I think I’ve been pondering a lot recently about what had happened. I used to love messing around with Photoshop to make graphics, coding websites for the heck of it, writing stories to ink my imagination and wishes. Now, my sources of amusement (videos, reads, etc.) are all sort of hollow and pointless. I feel like I don’t want to sacrifice anything in order to gain happiness. I really hope this doesn’t extend to the rest of my life. That would be disastrous.

本来以为上了大学或许可以发现一些自己很喜欢的东西，可是发觉自己还是如此的没有热情.可能因为我这个人实在太怕付出，胆子太小. 我不愿去做一些自己没有把握的事…总是觉得自己只要成绩好就会高兴. 我虽然现在并不难过和沮丧可是却感到很空虚.

觉得这张桌面很好看…代表我心里那小小希望

When it was me you smiled at with adoration gleaming in your eyes. When it was me you held with the softest touch.

Had I imagined it all?
Had it ever been me?
Does it truly matter?

It may have been the biggest regret of my life afterall.

Many times, I sit downstairs alone in the Severance side of the Tower Court dining hall with nothing much. Maybe a cup of orange juice, hard boiled eggs with a bowl of soy sauce and lots of used napkins. And then I contemplate what the fuck I’m doing here, which, of course, leads to playing nostalgic excerpts of Transition in my head and over the last semester, I’ve come to this epiphany…sort of. I mean, I must have realized it while in Trans…and maybe just wasn’t really ready to think about it, voice it.

Transition is for those who want to accelerate through high school. Not for those who want to skip grades. While you do jump directly into grade 11 courses by October of Year I, you don’t really get to avoid all the shit or miss out on the fun that high school has. Just because you’re going faster, at a more rigorous academic pace, does not mean all the other troubles and joys of life do not join you for those 2 years. Liking people, fighting with parents, struggling with what you want and what you should…things just come at you faster and they hit harder. Thus, the of effect that school has on you and what you do on your school career are just augmented. People do feel, love, hate, laugh, cry. We were with absurd people that we always seem to have something to talk about, rant together about, squeal together about. Others were never in that environment and hence we can never expect them to truly understand what we felt and how we feel now. Not our parents, not our elementary school friends, not our university friends. Personally, as hard as I try to explain to my friends here how much Transition has shaped who I am today (gosh that sounds so cheesy, yet true), they would still only nod at me while giving me a skeptical stare.

One friend I have has gone through a similar high school setting, as similar as things can get to Trans. United World College. She is a Chinese-Singaporean who studied in Italy for 2 years at UWC. When I told her my stories, I felt like she kind of understood, kind of went through something so very like it yet so very different (hello? mob of Asians from Trans versus “United World” College?). She said to me “beautiful” and indeed it was.

That cardboard box of 2 years of my life, our life.

You never really know how much something means to you until you lose it. Although I’ll never be able to wash away the Transie within me, I do really miss it now.

…yeah, right. Whatever.

I got several midterms back and that 4.0 dream was shattered. I think I managed okay for all of them but wanting to get A’s is sort of tough. It all depends on my finals and I think I’m pretty darn screwed for finals.

Math, all this curve and surface parametrization and finding this and that is not being processed.

Econ, I listen in class but I realized I’ve forgotten what I’ve read and learned before. Did I really truly learn it?

German, …just too much. I better get my act together if I want to do well. Oh that oral exam’ll be the death ofme.

Writing, one last paper and the articles project. ARGH.

Now that we’ve started our final chapter for German, I realized there were many food words in the Wortschatz:

• Me: Oh great, this chapter has stuff on food.
• Derya: Eat it. Then not only will you not be hungry, you won’t have to read it

Ja, das ist wahr.

It is a dreary and miserable Sunday and I am, of course, in my room writing notes for German. However, as I travel back to Kapitel Zwei of my German textbook, I rediscovered a big semi-regret of my life.

Why did I choose to learn German of all languages?! Why, why, why?

• there is little to no pattern to pluralizing verbs (or at least Frau Ward refuses to let us in on them)
• stupid genders of nouns
• verb conjugation and tenses
• separable and inseparable prefixes
• sentence and word order
• cases
• prepositions that go with the different cases…prepositions that go with MORE THAN ONE CASE

They equate to FML.

I’m sure German is probably easier than many other languages. Which leads me to ask myself why I’m learning another language even though I’ve covered my language distribution requirement already?!

As I am trying to copy down vocabulary, my roommate and hallmate are behind me laughing their asses off over 樱桃小丸子. I actually don’t mind the fact they are having fun and I am slaving (that’s been happening throughout most of my life anyways). However, I am trying to study here, thank you very much.

I feel like I am drowning in a language ich kann nicht verstehen…and I don’t even have a distraction (other than bonus problems on my Math Pset)! Bah!

One more hour until I head to Slater for s’mores.

My life has always been pathetic like that. Regrets, contradictions, hypocriticism. However, all the regrets that adorn my life have become one of my greatest motivators (among flying first class and breathtaking mansions). I’ve always agreed with the saying that “experience” was simply another word for our past failures and mistakes. By writing my stories down, I hope they will one day remind me of my foolishness, naivety so I can move on.

Of course, writing also has that therapeutic effect on me. It’s about time I stop slowly imploding.

I part with a song: sie liebt dich