The darkness has seeped deeper into my heart

I meant for this blog to be a documentation of my life in general but I find myself blogging whenever I am upset, particularly over dementors (i.e. dentists). A few months ago, I made the valiant effort to push of my demons by finding the best dementor possible in Singapore and going for a visit. I was supposed to follow up the consult with a scaling and polishing but guess what? I chickened out. So far, I still haven't gone back and my fear has increased so much such that I am cold sweating just by typing out this blog post. It seems like, far from banishing my fears, I have increased them.

Come my dear, come to me and let me eat your soul

What I regret now is that I did not consent to simply getting Dr Alan Chan get the scaling and polishing over and done with on the spot. I let my fear rule me for a moment and now I can't make myself face it again. Wonderful. I have exams coming up so I have no time to grapple with my demons. Dr Chan, if you ever read this post, however unlikely it may be, if you ever have another patient like me, push her to get whatever she needs done on the spot. The moment she leaves, chances are, she'll never come back. 

I plan to just focus on my exams first and deal with the demons later. I don't know how I am going to find in myself the courage to do this. Part of me suspects that my demons have become so much a part of me that I am reluctant to let them go.. sigh... 

Phantom of the Opera~~ Whee~~

Lately, many bad things happened in my life. I had another very scary panic attack over dentists a.k.a. dementors because I was tired and contemplating the inevitability of it. Why is it that serial killers can successfully evade the law, as proven in history, but we law abiding citizens, innocent children and scared teenage girls cannot avoid dementors? Life is really cruel, isn't it.

Bad thing number 2: I annoyed one of my friends because she felt I was spending too much time with another friend, a guy who I almost had a crush on. I talked it out with her and settled the problem but it still sucks.

Bad thing number 3: I have so much work but so little time before my block tests in July and I'm really stressed.

But the one GOOD THING is.. I GET TO WATCH PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!! My dad agreed to pay because I did rather well for SAT subject tests. 800 for Biology M and 780 for Math 2. I could have gotten higher for math (sigh, I was hoping for double 800s) but it's good enough :D

Singapore is not exactly Broadway so obviously, there aren't many good plays available all year round and tickets to phantom are expensive and nearly sold out. Nevertheless, I hope I can get a semi decent seat! Gonna go get the tickets on Mon!!! Yay!!!

Phantom here I come~!

Can't wait!!

Can the phantom be even hotter? *squeals*

Her expression... beautiful..

NAPFA test

For my readers who don't know what NAPFA is, it is basically a stupid PE test. They make us run 2.4 km, do sit ups and all sorts of other torture. Well, I think I barely scraped a pass in my 2.4 km run but it has pretty much ruined my health for the past few days. I am quite amazed at my willpower, really. Or maybe I am just secretly masochistic. I don't exercise much. I used to do ballet every week but I have stopped my lessons to focus on A Levels and that has caused my fitness level to suffer. This year, I started bleeding, like menstrual blood, every time after I run. This just shows how the Singaporean education system works. They push us so hard. They harp on and on about holistic education but all it means is that now we not only have to get perfect grades but must be perfect leaders, artists and sportsmen. In this system, I may be bleeding inside but I can't show it outside. 7 months of suffering more

You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness.. I should be dead by now

Well, I really hate myself sometimes. I, like all humans, am inherently weak. I can't bring myself to go back to the dentist. I give up. I am getting suicidal just thinking about it and my grades are suffering. I will regret this later but I am going to delay going back to the dentist until after my A Levels. At least, if it gets bad enough, I'll have the excuse to go through everything under general anesthesia or heavy sedation. It might seem silly to you, my dear reader, that a mere scaling and polishing can have me in such dark dark moods but the fear runs so deep. It's ridiculous, really. But I can't help it. All I can do now is study hard, try to take care of my teeth and pray for the best. Maybe after all my exams are over, I can pluck up the courage to go. Am I pathetic? I think so..

Lost. Dark. Pain.

In the past few days, my life has been incredibly stressful... mostly because of school work. I come from a rather good school and of course, the pressure and competition there is ridiculous. It has come to a point where I feel that I am stupid and I started having nightmare imaginings of everyone getting straight As and me getting straight Us (which is the lowest fail grade). Rationally looking at my results, I have improved for every subject except math. However, just because of one math paper that I screwed up, I feel that I'm just more stupid than everyone in this world. It has come to the point where I am having panic attacks in class whenever I can't do a question or my friend finishes the question way faster than me. I am trying to look at it rationally and tell myself that I'm not getting stupid but I'm improving but it's hard to bounce back after failing one paper when I am a usual straight A student. Life is stressful. I have a proteonomics presentation on Monday. Haizzzz

Licking (sword) wounds, finding my soul

As I was saying in my previous post, tuesday's appointment at the dentist really traumatised me again. I didn't realise it yesterday because I was focused on studying for proteonomics but now that proteonomics is over, I feel more vulnerable than ever. Thinking back, I feel violated or, for the lack of a better expression, mind-raped. Although Dr Alan Chan was really nice, I can't help but hate him. There is no way not to hate him. This is nothing personal against him, it's just that he is a dementor and I treasure my soul. I have utterly no idea how I am going to make myself go back for the scaling and polishing. Good luck to me. Sooner or later I will try to force myself to go.. for now, it's chocolates to fend of the dementor cold. Hopefully, this vulnerable feeling fades after a while.

