Bravery

Shamelessly koped from my coach:

谈射击的勇气：勇气是建立自信的前提，而自信又是发挥技能的

主要条件。如果选择了勇气，血液就会沸腾，浑身充满力量，呼

吸深稳，思路清晰，随即挺起腰身，昂起自信的头颅，自信的眼

神，大胆迎战一切的困难。如此的坚定，逆境又怎能不被你征

服？如果谢绝勇气，放弃的思维就会强大，血液则会凝固，肌肉

开始僵硬，畏缩着拳脚，低垂着脑门，唯有期待着幸运光临，殊

不知幸运往往是强者的宠儿。话到此，是选择勇气还是选择放

弃，聪明的人，当然知道自己该选择什么？

Sorry for the font > < Hope you understand the Chinese :P

After some time to think, I'm moving forward, of course. It was a pretty drastic way to dispel the ennui though. 

Reflect

Like a wounded beast seeking refuge in its cave.

Disappointment, despair. A wake up call, I guess.

It's not as simple as flicking a switch. Things won't change so easily; merely because you say you will.
Even knowing that, let me go out on a limb and say this: I swear I will. I'll put in the time and effort, I won't give up. I'll do it as long as it takes to get it right, and then somemore. Cause I really don't want to think about the consequences if I don't.

There's no need to say more. Hopefully this topic won't have to recur.

Aside, I read this interesting article about voluntourism today. Go take a look.

Hope after a period of utter crap? Only time will tell. I'll do my best with my doppelgänger.

Didn't realize how emo I sounded previously until I re-read the post. Well, things're better now, I'm just going to take it slow and work from there.

The CTs forecast doesn't look so optimistic I'm afraid

I'm disappointed. In myself. It's not about the score anymore, cause it's really gotten to the point where there isn't much of a performance to look forward to in the Nats any longer. I don't really care about the medal that I won't get. And I know that I haven't trained for a week. But never did I expect my condition to be so horrible, to not be able to get it right at all. And after that, allowing myself to be so distracted by it that I couldn't even pull myself together to salvage the rest of it. I'm only glad that it wasn't the real thing; I don't think I could stand a repeat of last year's events.

Maybe another way to look at it would be to try to work on the weaknesses that surfaced today; and I've duly noted them, mentally, at least. But it's a daunting task that awaits, made even more so by the pressing lack of time. So much to do, and I don't know whether my spirit's up to the task. I'll have to tap upon more reserves in the coming 3 weeks. And to be honest, for the first time, I'm really unsure about whether my heart's in this.

I've got to get myself sorted out before this goes any further!

Heh, the initiative I'd decided to start today while in the shower kind of panned-out after some time spent aimlessly spent on the comp, seems like the resolve was just sapped away. I'll do it tomorrow!

Psychometric test for the PSC thing. The mathematical and logical portions were fine I guess, but it was quite interesting to see how they crafted the contexts and various situations in order to analyze our judgment. Kinda gives an insight into the real world for an admittedly naive person like me. I'm not sure whether I handled it well enough though.

The personality portion on the other hand...I don't really know lah, some of the questions seem to be merely about the human condition, or more specifically, being a student. I mean, after 12 years of formal schooling, which you would not have suffered soul-crushing depression, or ever been so stressed that they felt like giving up. "Felt" being the operative here, by the way. There doesn't seem to be much leeway for a guy who appreciates such minor technicalities. And I realize that on certain aspects, I'm not completely firm as of yet. I think that that's perfectly natural, by the way. One needs time to explore perhaps previously hidden facets of one's personality after all. But I obviously see the allure of someone with clear goals, morals, strong foundations upon which everything is grounded. Very attractive, but not me, at least; not now.

I find myself struggling, really. To keep to the principles which I deem to be my own. And not always simply because it's what I think is right, but because I have to hold on to something. I disgust myself at times. But my hope is that by forcing myself to, even when it harms me to do so, may ingrain them into me, and give me something that is truly mine. So no, when I act, it's not always spontaneous, not always from the goodness of my heart. I just hope you don't think too badly of me for it.

Crossroads

I don't know how to put this into words, exactly, but I'll give it a shot.

