), I came back and spent time with father and mother and frequently with sister, in Singapore. I slept and ate and had irregular hours. I went to the Science Centre and marveled at Da Vinci. I ate Sushi Hi-Tea Buffet at Kui-shin Bo it was AMAZING I WANT MORE.

3. I got a new camera. It's quite pretty. I guess there are no more excuses not to put up pictures of my ho-hum life.

4. Against all expectations, I have gotten into university! I will be leaving in late August to California, United States; the land of beautiful people and expensive plastics. It rather scares me.

5. I hope to be tanned when I come home. Not like "WAH you spend too much time in the sun la don't look Chinese anymore" but hot and more importantly, intentional. I also hope to learn ballroom dancing.

6. I have attended UWC gatherings, old secondary friends gatherings, parents' friends gatherings, old primary friends gatherings and church friends gatherings since returning. I think attending and organising gatherings is all we oversea-ish back for holidays people do in Malaysia. I want to do something more important.

7. To that end, I am involved in a few (small) things now with another few upcoming :

a) planning trip with my closest friends whom I've known for 7 years now

b) trying to obtain a fly-on-the-wall invitation to watch my favorite filmmaker at work

c) attending the Malaysian Student Leaders Summit, where people of influence dispense their wisdom on stage while people of no influence at the present (people like me) dispense our foolishness in giggles and whispers among the audience. Kidding though. We actually pay a lot of attention, and ask insightful questions. Probably better questions than the often-pandering mass media does.

d) participating in a US colleges/universities application seminar in KL. Though I'd probably only be able to tell the attendees what not to do. Oh well, at least that's different:) Should I prepare for it? I feel like people who made it into the most famous places worked so hard to get there. Preparation by way of SAT books, reading up about admission statistics, internet resources, essay checkers, mother boil special ginseng on day of SAT...ok maybe not that much but yes, they have put in the due diligence.

While I put undue diligence into improving my Freecell statistics, using internet resources to find the perfect prom dress (the task is more difficult than choosing which unis to apply to I KID YOU NOT), flipping through my SAT books the night before the exam and choosing universities not based solely on their rankings (I admit I still have some kiasuness, I'm Malaysian) but on my biased, probably totally unfounded impressions of the place.

Yes, I totally deserve what I got.

Which is happiness, freedom from the menial slavery to public opinion, shock and awe (you're turning down X University for Y College?!?) and the exhilaration of embarking on a new adventure, to a place where I know absolutely no one.

I think my tendency to want to do things no one has ever done before, or at least do it differently from the people I know, is going to lead me down strange paths in the future. I don't fear hard. I fear boring and predictable.

So yes, its more likely that at 30 I will be a Tibetan school teacher teaching fourth grade geometry and drinking yak milk from my own herd, while being an underground spy for the Global Freedom Network, than it is for me to be a corporate sales executive.

At least I hope so, even if the final truth is less glamorous than my fantasies, I hope it will swing more kooky and less cubicle-y.

e) Holidaying with family in Sabah. It's my first time to East Malaysia, not counting the time I went on an ASEAN trip to Brunei.

f) Organising/facilitating a camp for Orang Asli youth to raise their awareness of opportunities for education and work beyond their immediate horizons. It's a UWC Malaysia initiative.

Anyway I think that's all for now. Sounds like a lot? Not really. I still find it hard to fill my day with activities.

And the wisp of shame? Well, that's about not updating for months. But then again, its only a wisp, because I know I've been living and that's more important:)