Actually, I have to admit that the reason I feel violated is because I'm usually the victim who is dragged  to the dementor and now, I am actually making myself go. I feel like I'm betraying myself. And the very fact that he is nice proves that not all dentists are evil which goes against what I have believe for the past 10 years.

Here's a wonderful picture to describe my mood:

The road ahead is long and many will not survive. Happy walking everyone~!

From swords to alchemy.. or rather, proteonomics

Okay, I'm a nerd. I like proteonomics, enough to take it as a H3 subject.. which basically means that I have 4 extra hours of biology lesson every week to learn about proteins. Proteonomics is the new 'in' thing in biology. After the Human Genome Project, scientists realised that knowing the gene sequence does not tell them much. Genes are transcribed into proteins and stuff so the study of proteins and all the regulatory sequences and the protein-protein interactions is really important now. Anyways, enough spamming of random proteo stuff... I just had my proteo 'block test' yesterday which turned out to be a really short quiz. 10 marks in fact. I feel so cheated. I studies so hard for it and it was just a tiny quiz. I am also irritated that I forgot one of the limitations of X-ray crystallography is that it is a static method of visualising the 3D structure of proteins. Aside from that, I think I did quite well, hopefully. My normal H2 bio results for the block tests also came back and I did quite well so I'm reasonably happy. The only thing that is throwing a damper on everything is the coldness of an impending dementoring. I don't know if I mentioned this before but I think of dentists as dementors. They suck the life out of me.. shall elaborate more in the next post...

Swords were crossed.. the first battle is over

I just reached home from the dentist. It went better than I thought it would be. I actually feel a little in shock and shaky now. So what basically happened was that he explained everything he is going to do very very carefully like I'm a child and he gave me a mirror to hold so I can see what he was doing. And although I felt a little patronized, I am also extremely grateful that he was so kind. It also turned out that I do not have a cavity. According to him, it's actually gum disease and that black spot I saw was an old filling which I had forgotten about. He said that I need to come back for a scaling and polishing. Anyone knows how that feels like? Will it hurt? I'm gonna sleep on what happened today and relax a bit first then pick up the courage to book the next appointment for the procedure. 

But anyways, here's a blow by blow account if you wanna read it:
I walked into the place clutching my friend's arm and barely remembering to breathe. The receptionist got me a form to fill up and I sat on a couch with my 2 best friends to wait. There were quite a lot of flowers in the place and the place did not smell of that disgusting antiseptic that many dental clinics use. Halfway while waiting, some sounds came from inside the room and I got attacked by a memory and I started crying a bit. The receptionist offered me water and everything and was nice.

Then I went in, completely clinging onto my friend's arm and freaking out. He managed, after a few seconds, to persuade me to sit on the chair, just to talk. The chair was purple so it looked kind of cute. He asked what was wrong and eventually persuaded me to let him put the chair down so he can take a look. I was looking in the mirror all the while to see what he was doing. He showed me how easily my gums bled and gave me a pamphlet to read about gum disease. Then we spoke a bit about what happened when I was a child and he reassured me that he's not going to do anything I don't agree to. He then said that in a few years, I might have problems with my wisdom tooth and when I said I did research on that and I know what is going on, he sort of didn't believe me and quizzed me. Haha! He was a little shocked I think, when I gave all correct points 

He also told me exactly what would happen if I were to come in next time for a scaling and polishing. He showed me how each of the tools worked and even used my nail as a demonstration of how that weird polishing thingy works. He told me that there would be absolutely no surprises for the next time I come in. He also took photos of my teeth to show me what was going on. 

At the end of it, he told me to walk out myself, without clinging to my friends and said that next time I come in, I don't come in as scared. 

End of the long account.

Anyways, the only thing that concerns me a bit is that he seems to want to make money off me but I guess that is to be expected. He kept recommending me to buy toothbrushes and stuff at the end and he also talked about having me as his regular. He has quite an authoritative manner which sometimes feels reassuring and sometimes a little intimidating. But overall, this is a far cry from the childhood experiences of my past. I have taken a step to overcoming my phobia. While it will not be easy to pick up the phone to book the next appointment, I am reasonably sure I can do it! 

