} All mixed-up

I'm not feeling all that great today. In fact, I felt a lot better yesterday than I'm feeling today. I don't know what's wrong with me. I know I've got really terrible mood swings, but it doesn't even seem NORMAL to feel this way, to me at least. And I don't know what to do about it.

It's not that I'm feeling sad or depressed or anything. It's not that there isn't anything to feel sad or depressed about, really. There's a LOT of things to feel depressed about, but it's just that I chose not to give a bloody shit about the stuff that depresses me. But on the other hand, I'm not feeling happy either. Not that there isn't anything to be happy about. For one thing, there's no school. For another thing, it's confirmed that I'm gonna watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which will occupy me out of my boredom for at least two hours.

(Although, of course, the idea of watching Harry Potter isn't as compelling as the idea of watching the Lord of the Rings. Sure, I get to see Harry slay a great big snake in the movie, but what's a great big snake compared to A MIDDLE-EARTH WAR??? Where the practically everyone except the heroes get some of their body parts chopped off or their guts not-so-accidentally taken out of their bodies. The heroes never get injured that badly, of course. They're not supposed to. But still. I can see a great big snake any old time. I just have to go to the zoo, look at a snake and pretend that I'm looking under a microscope or a magnifying glass, so the snake is actually a giant snake. But it's not everyday that I get to see someone kick some Uruk-hai butts.)

And for some stupid, strange and unknown reason, I'm not feeling neutral. Neutral as in like, empty. Like I'm not feeling happy OR sad. Just OK. I'm not feeling OK, and I know it.

I think what I'm feeling is a whole bunch of feelings. People feel that way pretty often. It's like, you're attacked by a thousand different emotions all at once, and you're trying to decide which one you're really feeling, but in the end you just feel more mixed-up cos you're not feeling just ONE specific feeling, you're feeling many at the same time, and you don't know it. When you realize it, it doesn't help much either. You're still mixed up. Have you felt that way before? I think that's how I'm feeling right now. I suppose you think I'm weird. But I'm not a weirdo for nothing, you know.

But then again, maybe it's not all that weird after all. I mean, there are so many mixed-up things in the world. It's like, the rest of the world are trying to convey different messages to me, but someway or another they get entangled and mixed-up, so I get confused and feel mixed-up as well.

Take my mum for example. Half the time, she's leaving me to face my problems by myself like a big girl, and the other half, she's giving me the best bits of dinner and suggesting that we go for a swim so that she can wash my hair after that, as if I were still six years old. Those two messages clearly oppose each other, and that's probably why I feel awkward around my mother. Like I don't know how to respond to her actions.

Friends give confusing messages too. Or at least, my friends do. One time, they're all supporting me like true friends do, and another time, they ditch me like I was some old can of peas that's gone past the expiry date. OK, so they don't really DITCH me. It's a pretty strong word. But they kinda leave me out in conversations and stuff, so I start doubting whether they're really being my friends or whether they're just nice enough to put up with me.

But most of the time, people send me a message that I MYSELF OPPOSE TO. It's by far the worst kind of mix-up. It's sort of like peer pressure, although friends aren't the only people who put pressure on me. You see, I have a very good example. I was voted to be a school prefect.

(Oh GOD, this is too much. I can't stand it. It's so embarrassing... Just in case you have no clue, a school prefect is sort of a monitor or a councillor. A school prefect serves the school by helping out in school activities which involve the public [e.g. by being ushers] and also help the school by stamping out the 'baddies' in the school that bend the school rules a little. Sort of like a police officer, or a member of the government. All I can say is, EUGH.)

I completely understand if you think I'm a total nerd by now. And if you've got something really strong against people that you think are total nerds, you're welcome to leave this page now.

But if you're still here, I'll continue my story.

Anyway. I was voted to be a prefect, which doesn't mean that I'm definitely going to be a prefect. I just have a chance to be one. (But my friends keep discouraging me by saying that I have a HUGE chance of being one. PERFECT.) But already I feel some huge weight being laid down upon me. It's stupid, really. I had a chance to withdraw from the voting and the elections, but I decided to pretend to be strong and go for the elections anyway. So now I have no chance of escape. Ever.

