I am envious of my friends who will be studying overseas. In recent months I have found myself wanting so badly to leave Singapore and study abroad. It isn't even that I wasn't offered a place after going through selection. It's that I wasn't allowed to apply. I did not mind so I did not protest. But I have begun to mind, and begun to realise that maybe I didn't protest my parents' decision because I didn't give myself reasons to want to go. I didn't read up, I didn't actually think about how it would be. But now I'm being forced to imagine.

Of course, I was born without the mental capacity--or raised without the diligence--that would have made my results good enough that overseas education a favourable option for me. I was born to a family more interested in long term investments than considerations for catering to a single child's needs in full, who chose to have five children just so paying for overseas education became huge enough a deterrent that I wouldn't have been allowed to go even if I had placed in a top university. (more time for this rant later) And yes, maybe misplacing hundreds of dollars and making suicide threats has made my parents unable to trust me with my own life.

Maybe I should have stood up and fought and proven myself and made promises. But I didn't see what I was being cheated of in laying back and accepting their decision for me. I live with the regret now and I travel via the internet.