Recovery

fig 1.1: low resolution photo

SO it's been a good two weeks since I've last updated this little interblog of mine.

Workload has escalated so greatly over the past 14 days that I'm completely burned out now - charred to the bone so I'm thankful for this long weekend ahead followed by the week of holidays.

My schedule started getting cluttered about two saturdays ago where I had a 12 hour day in the potong pasir church area. Started the day at 10am because I volunteered to distribute flyers for an upcoming church event! Back in sunday school we used to do this all the time and it was quite refreshing going through the hour-long routine of nervously ringing doorbells and hoping people would be kind to us once again. The neighbourhood mainly hosts singaporeans in their 40s-50s and they were such wholesome and friendly people. BOO to the bulldog that kept growling at me though ):< spent my free time before cellgroup at macdonalds studying while slowly devouring the grilled chicken wrap (6.5/10 stars) which was calming. Time alone is good time. Was on sound duty so headed for rehearsal after cell and spent the whole time untangling a huge ball of knit cotton knots with dearest shannon. (: kids are good therapy.

The following days were a blur all the way until thursday.

After an arduous few hours in the art room I ran off to the ava for a little step down ceremony the drama club kiddos planned for us. I was greeted by sue who asked me a question that if I answered correctly would grant me a ticket into the room.

"As of 2014, what is the total number of sec 1, 2, and 3 drama club members? I'll give you multiple choice selection. a) ...." 

I DID NOT KNOW THE ANSWER but sophia whispered something and sue told me to "trust the voices I heard" and tadah I earned my admission. 

We were allocated seats and once everyone got in, the show began. I begged myself not to cry but they had so cleverly stitched in various snippets of our experiences together that by the end of it I was a melting pool of tears. To be precise, the water works started when the characters in the play needed to unlock a chest of gold with the help of a chant. They used the ctdrama cheer, the very one drama club performed in the quadrangle the morning of our syf performance last year. I'll never get over it. 

Kylynn came forth to hug me after the new heads rounded off the play with a word of thanks to us and then we were settled down for a video montage which further drained my tear ducts. My goodness they are such experts at making people cry. Ms tnee presented us with customised cupcakes, we had pizza waiting for us outside...it was a blissful evening. 

And then all hell broke loose from thursday night - sunday night. 

I don't really know what convinced me to take art as an O level subject. Maybe I was trying to prove to myself that it would be the perfect way to stand out (although I won't lie, things have somewhat become that way) or that I was truly an 'artistic' human being but in the past few months it's been quite a huge piece of shit. I'll blame myself for not taking the initiative to work on it during the june holidays but the art piece that I had so wonderfully sketched in my head in the beginning got picked at and pulled apart so much its as if I am a stranger to my own creation now. 

My father and mr tan have been true blessings though. One tells me that it's great as long as I do my best while the other has endless dedication and passion which is enough to convince me to hang on. 

I struggled on thursday night doing up sketches for my prep boards. Was totally unprepared for my mother tongue prelims the following day and almost fell asleep during my second paper. Art from 1-6pm was spent mounting our boards and by the end of it I was nearly in tears so mr tan let me go home to finish my sketches instead of staying back to work. Missed out on the mid-autumn celebrations but the dearest boyfriend took me out for dinner at a coffe shop nearby and I was able to let loose of all my burdens. 

Spent the whole weekend working on my sketches with the exception of sunday evening where my anxiety caused nausea to set in. Terence came over so we had an extra nice family dinner where mum cooked curry noodles, fried fish and prawn fritters. We also watched puss in boots which is adds 473295 happiness points to any day. 

***

Today was a day off since we had ACES day/teachers' day celebrations.

Instead of the usual mass 'dancing' we've been doing the past few years, the pe department along with the sports leaders organised cool inter-class activities minus the competition and adding the participation of teachers! Not too sure what the other levels had but for the graduating batch we had human foosball. Didn't expect it to be anything memorable but somehow everyone was in lifted spirits and being good sports. Had a warm time basking in the morning sun while cracking up over how mr choy and ms ee worked together to be attacking players for our class team. At the end of it all it was really heartwarming to see everybody help keep and clean the equipment used. (: 

The teachers' day concert was such a blast. I am not even kidding I was so high during the entire hour I was really hoping it wouldn't end. It started off with a grand entrance by all our spontaneous teachers followed by a torch relay thingamajig. Everything was olympics day themed so they filmed a clip of the teachers running around school passing on the paper torch and it ended of with a live continuation of mdm najmah running into the hall with the torch! Much applause for all the work and effort right there. All the performances were well put together and in the end there was mass bollywood dancing on stage. Classic ACES day routine could not be abandoned. 

Mr Goh and Mr Choy were 2/4 of the teachers who won the inspiring teacher award (': so grateful to have met both of them in my secondary school life and I'm glad I still have another month or two to be within the same radius as them (haha did you get my subtle pun? no?! okay hint: they're both math teachers) 

Headed for three hours of art before escaping into the arms of chongray HAHAHA. My bloody period (haha did you get this pun???) came so my body was subjected to day 1 cramps and weakened legs. Still managed to have a good time with him though hehe we filmed my als ice bucket challenge and watched a couple of videos before heading down to buttercream n cakes for our first cafe experience. Food was great but honestly the service could've been better. I was dressed in pe attire and school shoes while chongray was in a bart simpsons tee and slippers but that doesn't mean they had the rights to give us slipshod service. Students popping by for some chill time deserve equal respect too #fightforyourrights

Things have been crazy but I've started reading 3 chapters of the bible daily and it's been good rediscovering my faith and I'm grateful God has provided in many different ways. (: 

Despite all the crap and business, I'm thankful I can find reasons to be happy.