I don't know anymore. Seriously. All I said was that I missed my first chance to join netball because I changed school for GEP, then missed my second because I had third language on the day of the trial. I only intended to make a point about how I could be doing something completely different with my life now, if not for chance.

And as always--as if obligated to--my sisters had to make me feel bad for saying something they interpreted as arrogant. Twisted it so it meant "I was sure I could get into netball". And ONLY since they asked, I was honest and told them straight that I did think I was good at netball. ("was" not "am" because at present I can't even run for nuts.) How else was I supposed to answer?

Thereafter they did not contradict me directly, but only because they could not, having no evidence on the contrary, so they played the usual game--spoke with condescending tone, made veiled insults via omission and implication. And I could not have blamed them for anything, because they hadn't spoken a single direct insult and could easily have denied any perceived implications of their words.

I am sorry; I really have to let these things out sometimes. I know I should have more confidence or should simply ignore them, but ignoring isn't as simple a matter as deleting the thought from my mind. I can only endure this habitation with the two people I hate most in the world, and hope it's only because they assume I trust them that they put me down so freely. I don't want all the world to be like this.

This again, in case my posts both present and past haven't made it clear enough: I abhor my siblings and I would like to see them dead, mauled if possible. I'd see to it personally too, if I cared not for my own life. But since murder is outlawed I will bear with it.

I'm not in the mood for all this. Why do moods always get the better of me?

Not good enough--not good enough, right? No one's ever going to look up to me if there are people like you around, people who get all the gazes though I swear I deserve them as much.

Let us not talk about ranks because we know they are in fluid motion. That is the problem. Fight, and keep fighting, and never hold the place longer than a minute or so. So what if I advance? You fight to tear me down. This is life to me, life invariable, even though I am the only one who's aware of all the battling going on.

Though I wish we were, we're not ranked by ability but by propensity to be loved. You know how to win. I am too selfish; I do not. You are generous and that is how you are loved. Maybe that's what's wrong with me.

Or maybe I'm only blinding myself to the talent I don't want to admit you have. I want to be greater but maybe I'm not and I'm fighting to delude myself because it keeps me happy to think I am better. Maybe because it's my only pillar of security, knowing I'm the best among my friends. Without it I believe I am nothing. What pleasure does love give that could replace the thrill of superiority? Recognition?

That's honesty. That's a secret I'd normally keep in conversation. Here where I don't know who knows, I think I'm more comfortable with saying.

another dream

So I just dreamt that I wrote a story that we went on holiday to some insular land where we instantly found ourselves trapped the instant we arrived at the mansion-like hotel. It was in an alternate universe Europe I think; we were residing by a bay with all the northern windows facing it. Every building in the place where we lived was no more than two stories tall. The bay was misty and had grey water, as you'd imagine it in historical fiction set in England I guess. Out in the bay was the border of another continent which really lookeed like a tall black block because of all the skyscrapers on it.

What happened was that we found ourselves trapped in the town with the mansion or something similar to entrapment; there was also someone stalking us everywhere we went, or rather we could not shake the feeling, even at the nameless fast food joint downtown situated in a quarter-circle space, where the floors were dirty and the plastic tables and seats weee much like the old McDonalds ones. The mansion was creepy; it was really just a series of large connected rooms sitting in a row, some were bedrooms with two beds and others were smaller chambers of no known purpose. There were doors on west and east walls leading between them--if you want to enter one you must travel through all the rooms from the entrance to it. There were some doors on the south wall leading into storerooms and such. Floors were red carpet and there were gold ornaments on walls and ceilings. The windows were in the north wall, and the backboards of the beds were against the north wall right below the windows.

One day while we were looking out into the bay we saw a new island had appeared; it was a small, tall island, covered in what looked like blood and made of flesh and bones. A single bone stuck out the top like a flagpole. Someone beside me told me it was Crow's Island and something to do with how we'd never get out.

Just then the creepy things started to happen, I only remember worms appearing from inside the carpet and unfamiliar people whom I knew were oue stalkers, and whom I attempted to hide from under the blankets of my room while they hadnt entered. Of course they saw me but left me there, and later I found myself stuck underneath till they were gone. It was the appearance of Crow's Island influencing the events, I knew. Like any other haunted ship story, but with an island instead.

Cut to a flash forward wheee suddenly I was the cockpit of a flying machine and someone had sabotaged the controls; I was the copilot to someone I immediately identified as the "main character" and the entire crew was in a frenzy over the controls not working because the main character had lost control of some part of the flying thing.

Cut again to some really meta scene where a voice tells me that it's actually the "main character" who sabotaged the controls; he's the last person anyone would suspect. When I got back into the plane it must have been an imagined scene (let us forget about this being a dream for a moment) because now the main character was alone and he was flying fine and I think doing his sabotage work. Who knows why.

Then bqack to the mansion, which had suddenly grown silent and deserted. father called for me from somewhere at one point. I remember jumping off the bed and carefully stepping around the worms to where he was, by some huge bookshelves full of books in another room. I must have been aware that I was inside a story I was writing (surprisingly close to the truth) and I told my father so, that I created this universe and everything here and that things are attacking only because I wrote it that way. But when asked if I could control it, I realised I could not.

Then we ran down a concrete staircase into our storeroom, where my mother was working on some sort of touchscreen controls connected to stopped air conditioner vents. I recognised them as flight controls. My father told me my mother had been working on an escape machine, but as long as we couldn't start the aircon vents up it wouldn't work.

