Casa De Shao

Category: Boarders

  • Description Medicine

    Lying, as spread-eagled as possible, on the narrow bed.

    Multi-pitched warbling of birds, shrill droning of insects and a sudden groan and roar of a bus’s engines… And a rhythmic but almost silent beeping from a distant, unattended alarm.

    Eyes gummed shut with a night’s worth of the sandman’s handiwork, till it makes a disgustingly audible sound as I blink back consciousness.

    Skin, cold and numb but radiatingly warm in my core. Throat, sandpaper; head, pulsating like a bowling alley’s strikes.

    I scratch up a checklist from my fragmented mind:
    emails
    emails,
    emails and delegation
    and tutorials and sit-in labs
    And medication.

    ‘Bonetrousle’ creeps from my phone, placed a metre away, both measures by my 11pm self to ensure that my 7am self can get up; I hate him and thank him as I always do.

  • Let’s Get Physical

    So I’m nearly hitting hundred.

    Ran 6km with Derek (panting like a wet dog, of course) and loudly groaning as he declared ‘our legs won’t stop moving until 1 hour is up!’

    An absolute chore having to get this sputtering engine of mine started again, but I’m hopeful.

  • Here

    I just sent off my blockmates to the patient, humming cabs of the night, awaiting their journey off to the frenzy that was the F. Club. I was told “F” stood for “Fashion”, but who knows.

    The door to XY’s room was a curtain of heat and the thick stench of alcohol with yesterday’s sweat. Messy glasses of expensive liquor mixed with convenience-store fruit juice sat around the room’s various shelves, surfaces and floor tiles that weren’t already taken up by the 8 people crammed into the room.

    I settled into the corner and let my senses soak up whatever was around; the girls, some of which showing only the whites of their eyes, were falling onto the shoulders of the bewildered but smirking males next to them; the guitar-players strumming off-tempo and belting out terrible lyrics; feet stumbling about, sharply kicking whiskey glasses along the floor…

    The haze of being the only sober person in the room, as I repeatedly raised my palm to politely refuse the glasses pushed in my direction, seemed very similar to that of being the only drunk in the room. It wasn’t particularly testing or anything, just that I felt further estranged from this bundle of fellas which I was already nervous about. I wonder what Zach would’ve done.

    As the cabs drove off into the night, only the stench of alcohol, and I, remained.

    I looked at the tiny, bleeding nick on my finger from the pill’s blister pack, and hoped it was all worth it.

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  • Inane

    It really worries me that my present outlook on the oncoming A’s is one of aloofness. I haven’t been truly stressed over an exam since secondary 2, and I’m regretting it.
    I’ve mentioned this a few times, that I’m actually worried that I’m not worried.
    I’m sure that I’ve done pretty fucking badly for some of the exams that have passed already, and although there have been reports on people jokingly praying to the “Bell Curve Deity”, I’ve been increasingly hopeful that, well, this curve actually works in my favour. (Although I do believe/hope there’s a Big Man Upstairs)
    My main problem, that I cannot ever fix, I have no idea how to write my answers fast enough. My lack of speed has already affected my GP and Econs and I have been asking everyone “how do you write faster?” Only to hear “just write” like some pseudo-cryptic oracle whose words can propel me tp victory. What do you think I’m doing with a pen in my hand? Daydreaming? (Well shit I think I was)
    I seem to have lost most of my motivation already; I just don’t know if the rest will be as disastrous as the first few.
    Alright don’t flip your shit just yet- I know that “it’s just a sheet of paper” and I “have many options left”. It’s just that society has groomed my preferences this special way, and I can’t help but scowl at my impending, bleak future.
    I’m looking towards graphic designing, and I hope its qualifications are as lax as the arts are. It’s a tough market out there though.
    I don’t want to be the guy rotting my tits off slaving at a desk (or counter) whilst all my friends toss their mortarboards on their graduation days.
    I don’t want to be the dad who has to tell his children to study hard and not become such a miserable, abject failure like he was.
    I don’t want to be afraid of returning to class reunions because I fucked my life up.
    Basically, I don’t want to lose face, and it’s pretty terrible that I can’t do anything about it just because, well, I didn’t bother to train myself to write faster. Regrets, oh the regrets.
    On the intense, 122-caldera-bright side, I haven’t encountered anything I didn’t know how to answer.
    That means I’m smart… right?
    Gah I really don’t know what to do with myself

  • Boarder’s Bid

    If life gives you past-year papers and knee-deep notes…

    Make the most out of the life you have left.

    ———————————————————————————————

    44 Things to Do Before I Leave the Boarding School

    ☑ Get drunk.
    COMPLETED (12 Oct)     Graduation night, PRCs asked me out for drinks.