It's pretty much like what Kevin was telling me last year, really. As the year progresses - CTs, trainings, relationships, uni talks, other miscellaneous stuff - I get the feeling that the decisions, the choices that are accumulated keep on gaining weight, and this whole mass of possibility is inexorably pushing me down life's path. "Now, how's this any different from any other time?" You may ask, and well, to me it's simply the weight that each decision has. In the past, it was perfectly fine to do whatever I wanted for fun, being whimsical was perfectly acceptable. Heck, there might have been consequences, but nothing I couldn't recover from. But now, that's totally different; for reasons I shouldn't even have to elaborate upon.

It's quite scary, really. And I notice that the fear to bear the burden and responsibility sometimes engenders a certain cavalier attitude and bravado towards life. I've seen it in myself at times. It's far from my place to pass judgment on the behaviour of others, but at least for myself, I have to start treating things much more seriously.
It's time to grow up, much as the child in me wishes not to do so.

Well...yeah. As I type into the night, the CTs ended just yesterday, on a pretty positive note for me, at least. While I still haven't managed to realize that elusive ideal of actually completing a paper for once, Bio was the first paper that I felt satisfied doing, and pretty much the only one which I could walk away from; barest hints of a smile plastered upon my face (and no, it had nothing to do with it being the last paper). Chemistry on the day before was an utter disaster, which I fully intend to remedy in the time to come.

I'm feeling the slightest tinge of guilt for missing trainings this whole week, thrice due to mugging for the CTs, and once as we went out to celebrate its completion. Really enjoyable =)

Screwed, and not in the good way :P

Econs mugging was messed up, I'd set aside 1 day for it, which actually proved to be an okay period of time, but I spent so much time in between being distracted and all, and ended up only finishing at 4am. I fail, seriously. And that's after missing out on the family outing where they apparently went to have Jap food, ice cream and so on...

During the test, I kinda realised that all that last-min cramming was pointless anyway, not like everything came out, and it's not like I could write everything down fast enough anyway. I don't think I did too badly though, hoping for a pass at the very least.

As a delightful after effect of this morning's mugging, I'm feeling pretty sick now. I'd intended to stay back in school, revise a little math then move on to chem but I went home at 5 since my nose was dripping way too much. Chem will have to wait till tomorrow.

Now imagine this snow globe, if you will. It's got all the regular fixtures, perhaps a reindeer-drawn sleigh, a little cottage, and this snowman standing outside the door waving at you. 
Now shake it.
The snow rises. A flurry, shifting whiteness, you can't really see what's inside anymore. Not distinctly at least. Nothing's clear. It takes a while to settle, but when it does...nothing's quite the same anymore.
And in the swirling whiteness, all the snowman can do is keep waving, and hope that he lands right-side up, that everything he has doesn't simply disappear, into the white. 

Yes. I have a magical snow globe.

A rueful feeling

Exhausted. 547 for rifle, 514 for pistol. Not that the scores mean anything, if at all. First time seriously shooting rifle in 3 months, and it just made me realize how much more I like it than pistol. It's a lot more fun, a lot less frustrating, more enjoyable as a whole. I would talk more about the process if I weren't so sian, so there. I'm pretty amazed how fast I picked everything back up though, it's just the small things which I couldn't compensate for.

Pistol was quite fail since my arm didn't have much strength left, couldn't allow the gun to drop properly + I was pretty mentally drained from rifle. No excuses though. I'll have to do better during training. I'm quite ashamed that I was quite overwhelmed by dark thoughts at the end. "Hard work is overrated"...I'm going to do so much worse than with rifle and that's after 3 months of hardcoring the former and totally dropping the latter...Coach doesn't care about me...I'm just being forced into this @!#! that I have absolutely no aptitude for...and so on. It's a wonder I managed to finish properly.

And that's the difference between rifle and pistol for me. Rifle is a fulfilling process of self-discovery where you come out a little more mature than when you went in, a better person for having done it. But pistol... ...oh pistol is wading through a swamp. The viscous fluid impedes progress, and really, there's not much progress to speak of. No markers to indicate where you're going, how far you've traveled. Could be eternally going around in circles for all I know. And there's not much room for growth, or to be more precise, recognizing growth. And the worse thing is: Just when you think you've finally gotten out; or at least have 1 foot out of the mire, it finds a way to suck you back in again. You have my word on that.

Yeah. I have a love/hate relationship with shooting X_x

Randomly, I realize that I have cast aside all pretence at having a life. Case in point: My mother freaking offered to get me an Iphone 4, shiny data plan and all, and I flat out rejected her. Thinking about oh-so-mundane concerns such as: "I don't really need an Iphone" , "I'll be going into NS next year, so no need for such an expensive plan". I am such a genius (Y).