Suddenly I knew a siege was upon us and we fled the room, as did our mother--father told mother to try again in "the place" where I suppose they planned to try again. She agreed and we ran our ways; I know I was terrified out of my wits. There were others there and I recall school-like settings where other people my age (or younger) ostracised me for bringing this upon them, but I don't remember when.

So I think my father and I got into the car, knowing something was pursuing us, and we drove deep into the messy parts of the town where roads with shophouses went any whichever way and each building was really a stack of shops built upon each other. We got off on a pavement and raced down some hidden stairs into a basement where there were two air conditioner vents...and the sound of humming. Through the slats on the backs of them we could see the blades spinning. And our touchscreen flight controls were wired up to them. My father seemed happy--and we quickly clung to the controls because there wasn't a seat, just the engines and the controls. He started it up, and I think the ceiling was already open from the start because we flew straight through it and up through the air, over the bay where I must have rewritten the scenery and the coast of America and the Statue of Liberty appeared in the west no more than a km away. That was around when I realised my father was the "main character" but it no longer made sense. We flew down into the place at the far end of the bay where we knew we could buy parts for a complete plane/weird flying machine because we couldn't keep flying clinging to the dashboard. (who knows how that works man, it was a dream.)

Cut to police driving down the street in the place with all the tall buildings, searching for me and my partner-in-crime (I think it was Hyder of Umbrella) for a crime I previously committed in this area.

Sure enough I saw the police and when we landed by the parts store, we ran away down the street in search of a place to hide when the police sirens came and the white car appeared. While in refuge in a skyscraper alley, I suddenly realised that I'd been stupid and I was the one they sought, so I rewrote the entire scene. Instead of us running off at the parts store, I ran off alone, along the canal alongside which the stores were situated, and went in down the ramp to a place under one of the buildings where one would expect to find a basement carpark--instead there was a church, lit like a shopping centre. I decided that'd be a nice place to hide and so I entered it.

Cut forward to a point where we had the complete flying machine and were flying down a route to our aunt's house, between trees--I suppose we were in Kuala Lumpur for that fact. I woke up around then.

anxious

I hate that I feel unhappy when you tell me of things that you enjoy. What is it, anger at undeserved pride? Fear of inferiority? Jealousy (the you-can't-have-what-is-mine sort)? I know I must stop feeling entitled, or superior by default, I must stop, must. Am I neurotic? I am too tightly-strung. I must learn not to fear obscured malice when all you are doing is sharing the things you love!

I admit it, I feel very much out of the loop among my closest friends.

confused or not

So many things go through me each time we talk, so many things to be said because I never had a chance to say them anytime, anywhere else. Yet I'm not sure if it's a whim that creates this trust, or an intuitive knowledge I was not aware I'd learnt. A message passed under the table, beneath notice of my conscious brain.

I know not what it takes to earn this brand of trust. A secret? A sharing? I am saddened when you go silent but the sound is so chaotic! Particles bumped down currents. I enjoy it, I am terrified, I grow bored in the lulls and I scream in the eddies, begging my eyes not to sting. All a confusing metaphor for conversation but that is how it seems.

Dare I say you trust me? Dare I say I have no misgivings at all? No, I fear you sometimes. I hate you. I wish you'd be quiet, then I wish you'd go on forever. So many things storming my mind, and I cannot speak a hundredth of them. We'll unwrap, unpick, unfold them bit by bit, I hope. I'd like.

Is it the novelty of peering into a new person? Does it run deeper? It is all so very fascinating.

stars

Tonight is a clear night. I could see all the brightest stars of the winter sky with only contact lenses, which were too weak for me. I could see the Orion Nebula too. It almost seems a fairy tale, all of this.

long live!

I feel sad. There are things I don't want to forget.

For all my insistence that my appearance matters little to me, and for all my vehement rejection of anything "girly", I am sad, just a bit, that I will not be dressing up again like I just did, not for a year at least. (It was so much money, too.)

For a while I was so proud of myself. For a while I felt I had no reason to think I was ugly. For a moment it mattered just enough for it to feel wonderful - the way I looked - and now it's gone, less than gone. It will not matter tomorrow, but I know I will look back on it with rue. The day it didn't matter that I cared, somewhat, about how I looked. The day no one would have laughed at my efforts.

I will not enjoy it quite the same way, not ever again, not until another event like this.

And by then, the faces that surround me will be all but different, the songs all changed, the table no longer 91 and possibly no longer round, no longer ten-seated. I will come to let it go just as easily as I would water I struggle to hold, and I will be as I always was--but I cannot forget that I once took such delight in this, the way I no longer will.

I cannot forget, also, this as the last day I will see some, the friends just close enough for tears, but not close enough for lasting effort. The ones who changed me and shaped me. I saw so many chances today and I let them all fly. But I took the ones I could and needed. The table mates who are dearest to me. The ones I love most truly. I think that is enough, though I might someday look back upon this one, and come to regret that I did no more.

There's no way to preserve it all exactly, not in words - not in anything really but in sensation itself, and full memory of circumstance - thought I'd like to keep this forever.

Today I was happy to be who I was.

I am actually bored. Not because I have nothing to do but because I'm not in the mood to do it. Not enough sleep? The likely reason. I must remember to get sufficient sleep even in times when I will not need it because I will want to have it if I'm going to operate at my best.

Then again all my best ideas come in the night (do they?); they come when the air is cold and when there's no headache-inducing light about. That's 1. rainstorms and 2. nighttime. Sad life.

I tire of raising my arms backwards to tie my hair.

I think I have a crush on someone.