Peter Pan Complex
I have officially changed my least favourite day of the week to Monday. I hate waking up early. In fact I hate it so much that if I were to list all my most hated tunes, the alarm clock song my handphone plays would tie for number 1 with The Cheeky Song. Unfortunately, this also means that I often choose to ignore it and end up rushing off to school without breakfast in a mad panic, caused by waking up one hour too late.
I have noticed that recently I've become rather more voracious than usual. Anybody who's seen me eat will know that this is not a good sign, but there you are: I'm eating more now, or at least getting hungrier more frequently. I took an inventory of my eating habits over the weekend, and I've found myself capable of devouring a large bread roll in less than 5 minutes. That's a rough estimate of RM2 per 5 minutes, which equals about 40 cents per minute, or almost one cent every second.
It's a good thing the holidays begin in 19 days' time and I can go back to properly give my face the stuffing it deserves. My mother booked me a ticket (the cheapest one available) and I'll be back home come Sunday morning. Quite literally, Sunday morning: my flight arrives at 1.00 am. Very bad for the nerves, I'm sure, but then it's a small price to pay for being back home.
I'm not sure, though, that it'll be all I expect it to be. For one thing, what am I going to do during the holidays while my sister has her SPM? (No, not PMS. SPM.) Learn driving, certainly. But it looks like I may have to scrap my plans of getting back together with all my old schoolmates, since The Pig has been studiously ignoring me for the last four or five months and everybody else will be having their AS (except Herr Robson, who will be having his A-Levels proper). And of course it would be indecent of me to disrupt their studies just for an hour or so of small talk.
So... it looks like I'm going to actually study during the upcoming holidays, out of sheer nothing else to do. All the more weight for me to carry around the place... but how thrilled my parents will be! I can just see them with huge grins, going "Oooh look, so mature, a real role model!" The very idea of being mature gives me shivers.
Thunder asked me recently whether I shaved. It gave me quite a shock, since I have never associated me with shaving. Then she told me I had hairs growing in all directions out of my chin, and I probably turned pale with shock. Since neither she nor Serene said anything, I presume it was covered up by the zits still growing profusely all over me.
But anyway, I got scared because (to borrow a phrase off Meow's blog) it's yet another step on my perceived road to adulthood. That's scary, if you like. It's like I'm stuck on some conveyor belt with forks in the path, and every other choice I make is going to send me either to the life of comfort that I want or end with me begging on some nameless street corner.
Which is why I'm pushing it off as far as I can. I never want to grow up. It's too... frightening, all those unknowns floating around out there. What job to take, to marry or not to marry (and how to choose if so!), what to study, where to study, where to live... and every single one of them is potentially life-threatening. What if? I hate hypothetical situations where I can't predict anything accurately. If I studied this, what would happen? What kind of job could I take? Would I survive? And most importantly, am I qualified for it?
Because I don't think I'm qualified to do anything. Look at me, after all. What skills have I got? Perfect English? Sarcasm? Immense stupidity? Common as dirt, all of them. Nothing marketable, unless you think I'm going to teach a bunch of little kids that A is for Apple and B for Boy. It's not possible, I tell you, to decide properly. What I need here is a manual. Something like, "If in doubt, choose X". After all, I'm more inclined to rules and regulations than most people (I think).
But the fact is that if I had a choice, I would run off to Never-Never Land and stay there. Never need to grow up and make terrifying decisions, just living off the land... heck, I could help those Lost Boys create a structured agricultural system if they liked, I study science don't I? No need at all to worry about whether or not to study this instead of that, to take a job with Company X instead of Y or set up one of my own, no bills to pay or loans to repay.
It sounds almost perfect for me. Complete and total escapism. But no such place exists, to the best of my knowledge, and I'm still stuck here where all those decisions must be made somehow, sooner or later, and will drastically affect my future. And as it is, I still need to at least trim those chin hairs (they're too sparse to be considered a mini-beard).
