091201, 0941hr, illinois time.

the irony of it all. haha. i was last talking about being unable to express myself in chinese. well well well. fate has it i spent the whole day yesterday agonizing over expressing myself in english. my final term paper for political theory is a 6-page essay about liberty. omigod. my brain is dead, and i'm only up to 1 page done. sigh.

i figured though, i should take this finals week as easy as possible. since i really don't care about my gpa anymore. since i already decided that i've learnt a lot this semester. seriously, that's all that matters, isn't it? that i've learnt. exams are designed to test what you've learnt, but they're really just a tool. an instrument for the teachers who don't know how else to find out. but i know, i looked inside my brains, and i found so much exciting material deposited there through the semester, i don't think i need some exam results to confirm that i've been a good conscientious student the past months. of course, a few screw ups here and there made sure i wouldn't become a perfect 4.0 student this semester, but that's just natural. i never wanted to be perfect anyway.

i'm just kidding of course, i'm not gonna be lounging around. of course i'll still be studying for my exams. especially the communications class, because that's the one that needs the most work. but i guess the stress is gone. from my finals. the benefits of being a non-perfectionist.

see, i am a perfectionist only in terms of effort. in terms of putting out only my best. i remember when i was a kid, in primary school doing my art drawings, i used to be get really frustrated everytime i make a mistake, because i would want to redraw the whole darn thing. when we started using water colors, i discovered the beauty of covering my mistakes with another color. but sometimes, i end up correcting everything so many times, my drawing board paper would get so soaked through, so thin after repeated abrasion with the paint brush [i'm an aggressive painter], when my drawing finally dries up, the paper curls up a little more than usual at the edges, and is really stiff, covered with so many layers of paint. but then, i'm still really proud of my drawings, because i knew i've done all i could to make it as perfect as possible. i guess that's what i mean, i like the products that come from my hands to be as perfect as possible. when i was a kid, the paintings. now, essays. i want my essays to say exactly what i mean to say, exactly how i mean to say it. but somehow, they always come out wrong. and then i'll spend ages agonizing over them, editing everything word by word, or sometimes deleting whole chunks of paragraphs in frustration. yes, i am a perfectionist in that sense.

but, i am not a perfectionist in terms of results. i put in my best efforts in painting my best works, but i don't have to be the best in class. my picture doesn't have to be chosen to be put up on the art board behind the classroom. my teacher doesn't have to write "well done!" on my work, and give me a pat on my head. no, i don't need that kind of recognition, because i already know i am the best. to me, at least. my self-worth comes from self-evaluation, rather than any external rewards or praise. sometimes, that's a bad thing, because i tend to beat myself up really badly over something that other people may not even see. like when i cannot express myself as well as before. people who didn't know me before might think i'm eloquent now. but i know i can be better, and i get too self-critical about it. even if i get an A on this essay now, i still won't give myself full credit for it, because i know i could have written a better one. maybe the good thing is, similarly even if i were to get a B on the same essay, the kind of self-reproach i have would still be the same, because what i think of myself is rather independent of what others think of me.

oh well. it just turns out i have a higher expectation of myself than anyone else in the world. so my kind of perfectionism is dangerous. hmm.

by the way, i had a funny dream last night. i dreamt that i was a lesbian, and my partner and i were involved in this dance-cum-float parade in this little unknown town. as more people joined in, her ex-boyfriend also appeared, and he really resented me. her grandma also appeared, and she didn't like me either. one day, she finally confronted me, and it turns out what she didn't like about me, wasn't that i wasn't a guy [which was what i assumed at first] but that i wasn't thin enough. hmm. the rest of the crew though, were really sweet to me, because i was the youngest and most inexperienced in the team. eventually though, i left. because i felt pressured by the grandma ["how come you're so erm... pui? (dialect for fat)"] and the ex-boyfriend. i saw that they still loved each other. so i left. and went to another little town. where the same parade was going on. except now i'm the ex-girlfriend of this gay couple. and then i don't remember what happened...and i woke up. strange huh. hmm. thought-provoking though.