Untold Untruths

Started reading Life of Pi yesterday, and I can't remember the last time a book managed to cheer me up so much. It's a damn nice book - ashamed I never read it earlier, but maybe that was Providence at work :)

Decided on something just now: if I do get the IB, I'll take up World History instead of Economics. Dad was explaining why (not for the 1st time, as I remember) there was so much strife in the Arabic countries. Heh. Albeit his propensity to long-windedness, he really is a brilliant guy. Knows so damn much about everything...

Mum called up ISKL today. Geraldine (receptionist) said that the headmaster would be away until the end of next week, and that until then, no decision would be reached. How Pui Shen got wind that she already got the scholarship is something beyond me... But I don't want to dwell on the matter. Suffice it to say that my fleeting hopes have not entirely extinguished just yet. Wish me all the best! I trust you, God.

Want to write something, want to create something, need to live something... But what.

Not more than a few hours ago, I scorned (very mildly lah) Raskolnikov's obsessive self-contempt, worry and mangled, colliding thoughts... Yet now I am going through very much the same thing. Reuben asked me today before practice started whether I'd got the scholarship. I told him the results were only out next week. But then he went, "Oh, but Pei Shen (spellcheck required) - you know Pei Shen right? - already got it."

You read about how dread settles in the heroine's heart, or how the heroine's heart stops cold and her voice goes funny at hearing the worst news - but you never imagine how it would happen with yourself. And though the same thing happens, though the same words may apply more than perfectly, you can hardly bear to use such cliched emotions on yourself. I was crushed lah.

Throughout practice, I could only barely contain myself... All I wanted to do was to go home. I kept looking wildly to the window, hoping to see mum's car, only to come back to the people around me and to steel myself through more speechless reactions to my bitchy model-cohorts in Couture.

Felt so fucked. It was that whole loser feeling all over again... And a whole series of questions kept screaming inside of my head. How did she get it? Did they call her? Results should only be out next week! Maybe she has connections? Maybe they already contacted the scholarship-receipients. Maybe they'll only send the letters to the non-receipients next week. Maybe this, maybe that... God!

Everything about this feels so wrong. Wrong in the sense that... It should be mine. I think I did what I could to deserve it. Wrong also because... It could be that they thought I was a pretentious fool... I keep going over some parts of the interview now, and I can't help cringing every here and there, recalling what I said. How could I have said that! Why didn't I just keep it short and simple?! Now why did I have to bring that up? Why did I say this? Why did I say that!

Such horrible, horrible, mortification.

What makes it all worse is that people who do remember keep asking me about the scholarship now. STUPID Krystle, to make such a news out of it. STUPID Krystle, to tell people about things like this... And STUPID Krystle, to have been annoyed at people who cannot remember... Blah! What horrible agony... Thank God for storybooks and the like... And arms like Cow's.

I am rather full of myself at the moment, but at the end of this post I probably won't be anymore. SPM results came out yesterday, but because I was retaking my driving test, I couldn't make it to school till 1 something. I guess it spared me a good deal of fretting, because one can't fret about SPM while there is something as tedious as a road test to wait and pray for.

While waiting at the SDC, Ee Ling called me from school to ask if I'd like to know my results. She insisted that Pn Kauthar said I did very well, but I hardly dared to believe that they really were "very good". Anyway, as it turned out, Pn Kauthar got on the phone and told me my results. She was soo cheerful and happy, and with good reason too :)

11 As (12, if you count GCE O Levels), with a 6C for Chinese. It's really a miracle... I keep thinking that I am an 11 As student now, and it doesn't compute very well. On the outside, I am delighted and couldn't be happier with more; but on the inside, I am still dealing with some reserved disbelief and slight embarrassment. I certainly don't deserve 11 As. History was a complete joke, and though I hoped for Malay, Physics etc, I honestly never expected As for them all. It's unbelievable. God, if this is what Pastor meant by being "blessed to the point of embarrassment", You've certainly fulfilled that. I don't deserve the 11 As! I know I don't, but I guess I wouldn't exchange them for less.

Some people react as though they couldn't have expected anything more or less of me... A little like I've confirmed something that they had figured from early on. Some people, I feel, wonder at what I got and might be (dare I say it) quite incredulous.

But people, people... Listen to me... I don't deserve the 11 As... It was by some benevolent twist of justice, some divine intervention, some providential blessing that I got them... It's such an unbelievable stroke of luck, such a total miracle, that I feel quite guilty. Guilty because good, hardworking darlings like Kah Hoe, Jameson and Bert Chin obviously tried so much harder and studied so much more earnestly but still fell a little behind my 11 undeserved As...

Oh, I am grateful, don't get me wrong... But it's not pure happiness as I'd expected it to be. It's a funny sort of happiness, the kind where you are more relieved and glad than purely elated with triumph. The kind where you are happy, but slightly guilty at the same time for being happy, a little like if you'd cheated your way to success. (By the way - no, I do not, did not cheat.)

Lordy Lordy Lord Lord, bless You Lord. Bless you bless you bless you.