Anyways, to conclude this long post, I think that finding the right dentist is very important. I am taking baby steps to overcoming my phobia and I feel quite good about it 

This is the place I went to

Me and my friends

Impending doom

I am seriously scared as hell. As I type this, my heart is fluttering like that of a hummingbird's. The appointment is tomorrow. I am not even close to being mentally prepared for this. I just wish I can die on the spot. I am telling myself that I'll be the one in control tomorrow and no one is going to force me like my mum did in my childhood. Things have also changed a lot in 10 years and it probably won't be as nightmarish this time. But I'm scared. So scared. I want to faint dead away now. Death will be peaceful. Tomorrow, I'll be blogging about my trip there and I'll be posting some pictures. Hopefully, it will all go well. Omg, I'm panicking so bad, my fingers feel numb..

Before I even finish the first scene, disaster strikes

Part of the reason why I started this blog is because my demons from 10 years ago have come to torment me. I am fighting the demons but it's hard and I feel a need to document every step of this on-going battle. My demons are basically my fear of the dentist.

When I was young, my parents were not very concerned about oral health so I had never been to a dentist until when I was 7 years old and there was a dental clinic with a full time dental nurse in my school. The first time I got onto that horrible chair, I had no idea what she was going to do to me and I was too scared to ask and it just got worse when she fixed some cavities without even telling me what she was doing. She wasn't gentle with me and it became a war between me and her. I resisted going to the dental clinic and she resorted to getting huge 12 year old boys to drag me from my classroom and she even roped in my mum to help. I was dragged there many times since then. My mum would hold me down and choke hold me until I open my mouth. The nurse would wave this thick string in front of my face and threaten to tie me down. This all happened when I was 7-9 years old. I lived in terror in those few years. The school dental service was free so my parents, despite my begging, refused to bring me to a private pediatric dentist. When I was 10, I put my foot down and just refused to go and threatened suicide if they dragged me. Eventually, after several near disasters, my parents realised that I was serious and they stop trying to drag me there. 

I am now 18 and I realise that I am no longer a child and no one will hold/tie me down but those traumatic experiences have scarred me. I cannot walk past a dental clinic without cringing and feeling the need to run away. I cannot say the word dentist out loud. And next Tuesday, I am finally going to have to go. Delaying will only make it worse and at least I am dragging 2 of my best friends with me. Pray for me and help me get through this alive. If I survive this, it will be one step closer to chasing away the demons. 

The lights snap on and the curtain lifts...

... and I step out of the wings, onto this stage. Life is a stage and I am an actress. Let this blog be another act or scene to my life. An act or scene where, perhaps, I can act less and show more of my true self. Imagine the hush that falls across the audience as I walk, slowly, deliberately, to center stage. The air is filled with tension. The audience have no idea what I am going to do or say. In a dramatic stage whisper, I tell you the story of my life. The show is unscripted, raw, painful to watch at times yet heart-breakingly beautiful at others. Welcome to my blog.


I am a girl with big dreams... some dreams feel like they are implanted into my mind while others are truly my dreams.. overall, I am a rather complicated person, too complicated to be described in one blog post, but I shall do my best. I am still in high school, I have a good memory and tend to do well in exams, especially biology. People sometimes envy me for my grades but what they don't know is that every time I study for an exams, I push myself so hard I feel that I lost a part of my soul in the process. People see the As but they do not see the pain behind the As.

Ballet is my life. There is a long story behind why I love ballet so much but that story is for another day. Currently, in order to study for my final exams in my final year in high school, I have stopped my dance lessons. But once a dancer, always a dancer. The moment my exams end, I'm going back to the studio and losing myself in dance.

I am a very arty person. I love theater, visual arts, dance etc etc. Funnily enough, I'm taking mostly science subjects in school. Of course, my parents have something to do with that. I consider myself lucky, to have a home, have food on the table, but it is in the human nature never to be satisfied. I long for freedom. My parents are strict and they dictate every aspect of my life. About one more year to college and to freedom!

Books are also another essential part of my life. I love to read. All kinds of books, from classics to trashy romances, even Fifty Shades. Haha! If not for books, I would just be like any other teenager whose life revolves around studies, friends and parents. I love to contemplate human nature and often, I have many random thoughts popping into my head. Nietzsche is a crazy but cool guy, in my opinion. Not surprisingly, half of my "friends" only have the vaguest idea that Nietzsche is a random German philosopher.

Life, to me, is a beautiful tragedy. I imagine life as a beautiful woman with scarlet lipstick and nails, lounging on a crimson couch and watching the world at her feet. She laughs at our petty troubles, randomly choosing to help some people while tormenting others with even more obstacles. We humans are merely little specks of dust in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, this does not mean that our lives don't feel real to us. We define our lives and ourselves. The trouble is, we don't often know how to do so. I am trying, at this very moment, to do that. Just sharing my life helps, which brings us back to my blog.

I am going to post really random things that happen in my life and one day, many years down the road, I will look back and laugh at myself. For now, I invite you to share my joys, my tears and my fears.