(credits to A Celebration of Women)

It was quite a fruitful weekend for me. After such a long time, I finally went shopping with my mum. I spent quite a large portion of what I'd saved from my allowance. Well, I'll just comfort myself with the fact that it's been a long time since I'd gone shopping with anyone. Aside from clothes, I bought the le sucre rabbit dolls I've been wanting to buy for so long! I actually got one from Gimpo airport last year but now my rabbit has company! I was gushing over the little pushcart stall with the rabbit dolls before I settled on getting two to bring home. We then went around browsing through the shops. My mum and I returned home really tired after spending an entire afternoon at Vivo City. I should start saving more money so I could buy more things the next time. Maybe I could try skipping lunch again - I used to do that in secondary school. 

That aside, I wonder if I should start a 微博 (weibo) account. After such a long time, I've kind of lost touch with my Mother Tongue. I catch myself being tongue-tied each time someone speaks to me in Mandarin. It takes me a longer time to process everything now. I've forgotten a lot of the idioms and phrases 林老师 taught us during the countless lessons. Come to think of it, I sort of enjoyed Chinese Language lessons back when my teachers were nice. 

My very first teacher was this young lady from China who wore at least 3-inch platforms to my preschool daily. She taught us purely through rote learning. My huge fear of 听写 (Mandarin dictation; something like spelling, except in Chinese characters) started all from the tender age of five. When I failed my weekly 听写 the teacher's glare would be so petrifying and I would have to do all the corrections many times over. Which was no different from all the 习字 exercises she made us do to practise anyway. But come to think of it, it was because of all the memory work I had to do that helped me later. I mean, Mandarin used to be one of my weaker subjects till I met this awfully nice teacher when I was twelve. 陈老师 taught us a lot and helped to provide English translations for all the phrases we didn't understand. Thankfully, I managed to do well for the subject and moved on to Crescent, where all the teachers, especially 林老师, were really good too. Thus my Mandarin improved a lot. 

Now that I can no longer go for 林老师's lessons, I find that I don't really have an opportunity to use Mandarin anymore. It's no surprise that my Mandarin is getting rusty. It gets awkward when I automatically reply in English right after someone speaks to me in Mandarin. Really awkward. Then the auntie or uncle would presume that I'm not local and struggle to reply in English and ask me questions about my hometown (they think I'm a tourist from either Korea or Vietnam). I seriously ought to stop this bad habit of mine. 

Anyway, I was thinking about having a weibo account which would force me to use Mandarin. The problem is that I'm already having quite a tough time making out the words on the homepage. Or I could just post in Mandarin on Twitter. I'm just making things more complicated by having a weibo actually. Hm.

By the way, I just took a personality test a few days ago. The last time I took one was four years ago. Apparently I'm no longer an ISTP based on the Myers-Briggs personality type. My current personality type is quite similar to my previous though. Somehow I feel that my current fits me more actually. I wonder if the Myer-Briggs personality types are accurate. To fit everyone's personality into sixteen categories, there'll bound to be exceptions all the time. I guess it depends on individual beliefs - something like astrology. 

Part of my doodles today.

Recently, I feel like there are two different sides of me. You know those cartoon shows where a devil and an angel appear over the character's shoulder? Yeah, something like that, just without all the cutesy illustrations or the mocking laughter. I've never felt this way before. 

I feel like I've been overly dependent on the others around me. Too dependent. In fact, sometimes I hate myself for being so needy and helpless. It's a wonder how my friends bore with me all this while. I'm trying my best to be independent and not ask for help from others. Unless there really is no way for me to accomplish a task on my own.

Another thing that has been troubling me is that my dreams have been getting stranger and darker each night. I feel like I've fallen into a sombre version of Alice in Wonderland. I've been so disturbed that I can't help but wonder the reason for my dreams. If the saying “日有所思，夜有所梦" (what you think of during the day will appear in your dreams at night) is true, then what do my dreams represent then? That I have evil creatures after me and the rest of the scary scenarios of me dying or nearly dying? I've drowned, fallen off a cliff, pushed and chased in my dreams. Or nightmares in this case.

I hope I won't do too badly for French. Yesterday's exam wasn't difficult but I found the grammar questions mightily confusing. My only consolation was writing out the numbers for the rest of the questions. Anyway, the exam is already over, so I guess there's no use moping over it now. I now have another thing to do during the holidays: to brush up on French so that I wouldn't get into a blubbering confused mess when the new term starts.

We got to know our score for WMP (Writing across Media Platforms) module CA1 today. I'm happy that my score turned out to be above my expectations. Ms Gamar told me that I could have written more for the second section though. That was where I lost out. I could have squeezed one more sentence in. I suppose I kind of lost a few marks in that section. Otherwise, I guess I'm happy with my score. I'm kind of worried for CA2 now - it sounds intimidating. It's something related designing the content of a website with the demographics of the target audience in mind. Guess I'll tackle it when the time comes.

You know, sometimes I wonder why it's in our nature to hanker after things we know we can't get. Even the most realistic and practical person would admit that there are certain things he wishes for in life which he is sure he would never get. But then there is also the hysteron proteron. The truth is that we always want things we don't have. It's something I got from Google actually. I suppose it's human nature not to be contented with what we have in our hands at present. Everyone seeks his or her ideal life - the perfect cardboard lifestyles that only exists in fairytales. Most of the time, they only regret and cherish what they missed when they look back.Yet it's this very human flaw that led us to this day, with all the progress in society, technology etcetera. Even the weapons used to kill changes each war. It's quite an ironic thing.

That aside, I've been feeling quite moody lately. I'm not sure why I feel so down but it's not helping that I'm also getting so tired these days. There is the increasing tendency to fall asleep easily. There are also times when my self-esteem hits the rock bottom and I can't help but feel so ugly and awful. Then I remember the days when classmates called me ugly and weird. I don't know myself anymore. Even the ugly duckling became a swan - am I still the same, or have I changed? For better or worse?