No, it's not a book review. It's just that I suddenly realised how much I've caused some people to learn while losing so much myself. Ha. It's like holding a double-edged knife. Well... Here is what I have:

1) I don't really care what people think anymore, except for, say... Tsuyomi, YJ, Cesario, myself and Tien. Yes, Tien. You may wonder why but, under it all, I consider her a friend. She is truly a responsible project partner and a great person to be working with. Thank you.
2) I've discovered that no matter how I hate a person, there is always something I can thank them for. So thank you, world, for helping me discard that youthful idealism which has disappointed me once too often.
3) It's probably wiser to be insensitive than sensitive because then nothing would hurt me. So yes, thank you once again, world.
4) You know how many people have seen the real me? Close to none. There's always a part of me I shut away from everyone else. I keep it away from my friends because I don't want to hurt them accidentally. One reason why I don't get angry in school: I isolate the anger and force it into the back of my mind, then I go home and vent it on the wall or something. It depends on who you are, but there's always something about me you haven't seen. Some people haven't seen the angst, some people see nothing but the angst. I think that the only things I truly know in this world are my books, and I think they are the only things which truly know me. Them and silence. So, basically, I'm not a person you can really get to know. I think I have it figured out: It hasn't been you regecting me - it's just that I've been too absorbed in reading to remember how to do much else, and now I'm afraid of facing anything else.
5) I thought YJ was crazy when she said that she didn't want to be in RGS. I don't know about you, but now I think she's right. There's no room for failure here, absolutely no room for you to experiment. So you keep working just to catch up because you don't want to be labelled a failure, and when you finally do catch up you realise that you haven't really been living your life. I hate this. It's as if all I have to live for is the next SA that's coming up. I wish I could look at everything as an adventure as some people do or, better yet, be firmly convinced that my studies always come first. But I'm not convinced at all. I've studied for six years, been at the top for six years - and now I can't stand it any more! I wish that I were in some neighbourhood school like the majority of people my age, better yet with Cesar, and that I'd never had brains enough to be pushed so far as this, pushed so high up that I'm afraid to climb up and afraid to go down. I wish nobody knew my name, that I could just dig my own grave, jump in, and be done with it, with no obligations to anyone. Yes, I'm starting to sound like the person from 'A Sense of Belonging'. It's so desperately lonely up here, you know? I have to keep working at it to maintain my position because the fall - if there is one - will be too hard for me to bear and I know it. It all comes down to a fear of failure. Okay, calm down. My blood pressure is high enough.
6) I miss my Chinese teacher. She's a lot more effective... No offense to the current one, of course. It's just that I don't understand her teaching methods. My learning relies solely on memorization, nothing else. I'm not capable of doing anything else. If you don't give me something to memorise, I'll never get anywhere. I'm completely incapable of deciding what to learn on my own. Oh, I do envy those people with tuition. They just follow the teacher and be done with it. But no, we don't have the money for tuition. I don't begrudge my parents that. It's not something I can change, so...

When it all comes down to it, I just wish that I were dead or never born. Period. Don't ask why. I think that pride and friendship is all that's keeping me going now. I don't know when I got this way. I seriously don't. I don't know why I hate the world in general. I don't know what it's done to deserve what I think about it. I don't know why I hate my parents. I have absolutely no idea why I love my friends. All I know is that I do.

I think that, for now, I'll blow out the last flame on the last candle and wander around blind for a while. I need a break from this... vision. I don't want to see what's going on. I don't want to know. I want to lock myself up in my little bubble again, watching the world go past with no concern other than the tasks I'm assigned. But I know that it's not possible, now. Life in RGS has done too little for me, yet too much. The people in RGS have given me too much, 104 in particular. I realised what it was like to care about people and be cared for, and now it's like I can't bear to give it up no matter how much pain it causes at times. Is that a shadow of what love is supposed to be like?

No, it's nobody's fault that I never cared before. I never did to begin with. I've been placing the blame on the rumour-mongers, but that incident only aggravated the condition, it didn't cause it. I realise now that I was completely apathetic to the world since Primary One when someone teased me about something and I told her that it wasn't my choice I was there; that I would much rather have been in China where I did have friends. Soon after Ethel came along and restored me for a while. But then Primary Three came and we were split up just because I had to be the best. From then on it was all downhill. Until this year. I cane to RGS hoping that my past wouldn't catch up with me, hoping that being the best would have its uses. And I think it did, because I came with an open mind simply because I was confident that I could start anew. It worked. For a while, I spoke to everyone and was as agreeable as anyone could expect me to be, then the old love for solitude set in again. I can't abandon the strongest bonds because that, too, is part of my nature - I always have had few friends but I've not abandoned them so far. I'm starting to think that I should have just shown everyone everything from the start, shown them that I was a person they had best not get to know because I didn't really want to know them, either. But at least, all this has showed me this much - I am human. I can care. It's just whether I want to - and guess what? I don't. Except in a few cases, that is. So the problem is not solved.

Never mind. It's my own problem and I'll deal with it, although I do think I need to see a specialist.

It's funny. No matter where I go, I hold in my heart the knowledge that I'm different, and perhaps that is what truly makes me different. So I'm the one causing all this? I think so too.

For now, only for now - will you forgive me if I appear a little cold? Not ice-cold, just...cold.

Aerin