Just a few paragraphs worth of venting/whining. Off to shower and do some math > <

So I guess what it boils down to (or perhaps I just thought it up on the spot) is what makes things & even people special and/or unique in the first place. What makes you come here? The ideas? Nothing special; I'm sure. The presentation? I doubt it. The person? Flattering, but no. I honestly have no idea, and that scares me.

Is there something immutable yet indescribable, hinted at but unseen? I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me.

I'm shooting in a comp tomorrow. I'll probably be miserable after it, based on how training went today, but that's something I'll leave till then. Rifle will be fun I guess. I admit that I'm secretly hoping to 一鸣惊人 with my rifle results tomorrow but that's just me being foolish. I just want to go through it without heartbreak. Not being too fatigued to take on pistol would be an added bonus; especially given the shitty condition my arm's been in lately. The muscles are all messed up, out of synch and I think my triggering has taken a turn for the worse. Not too optimistic bout my performance...

I randomly started thinking about thinking, and how everyone does it. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous when I put it like that, but at least for myself, it's very easy to get caught up in one's own arrogance and self-righteousness, and forget that the thoughts that occur within this little fishbowl that's my head aren't really all that unique. That they're shared by so many others, that others aren't just soporific vessels, mushrooms or whatever. Something's going on behind that pair of eyes; I just don't know what. On a tangent, it's like I kinda assumed that nothing would change if I stood still. And that's what "they" always say, isn't it? And that's the furthest thing possible from the truth. Not even a cog in the machine, maybe even outside it.

After all that monologue, what's the point? Nothing at all =) Thanks for your time.

I dislike Dao-ists =S [and that's just because "hate" is a word I could never apply to Jack]

Ended up going swimming with my bro on Sat instead of going down to NUS, mostly due to a total lack of response from anyone I contacted. It was fun, though. Especially when you lie just beneath the water surface and look up at the sky... I'm starting to sound like a deprived kid, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm quite pathetic though, couldn't swim more than 1 lap without having to stop to catch my breathe. A far cry from passing the swimming test last time. Playing in the jacuzzi and letting the bubbles inflate my trunks was mad fun as well!

Today was pretty productive, but I've got to do a lot more if I want to be ready in a week.

PM PE  wasn't particularly tiring, albeit a little impossible but it left me with difficulty walking, so I hobbled up to Weiqi, taking small steps, not big - that'd hurt too much - leg muscles cramping. Quite pathetic tbh. I finally managed to finish a game on the 大板 today; though I lost pretty terribly as I'm quite unused to it. It's a big step up from the smaller one, where everything is so much easier to see, and I could beat Eliz without much difficulty. It's just so much easier to feel in control.

I skipped training today (oh the horror!) due to the muscle pain; and a rapidly developing case of shooting elbow as SY calls it. I'm not dying to feel the effects of over-training anytime soon, though they should have hit me a long time ago all things considered. I don't feel that guilty though.

Somehow or other, I managed to match my P.B for pistol (set at the end of Sec 3 no less) on Thursday without really feeling that I had achieved anything. It's probably cause it's way too low, and perhaps that my 境界 has risen; as coach would put it. I now know that if I want to perform moderately well, I can't just force myself to keep on shooting when my form is bad. A break is beneficial. Well...I actually knew all of that already, but being more that a little stubborn, Thursday was the first time I actually managed to execute it moderately well. Now if only I hadn't shot that stray 5... I'll do better next training =)

Now enjoy this fascinating picture of a water flea:

Mr Ngan really can't draw to save his life. There's a certain striking likeness to what he drew on the board in class though. Perhaps it's the strange arm-like appendages xP

Lastly: CTsCTsCTsCTs crapIdon'tthinkthere'senoughtimetostudyomgno. And I'll probably be going for the NUS OpenHouse, either today or tomorrow, depending on whether I can drag some people to go down with me =X

After all the flak I've been getting in GP tutorial for random stuff, it's kind of sad how I just committed suicide in the CTs by picking my question "for fun" =/

I'd originally wanted to write this question about governments, and I had already written it down on the paper, all ready to start planning. But another question about nature just sort of demanded my attention and practically forced me to write it, so I just went along, and well...random stuff from PW just started plonking itself on the paper. I'm not 100% sure about the relevance though, so I'm just hoping for the best, I guess...

