they need to knock off some zeroes from the indonesian rupiah

exams are over, and i've gone for mahjong but skipped the drinking after. i'm too tired perhaps.

many a time i've gone onto this blog during the exam period, and i must have had last year too. i seem to be rather more out of whack during these periods. but i've had people now to share my thoughts too, so i think they don't matter as much. what are they but transient anyway?

i did possible the most perfect paper in my life. perhaps it is a little premature to say so but i think it is close to perfect, down to all the little details. i was rather relaxed for econometrics, perhaps all a little too burnt out, but it's nice to just sit down and let the thoughts flow through you. i was glad to be doing the paper and not some inane practice. i feel better about it than statistics last year, or maybe economic history. more fulfilling.

i felt god was with me, but maybe that was because i was listening to bob marley before hand, i i felt someone delivered me through the last 3 papers giving me exactly what i wanted to see, vs micro 2 which thoroughly deflated me.

i mean, don't pretend it's just another exam paper. it's something you put your life on hold for 2 months for. don't tell me it doesn't matter. in the large scheme of things it doesn't, but in the small scheme it's just like completing a marathon.

but back to the god metaphor, it's out of my hands now. i've looked for the right people (i hope), i've done the studying, which admittedly wasn't 100%, but now that i look at the years to come i just see mediocrity. it's humbling, in a way what has happened during the exam period. the hubris is gone, and i'm setting my life to default and i darent expect what will come next.

road trip to the lake district, and then my little jaunt to morocco. where i want to see the desert. part of a million things to do, like indonesian visa stuff, learning bahasa, house looking, arranging these things. but once i'm away i'm away, as i say, and i stop worrying, which is why i want to leave. it bugs me how i'm like that, how when the exam is over, nowadays i just worry about what needs to be settled next. just like a mother with 3 kids.

my kancheong dad called me, and it's heartwarming to here his kancheongness. it's more concern about how my paper was. he never fails to ask me that. but he asks me nowadays as well how i am, and he's generally taken a mellower edge. i never understood his fetish for results, not while younger at least. they don't matter, not in the big scheme of things. but i see a little.

last year when i finished my exam, i remember i grabbed a richard dawkins book and started digesting it voraciously. now i'm doing history of the arab peoples, and when i'm ready enough i'll start on some economics. drinking is beyond me, sometimes i wonder if i'm incapable of having fun or giving fun to those around me. i don't live to be the life of the party, maybe i just live for that ethereal feeling when you've done something perfect. and it's something you've accomplished not by destroying others, but racing against yourself.

bullshit aside, honestly, i really feel these things, whether i am illusioned or not. i thought, why let the fact that i can't seem to have fun depress me? they will come when it's time, and when i'm more ready for it. the other thought that bugs me is that i am a gaping hole, and i'm inadequately able to fit into what people desire for me. not enough love, not enough fun, related stream of thought.

i am massively afraid of abandonment. that it could be the last time i see someone. it's hitting me now, it could maybe not be the last time, but maybe the last chance to have fun together? i think about my grandmother and i worry about how much every last hug matters. or how every last hug matters so much that it's painful that you choose to inure yourself against hugging for fear that it will make you cry.

humans are like that as well, they're not just a bundle of emotion. that's why they're so tricky.

will be free today

a beautiful acoustic song by bob marley

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.
Won't you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

i am objectively nothing, because that is what people want to see.
in trying to be objectively something, you incur subjective wrath.
lie low, keep under the radar
everything's objectively better

shhhh.

it is better thus to be objectively neutral, like water.
water is objectively neutral.

belief is false, only what you want is true.

riddle me this riddle me that, bet you haven't got a clue!

i guess i am not a poet.

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
actually no, this isn't quite me
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-W.H. Auden

i'l n'y a personne