But it's another step towards the looming cliff face of adulthood. Another step towards complete and total panic and terror. I hate this. Why isn't there a manual or instinct that tells me what to do?
I have noticed that recently I've become rather more voracious than usual. Anybody who's seen me eat will know that this is not a good sign, but there you are: I'm eating more now, or at least getting hungrier more frequently. I took an inventory of my eating habits over the weekend, and I've found myself capable of devouring a large bread roll in less than 5 minutes. That's a rough estimate of RM2 per 5 minutes, which equals about 40 cents per minute, or almost one cent every second.
It's a good thing the holidays begin in 19 days' time and I can go back to properly give my face the stuffing it deserves. My mother booked me a ticket (the cheapest one available) and I'll be back home come Sunday morning. Quite literally, Sunday morning: my flight arrives at 1.00 am. Very bad for the nerves, I'm sure, but then it's a small price to pay for being back home.
I'm not sure, though, that it'll be all I expect it to be. For one thing, what am I going to do during the holidays while my sister has her SPM? (No, not PMS. SPM.) Learn driving, certainly. But it looks like I may have to scrap my plans of getting back together with all my old schoolmates, since The Pig has been studiously ignoring me for the last four or five months and everybody else will be having their AS (except Herr Robson, who will be having his A-Levels proper). And of course it would be indecent of me to disrupt their studies just for an hour or so of small talk.
So... it looks like I'm going to actually study during the upcoming holidays, out of sheer nothing else to do. All the more weight for me to carry around the place... but how thrilled my parents will be! I can just see them with huge grins, going "Oooh look, so mature, a real role model!" The very idea of being mature gives me shivers.
Thunder asked me recently whether I shaved. It gave me quite a shock, since I have never associated me with shaving. Then she told me I had hairs growing in all directions out of my chin, and I probably turned pale with shock. Since neither she nor Serene said anything, I presume it was covered up by the zits still growing profusely all over me.
But anyway, I got scared because (to borrow a phrase off Meow's blog) it's yet another step on my perceived road to adulthood. That's scary, if you like. It's like I'm stuck on some conveyor belt with forks in the path, and every other choice I make is going to send me either to the life of comfort that I want or end with me begging on some nameless street corner.
Which is why I'm pushing it off as far as I can. I never want to grow up. It's too... frightening, all those unknowns floating around out there. What job to take, to marry or not to marry (and how to choose if so!), what to study, where to study, where to live... and every single one of them is potentially life-threatening. What if? I hate hypothetical situations where I can't predict anything accurately. If I studied this, what would happen? What kind of job could I take? Would I survive? And most importantly, am I qualified for it?
Because I don't think I'm qualified to do anything. Look at me, after all. What skills have I got? Perfect English? Sarcasm? Immense stupidity? Common as dirt, all of them. Nothing marketable, unless you think I'm going to teach a bunch of little kids that A is for Apple and B for Boy. It's not possible, I tell you, to decide properly. What I need here is a manual. Something like, "If in doubt, choose X". After all, I'm more inclined to rules and regulations than most people (I think).
But the fact is that if I had a choice, I would run off to Never-Never Land and stay there. Never need to grow up and make terrifying decisions, just living off the land... heck, I could help those Lost Boys create a structured agricultural system if they liked, I study science don't I? No need at all to worry about whether or not to study this instead of that, to take a job with Company X instead of Y or set up one of my own, no bills to pay or loans to repay.
It sounds almost perfect for me. Complete and total escapism. But no such place exists, to the best of my knowledge, and I'm still stuck here where all those decisions must be made somehow, sooner or later, and will drastically affect my future. And as it is, I still need to at least trim those chin hairs (they're too sparse to be considered a mini-beard).
But it's another step towards the looming cliff face of adulthood. Another step towards complete and total panic and terror. I hate this. Why isn't there a manual or instinct that tells me what to do?
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