Trained right after the CT ended; practically rushed down in fact. It was marginally better, so that's good. I spent some time in school afterwards to get some math done. I'm so slow that it's not even funny anymore. There just doesn't seem to be the time to get anything done, no matter how long I stay back after school each day to play a little catch-up. Argh, I don't really feel like giving up on the CTs just yet, but things aren't looking good.

I found out today, quite by accident that some people talk about me behind my back. Somehow, at this very moment, I can't really say that I'm overly bothered by that.

I'm quite a coward > <

Anw, shot a mock competition today, and I could have done a lot better. I have to get a lot better with competition skills, like stopping once I shoot 2 8s in a row and so on. Well actually my continuing to shoot even then stems from a lack of confidence in my own ability. Shooting 8s consecutively just doesn't seem so out of place to me. Gotta raise my standards.

GP CT tmr, haven't put in the required amount of effort, but it's a little too late to do anything now, so...nights ;)

Competing next next Wednesday. Thankfully it's not the Nationals, I'm not quite prepared for that yet. It's the NTUIS, and I'll be competing in both Rifle and Pistol Divisions. I was kind of looking towards shooting rifle again, but I haven't had any time to train at all, not to mention that my rifle is now being used by Mingze so I have no weapon to use now. I'm not adverse to renting one from Safra, but I can't even imagine how much work it'll take to make all the necessary adjustments =.=

Furthermore, I'll be shooting rifle and pistol on the same day! Not to mention that I'll be shooting them in consecutive details - that's timing slots for you non-shooters - with less than an hour's break in between. Joy. I have to admit that I'm kinda looking forward to it, though. Half-hoping for a miracle to occur, and half just wanting to see how badly I'll do. I don't want to pull down Shaofei's and Daniel's scores though.

I haven't gotten any work done this weekend...too tired after the camp, and I've just burned my time sleeping and slacking. Gotta work harder!

Camp's over, had fun, though I suspect that I'd have probably enjoyed myself more if I hadn't been involved in organizing it, and all the running around to get things ready, (though Yi Ling and Rach did so much more!) which kind of creates a wee bit of distance that I'm horrible at closing.

Not-so-random philosophical discourse with Marcus, and I kinda realised how I've stopped thinking recently; got so involved in the flow of things that my brain just shut off, and everything's just been responding, responding, responding. I have no idea whether that's supposed to be good or bad though.

And I've realised once again, that I'm not a big-group person. I prefer 1-on-1 interaction, feels much more meaningful, though of course that in part is because I just can't compete. Can't grasp and make myself a part of those dynamics which seem ever so important. Hate the way person to person interaction gets subsumed by the group. It's the loser's perspective, I know. It's mine.

I need to re-work my brain's circuitry.

A level results were released on Friday. Somehow I didn't feel elated or anything about my A in Chinese. Just numb. Of course I'm glad I got it, but it just doesn't feel like anything significant to me.
Watching the release of the results did give me some kind of motivation and impetus to start working, but then again, I don't know how long it'll last.

I have no idea why I'm feeling so negative today -.-

Shooting camp after school today, it'll be fun, I hope. Be back on Sat.

I know it's unbelievable but I just recently realized the value of doing work. And I've been trying to phase in changes to my schedule such that I actually get myself to do it. I think I've been getting a good balance between training and work these past few days. But doing work is freaking unproductive! Irony, I know. But honestly, I'm new at this so I don't really know whether it's normal. Should I be spending upwards of 3-4 hours in order to complete a single tutorial? What a waste of time... Yes, there's the retarded feeling of self-satisfaction, and I'm going to continue with it, but just something worth thinking about for me.

I've been doing better in training; my basic standard's been rising of late. However, I've really not been doing anything special at all, just training. So I don't know. Past breakthroughs have been based on sudden epiphanies; the kind of realization that just hits you, and you just roll along with it. But this time it's different. It feels like a very plain, straightforward kind of thing. It's not like I've suddenly got a good feeling and can shoot 10s at will. I...don't quite know how to describe it, so forgive the rambling. I guess it's just the feeling that I'm able to carry out my 动作 much, much better now, and when I don't do it correctly, I can really feel it. I can feel my arm sliding out of position when my arm's fatigued, and moving slightly off-course the moment I trigger. And when I'm good, I can keep it there. Something like that. It's good, I think.

An indicator or signal would be nice. Just to know that I'm getting through. One can wish >_<