Yes, I admit I am no robot. I decide to do one thing. Whether that thing gets done or not is another matter.

Since the start of the holiday, I actually wanted to revise on Chemistry and Biology. I set big plans and deadlines for myself. I planned to go through everything, at least once. I know that I am far behind my classmates.

Procrastination prevails. I simply do not have the will to force myself to study. There had been too many distractions. I am currently staying at my sister’s apartment at Petaling Jaya, by the way. So came the inevitable shopping sprees, morning breakfast, dinner at some fancy bistro - the list goes on. I never had the time to properly sit down and focus. Not that I had time nor the proper place to park my bum anyway.

To think that close to 10 days of supposedly fruitful break was wasted, just like that. Thrown down the drain like some gooey mixture with the stench of dead mice. Sometimes, I blast myself in my mind, the disciplined, prim and proper side of me giving the lazy, laid-back other a good, harsh telling.

“There you go again, wasting all your time, doing unproductive things!”

“Relax, dude, we still got time.”

“TIME?? Mid semester exam is coming. In two weeks you will regret this! Your friends have been grinding their bloody noses off books, while you have been loafing around, rotting and decaying!”

“Pfft.”

Yes, sometimes, all I could manage was a pathetic ‘pfft’ at the whole mind-boggling reality. The painful, cold and merciless reality that I am hopelessly behind schedule and yet could do nothing about it. I understood Yu Xin’s unbearable stress during the Advanced Subsidiary examination not too long ago. I felt the way she felt, though on a more manageable level. I simply restrained, with a considerable amount of strength, myself from collapsing emotionally and bursting out like a wretched filthy water balloon.

Yuck.

Yet, all I could manage was a ‘pfft’. Or a ‘meh’. For I, being ever the lowly, undeserving and overrated student that I am, simply could not believe the impossible odds.

Looking back, somehow I could manage all that. Managed to pass last year’s mid semester and Pre-AS without being bruised much. Higher power at work here, I would sometimes think. Truth is, there had been times when something seemed so doomed to failure and cannot be salvaged, and yet it turned out better than what I ever dared to imagine.

Conclusion is, even when I feel so helpless, like being on a tiny rickety boat on a raging sea in the midst of a ferocious storm, I somehow can be the lone sailor who whistles happily, tending to the riggings and checking the sails while holding on to dear life. Yes, Ian the worry-free sailor. Sometimes it would become an oxymoron. I could have won The Best Oxymoron Award for it.

Just kidding, there is no such award. If there is, do inform me.

p.s. this post can also be found at my other blog - www.ianbong.net

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