    ☑ Wear a suit.
    COMPLETED (18 Oct) Boarding School EOY dinner.

    ☑ Wear a suit to breakfast.
    COMPLETED (19 Oct) I slept in it too.

    ☐ Get kicked out of college at night for staying too long.

    ☐ Watch the sunrise on the hill behind the dining hall.

    ☐ Visit the beauty salon on the first floor.

    ☐ Study in Starbucks until 10PM. [PROGRIS: 9:45pm]

    ☐ Catch a couple kissing.

    ☐ Take a photo of a couple kissing. (UNETHICAL)

    ☐ Get that Santa hat from Hall C (The girls’ dormitory)

    ☐ Hug 10 different people.

    ☐ Buy the elusive chicken leg from Blue Tea (I have no idea when they sell it)

    ☐ Do 5 pull-ups in a go. [PROGRIS: 2/5]

    ☐ Play the drums in the music room.

    ☐ Consume nothing but blackcurrant juice for a dinner.

    ☐ Experience the fire alarm.

    ☐ Stay in the study room until closing time. (2AM)

    ☐ Sleep on the sofas in the common area.

    ☐ Attempt to enter Kuek’s house (our quartermaster, lives on our floor)

    ☐ Hi-five 10 people.

    ☑ Play the theme song of “Titanic” on the recorder for the hall to hear.
    COMPLETED (16 Oct) Very badly too.

    ☑ Make friends with a level-mate.
    COMPLETED (9 Oct)     A shame he romps around in boxers.

    ☐ Stay for an entire weekend.

    ☐ Sing spontaneously with a person on another floor.

    ☑ Decorate my corner of the room.
    COMPLETED (22 Oct) Halloween tinsel! Beautiful.

    ☐ Project a movie for people to watch.

    ☐ Cover study room lights with cellophane.

    ☐ Celebrate someone’s birthday loudly with Mr. Kuek.

    ☐ Put a roommate’s belonging in Jello.

    ☑ Get guard to say “good morning” to me.
    COMPLETED (18 Oct) Surprisingly easier than I thought.

    ☐ Get Goh Chok Tong’s Ghurka guard to wave at me.

    ☐ Flirt with the auntie at Blue Tea.

    ☐ Learn to whistle with 2 hands.

    ☐ Do that whistle at girls.

    ☐ Stand at the drinks dispenser and serve drinks to 10 people.

    ☑ Return to the boarding school after 2230 (curfew).
    COMPLETED (SO MANY TIMES) Oh man I just oh man

    ☐ Build a card pyramid.

    ☐ Spend an entire day wearing sunglasses.

    ☐ Order a pizza to the boarding school.

    ☐ Microwave a grape.

    ☐ Be nice.

    ☐ Sell lemonade.

    ☐ Memorise the Skyrim theme song.

    ☐ Learn to play the harmonica.

    ☐ Have a lucid dream.

  • When the morning comes

    The gears in the watch click rapidly. I cradle the watch in my palm, looking at the light glint on the metallic surface, off every detail, every vine and every numeral engraved and embossed on the cover.

    There was a time yesterday where I almost cracked, under the strains and stresses of a new environment entirely foreign to the one I am so used to. The missed waves, the admittedly unappetizing food, the terrible grades (which is surprisingly the least of my concern) the lack of social interaction and the long, long, depressing wait through the afternoon… I really sound spoilt, don’t I? I’m better now after griping to a bunch of people about it, but it’s really pathetic to live in the same place you study. Even more pathetic to gripe about it though. I can feel myself losing my sanity or something. I might have been joking. Can’t tell.

    A faint chill floats in from the windows and slithers down my neck. I shiver slightly.

    Isn’t it interesting that I like getting drunk solely because it makes me more confident about myself? I’m clearly uncertain about which step to take next, and I end up stagnating, fawning over the past while  the present, getting my mind riled up over the wrong things while feeling terrible for the cheapest of reasons.

    The camera’s film has run out, I can’t wait to see what’s inside.

    Ah, I can’t help but grin wildly when thinking of Saturday. For once, I had forgotten that it was my birthday… It became a moment where time had stopped, where all worries and evils and stresses became non-existent, when we skipped and laughed beneath the nightlights, and when we simply enjoyed each others’ companies. In my half-sober state I was the happiest I had ever been for the longest time.

    My eyelids are getting heavy.

    I’m always much more fortunate than I think, and I love life, and everyone who matters, for this fortune. Thank you, thank you for being there. Thank you for being the people I can laugh with, and share everything with.

    I can’t wait to see what the future holds for all of us.