i admire people who know what they really want right from the start, that they do not get swayed by opinions by the people around them. These are the people who are different and who make a difference to their own lives. They have their own stands, their own individual identities and their own opinions. Just like a friend of mine, he likes techno music but many of us around him dont like it very much due to the social stigma of techno music associating with the ah-bengs and ah-lians. His reply to our "i dont really like techno music." is one naive, firm and polite "Very nice, what!". i really admire his firm insistence on knowing what he really likes and hates.

i am the actual opposite of my friend, to some extent. Since young, i always like to copy. To copy gives me the assurance that i can never be wrong about doing something. (Copy in this case doesnt mean copying homework and assignment, or those sort!) When playing with masak-masak (toys), those which requires you to create something out of building blocks, i tend to have very poor creative juices flowing through my mind. i'll always see what my elder brother make, and a few days down the road, i would replicate his toy model and play with it myself. i also remember there was once when i had tuition at this RC centre, there was a practice assignment to be done. In Chinese, it would be called 造句, but this was done in English. The tutor would explain the meaning of several words, together with an example sentence to each word. After she was done, we were left to our devices in creating proper sentences. Being the natural copycat i was, i used the example sentences to do my entire assignment. And know what the funny thing was? The tutor praised me for completing my work so fast, and (dont choke on this!) on using those example sentences. She said that i must have been listening intently to her and not daydreaming away. i am a good listener so this wasnt a problem to me. i got pretty cocky and satisfied for the praise but come to think of that situation today, i am so damn ashamed of myself, and for that tutor too because what's so wonderful being a copycat? It's so darn shameless to be happy of that praise. It only shows that i'm a lazy boy who is so lazy to construct new sentences to make that practice assignment rightfully mine, and to prove the point that i actually understood those words.

Seriously, when i pointed out that "To copy gives me the assurance that i can never be wrong about doing something" back there, it is because i am a person who is always afraid of being judged. i am very self-concious person who is always thinking of what kind of thoughts the people around me might have on myself. Are they positive? Or negative? i am a pessimist by nature but i try to inject some optimism into my head most of the time. But there are times when the pessimism in me negates all optimism i try to put in me, and during those times, they make me fail terribly in what i was attempting to do. Of course, there were times when things still turn out fine and i just breathed a sigh of relief at the end of it all but those were just miracle moments when i was lucky.

How can i make myself less self-concious when i really need it to be so in some sticky situations? Right now, i can only achieve it at times by self-delusion, by telling myself that things arent the way i am thinking of them to be.

Quite pathetic, isnt it?