Sunday, March 04, 2007
to God be the glory

that's what i remember every time i think about the st. marg's hall. and to be perfectly honest, i honestly don't deserve my relatively good grades. i mean, i didn't get to revise my gothic notes just before the a's, having misplaced them under my bed (and not to be found til the night after the paper, whereupon i nearly burst into tears in a fit of despair), i wrote an econs essay from a completely wrong angle, and hey i still have no idea what's going on in c math. i probably deserve my gp grade, bad time management having left my essay and aq incomplete, but it could have been worse without God's grace. so. i had better do something worthwhile with my life.

funny how i never really thought about the future til now. i just meant to do well enough to enter nus fass, finish my first degree, enter nie, serve my bond, and then follow my heart (if it ever told me anything). then i realised with a pang that if i had bothered to apply to a uk uni, i could've gotten in. doing lit in singapore doesn't sound like much fun. doing anything in singapore isn't. i want to be able to say and do things that i would never be allowed to do here. well, too late for that (God has His reasons right?), and i've decided not to defer a year since i can't bear to leave emma anyway, so i'll settle for fass. i've been encouraged to apply for some scholarships, so i probably will, if i can get off my lazy arse long enough to write an essay and send in my applications. i haven't used my brain properly in so long, i'm not sure i can write a convincing essay.

i mean, horror of horrors, i am actually beginning to sound a little like my students! at least, i understand their lingo a little better. my mother asked what on earth 'i lost my mother give me fifty cents' was, and i was the only person in the family who correctly guessed that it meant the speaker had lost the fifty cents his mother had given him. my father postulated that the speaker had lost his mother and wanted fifty cents. a few months ago i would have assumed the same. i fear for my essay (and hence scholarship chances). must get someone brainy to proof-read it.

have i mentioned that i have selected teaching as a career purely by elimination? i want to study lit, or at least something related to it. i don't want to do law or business or accounting or admin, or anything else for that matter, i just want to read lit. i don't want to go into journalism (too stressful) and i can't hold an office job (i'm too fidgety), so teaching is the only option for me. even though i'm one hell of a lousy teacher. my students dislike me, i know they do. i would too. half the time i'm disgusted by the restrictions i impose on them. but hey, self-preservation, i'm just trying to save my own arse. people who don't know any better think that there are no politics involved in teaching. i've always known better, thanks to my mother and sister, so i'm hardly disillusioned. i'm just not exactly inspired. then again, i'm very much a half-empty-glass person, so that's unsurprising.

on another note, emma either thinks she's human, or thinks i'm canine. she does everything i do, from sitting at my spot on the sofa (i have been told i sound vaguely territorial over this), to stealing my food (again, territorial), to throwing her toys at my head (mainly because i throw toys at her to catch), to employing all the various tricks i use when playing with or training her. when i'm napping on the sofa, she licks my face. when i turn my back to her, she prods me awake with a toy (or, again, flings it at me), so that i wake up with her big grinning face in mine. if i throw her toy for her a few times before going back to my nap, she thinks that i'm bored with the toy, and presents me with another, because that's what we do with her. she's either incredibly intelligent, or an incredibly good parrot.

she's finally learnt 'down'. it's very useful for making her submit to you (i know i'm a control freak, but that is hardly the issue at hand). my mother says she's manja (some malay word that means she likes attention and being petted), but she doesn't like being hugged. i'm currently brainwashing her by making her sit next to me and repeat after me 'you are my best buddy'. naturally she can't speak, but i love the best buddy pose very much. am clearly losing all my marbles due to the loss of the physical presence of my real human friends. there is a subtle difference between a buddy and a friend, and i'm afraid emma can only be my best buddy for all time. aforementioned best buddy is currently rolling about on the floor by chewing on her hard rubber toy like it's a rouge mouse.

she can also jump rather high up, upwards. she hardly jumps over things (there is nothing in the house to jump over, but i know she secretly practises over the coffee table), she simply catapults upwards like her hindlegs are made of springs. it's pretty impressive. she can jump as high as my head from a standing position. the downside to it is that she's learnt how to jump on people. and thirteen kg of muscle jumping on you is not comfortable. we're still trying to get her to stop jumping on us. she's getting rather big, for which i'm glad. i was never one for small dogs.

i'm still not sure about what's in store for me, but i'm pretty sure that God is watching over me. there is no other way to explain reasonably good results from a girl like me. we'll see how it goes.. God will make a way.
9:26 PM ; 2 comments