Friendship Festival (Missouri)/Violet Festival (Ohio)
2005-07-27 @ 7:32 p.m.

On our way home, I told Ben that I was going to type out R.D. Laing's Knots, which is a warped little book. I think I'll photocopy it tomorrow, far too tedious to draw the diagrams. The Oxford Professor of Poetry calls it a collection of "remarkable insights into the ways human beings behave to one another". Essentially, the circular logic involved in Knots is so twisted, and yet so recognisable. It's kind of frightening if you're not prepared to accept that it's true. If you want to know how to manipulate people, read this book. You might even begin to understand why I thoroughly enjoy trading witticisms, needling my (mostly) hapless victims. Haha! I have thought of a place to put my nickname in: I'm going to take part in Text In The City as part of the Singapore Writer's Festival. I don't have the discipline to write prose, but 100 words shouldn't be too hard to pen down. Idea from yesterday still refuses to coalesce into something worthwhile, so I was bored again during Mr Kwok's tutorial. I must admit though, he's very assiduous when it comes to his handouts. I think I won't go for NAPFA tomorrow! Next month, next month...

Talk by Ms Pack from Warwick was funny. The stuff that some people write in their personal statements is bizarre. I wonder what I'll put in mine, considering two of my choices are likely to be English and Creative Writing or English and French at Warwick. Still can't decide whether I'd like to study at Cambridge or Warwick better. Maybe I'll ask Mr Purvis tomorrow, when he sees me to talk about why I don't write as intelligently as I speak, to paraphrase him. I told him a white lie after the lecture when he asked why that was so. Told him I hadn't a clue, but I think I do really. Let's apply some of that relentless reasoning from Knots: I'm a perfectionist. Therefore, I'm never good enough for myself. Consequently, I think I'll never be good enough for anybody. Hence, my work reflects this self-circumscribing mentality. It doesn't help that I've discovered a laidback side to myself, the one which comes to the fore during History (and Economics if I'm sleepy). A lot of the above is just bullshit that I'm typing to amuse myself, but there's a grain of truth in it. The first statement is very true, and I've known it since I was in Primary 4. I should be grateful I'm not (quite) obsessive-compulsive.