In Continuum.

I wish I can have the same view on things as Travers, how laid back he is for the most part and just allowing life to take the wheels for him. If he does well in school, he is happy for the day and life goes on; if he bombs a paper then there should be a reason for it, life still carries on. It is a virtue, something which should be known to many out there who cannot get over an academic-related failure. It is a barrier that I have yet to cross myself, as I sink in deeper into this pit of academia. I mean, as you get used to this life surrounded by quizzes and assignments, with tests and exams, you suddenly become so conscious about your grades, things that you have already convinced yourself to be trivial, to be of little consequences - even if they do, in reality. It's kind of like how someone must feel with his or her new found fame, perhaps a song posted on his myspace making it onto a local radio station, or an independent film gaining critical success at a film festival somewhere. All of a sudden you become aware of whether or not your shirt is tucked properly, if there are food stuck in between your teeth, if your hair is in a mess, or if the curtains in your home are drawn because you won't want the picture of your butt splattered all over the front page of tomorrow's newspaper.

It's the same, I suppose, the same kind of pressure after you have been immersed in the same life for too long. You sort of gain this sense of responsibility to yourself, this identity as a student in my case. To excel, to do well, to be on par, to not lose in competition. It is not half as bad if I lose to someone else than to lose out to myself, and that is where I am right now. It is a state of neutrality, if you want an abstract view of things. I don't suppose I am giving up, that's not in my style of doing things certainly. But it just seems that the odds are against me right now, and it is so tiring and hard to be the dark horse of a race. People are expecting you to do well in the race, and most of all you are expecting yourself to do well in the race. I don't do well with pressure, I certainly don't do well when grades are concerned. I seem to be back in those days when the sense of stupidity is coming over again. It's the way my past is coming back to slap me in the face, to laugh and  jeer at my brink of failure. Things are not irreversible, things are not hopeless yet. But I hate to run out of options, to be putting my money on the next race, on the next quiz, or exam, or whatever. I hope this is a fallacy of helplessness now, because I desperately need to be wrong this time around.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I like Tuesdays. Tuesdays is the day with history and psychology statistics. I'm not particularly excited about history, but psychology statistics almost always gives me a sense of achievement somehow. I suppose it is the fact that it is a very hands-on, very application based subject, which I seem to have a talent in. I'm not fantastic in the subject, but at least I have a tighter grip on things. I hate to memorize, I hate to regurgitate my knowledge on paper, or to pick the right answer from five other options. Give me a blank space, give me a mathematical sum, let me solve the problem with a whole series of equations, that's what I do best. Once again, I am questioning my options, and I am deathly afraid that I am going to let a lot of people down by the end of it all, all over again. I know this is the wrong time to feel lousy about myself, the time when I need that little boost of confidence. But it is hard to come by now, especially when I'm not sure which part of myself to push. It's frustrating, to be eating dust again. It really is. 

I fell off my chair, in between the last line and the one you are reading now. I leaned back, and the chair toppled and sent me crashing to the ground like an idiot in a bad comedy. It was painful, my head hit the side of my bed and knocked me out cold for a second or two, and all my sister could do at the door to my room was to tell me not to move so that she could take a picture. Something fell off the chair, probably a screw, I'd find it later under the table or something. But when that happened, I just sort of laid there on the ground for a while, wondered to myself what the hell just happened from the middle of the semester up until now. Things have been a downward spiral, up until the point when the center of gravity was tipped and I fell off the chair. I guess that was my rock bottom, a sign from wherever. I'm not superstitious, but somehow I do believe in such silly things. It's time to sit back on the chair again, and I hope this time, I make it happen.