Anyway, during the election, the discipline mistress was going BLAH BLAH BLAH about the ideal school prefect's responsibilities, only it didn't come to me as just BLAH BLAH BLAH. Her little speech sank down upon me like a boulder. For the first time, it really came down upon me like a rock that I actually have to have all the values she mentioned if I become a school prefect.

Not that I was completely clueless about that, of course. I've always known that a prefect's gotta be caring, honest, responsible and all those 'good virtues'...everything that I don't have. But it never sank down so heavily upon me. And now I know how disastrous my school would be if I ever end up being a school prefect. And it'll be all my fault, cos I had a chance to withdraw but I blew it.

Take responsibility for one. I CAN'T EVEN TAKE CARE OF A FISH. GOD, no wonder my dad never bought me a dog like I always wanted, and he never will, in fact. I'm telling the truth. It's rare that I tell the truth, so you should appreciate this. I BEGGED my dad to buy the fish for me, and I was hoping that taking care of the fish would prove that I was ready to have a dog. (Obviously, I wasn't, and I never will be.) So he bought it for me. The shopowner told me that the fish was supposed to live for about 1-2 years. But guess what. The fish only lived for about 1-2 weeks. WEEKS. WEEKS are hugely different from YEARS, in case you don't know.

I've always taken the death of my poor fish pretty lightly, but now I feel really really GUILTY. Really GUILTY, because I know that the fish would have survived for a longer time if someone else had bought it.

So that just pretty much proves how responsible I am. Or rather, how IRresponsible I am.

Now, let's look into integrity. Well, let me just say that if I got a dollar for every time I lied, I'd be richer than George W. Bush by now. I lie to my parents (but doesn't EVERYBODY?), I lie to my brother, I lie to my sister (not very often, cos I don't talk to her much anyway), I lie to teachers, I even lie to friends. OK, I should stop talking about how dishonest I am or people will start giving me suspicious stares and whispering behind my back.

The only 'good virtue' that I have, and one which I'm really proud of, is trustworthiness. My friends don't trust me for nothing. I don't leash out secrets that my friends tell me. Secrets that my friends told me three years ago are still well-kept in my head. Or at least, not the whole secret. Bits and pieces can't help flying out of course, but no one ever knows the WHOLE secret, and with only the random bits and pieces, it's IMPOSSIBLE to figure out the secret. So that still counts, right? I AM trustworthy, right? I'd better be. If my mum finds out that I'm strongly lacking in 'good virtues', she'll probably sign me up for a SPIRITUAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL activity like joining the Good Samaritans, or whatever the society is called.

The bottom line is, I don't think I'll make a good prefect at all, I'll probably be a corrupted one, and so I totally oppose what the discipline mistress said about all those good qualities a prefect's supposed to have, and I oppose what my friends think of me, cos they think that I'm 1)responsible, 2)studious and 3)honest. YEAH, SURE. Whatever.

I didn't CHOOSE to be a prefect anyway. My friends THOUGHT I'D MAKE A GOOD PREFECT, so it's THEIR fault if I totally embarrass the school.

Example of how I can embarrass the school in a MAJOR way : snorting at the way a V.I.P. a)laughs or b)sits or c)stands during my school's drama night. Or maybe I'd make a V.I.P., someone important like the Minister of Education, trip over my foot while ushering him to my school's Drama Night. Of course, those two aren't so bad. He might even learn to sit/laugh/talk properly, in V.I.P.-ish mannerism, or watch his step, at least.

I'm not saying that the Minister of Education is blind, or that he sits/laughs/talks in a provoking way, of course. The government will go after me and post 'WANTED' signs all over the country if I say that. Or at least, the whole Ministry of Education AND the Minister of Education's bodyguards will.

So I better shut up now.

Anyway, I hope you get my point. I'm sorry if you're feeling mixed-up as well because of everything I've written. It's all right. You see, it's all because the rest of the world conveys different messages...

If you really wanna read the whole crap all over again, go back to the first few paragraphs, please, cos I don't have the time, or the care, to type it all over again.

2002-11-04, 7:23 p.m..
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