walking cinema screen?19.oct.25 
Dear Diary,
It’s 8.58am rn??? I think I slept in my chair the whole night…I think I recorded a song cover yesterday too, Monster by Justin Bieber n Shawn Mendes. Ugh I got out of my chair to move around but my leg muscles are cramped for some reason. I’m eating breakfast rn but I didn’t study yesterday :(
Bro I just realised the special scholarship application (using trial results) for Sunway College is due TOMORROW OH MY GOD I’m actually so stressed I mean. I’ve been procrastinating on it bc I have so many extracurriculars and I don’t know what awards to put that will be relevant to upgrade my scholarship quantum but UGHHHHH. And I need to put all the evidence in like a google drive file and that means I need to gather all my certs from the ethers (who knows where they all went I probably need to ask my mom for some) ugh.
START Log - 11.19 a.m.
Ok it’s 11.19am rn and let me revise my list of things that I wanna do after exams...Ok recently (like just now lol) I suddenly got interested in clay art like adding circuitry/magnet systems to clay art to create bracelets or figurines etc and maybe I can even sell so that’s one thing, and also get back into crochet, finish writing at least one book, get a job preferably part time as a teacher or get an internship related to engineering, start tinkering with arduino and build projects that I design, finish at least 1 MIT course and yeah.
START Log - 1.11 p.m.
Update: 1.11pm rn cuz I decided to take a shower first wow that was one hell of a shower I noticed another pattern too and that it after every part of the routine I will wash my hands with soap even tho the water is running like after I wash my hair, wash hands with soap, then brush my teeth, then wash hands w soap etc…and even if it’s not between routines during the same routine I will wash hands with soap every time I touch the shower head and also I’ll wash my face repeatedly because it just doesn’t feel clean idk.
Also completely unrelated to studying/the application, but I just realised if I wanna do clay art after exams I probably will need an exacto knife n I honestly. Don’t really trust myself to have that lol…
START Log - 8.50 p.m.
I feel so empty. I don’t feel like doing anything and that’s making me feel so guilty. There are fireworks going off nearby outside and they’re scary. Ok I’m ok. I wanna workout though I haven’t done that properly in a while…and also, I haven’t finished the application but I gathered the documents now I just need to scan them and list my prominent achievements. I also passively studied for physics paper 6 and partially actively studied for it. Econs, I wanna at least do my econs anki deck it only has about 70 flashcards which is much less than bio so it's very feasible.
I still feel that emptiness. It’s not because I’m tired, I’m not. I feel guilty for not doing anything I deem productive enough. I just don’t want to do anything and I want to do everything at once. I feel like if I just stop thinking I can start doing the things I want like workout and study, but it all feels so pointless. I sit down and study, will I feel alive again like I usually do? What if I don’t? If I get up and run on my treadmill, will I feel alive again? Or just dull? I feel like I’m not in that hellish state of desperately wanting to do something but not being able to, but rather I want to do everything but I imagine doing it and feeling this empty feeling and then subsequent guilt for the way I do it.
Also I’ve been eating well. 2 meals a day + the usual drink + 1 snack of any kind. Today it was pancakes. But I didn’t eat because I was hungry. I feel like I was eating just to fill a void.
I don’t know what I should do for a workout. Run on my treadmill or boxing machine with rhythmic music or both? Also the privilege of me even having these things in my room is really sinking in suddenly. I don’t really know. Why am I feeling like this? What even is this?
10.04pm. 23.30 minutes. 1.7km. I feel nothing still. But I cried as I was running. But I couldn’t cry fully so there was this painful lump in my throat. I thought, “what am I even crying about?”. I listened to Jade from VTM's cover of Sober by Demi Lovato the whole time. Honestly, in this state, I realised I can run much more without tiring out or feeling pain. Or maybe I am tired and I am feeling pain, but I'm not registering it. Like knowing the sensation is there but not bein bothered by it at all. It's like all my internal signals have shut down.
10.35pm and I’m smiling again now. I literally opened up my camera to look at myself and just started smiling. What am I even smiling about lol.
START Log -
12.02am. There are so many fireworks on outside I want it to stop I want it to stop it’s so loud. I was crying again. Wow. I really chase pain. I opened up the old iPad that I used to use as a kid because I wanted to find that picture my sister took with me when I was 4 and she was 15 because it’s the only picture of just me and her that she willingly took and actually looked happy about it, and I wanted to I don’t know, find something happy, I guess? I ended up going through the photo gallery of that iPad. It’s not much, only about 20+ photos and videos. There were videos of me reciting a speech at 6 years old in Mandarin for my kindergarten graduation. There was a video of me trying to create a song (I remember what I was thinking in the moment, and by moment I mean when I was 6 and in THAT moment, but I’ll get back to that later). There were videos of me at 11 practising singing a song for a competition (I also remember what I was thinking in those moments). And just the photos overall, I remember every moment. There were also photos of me learning taxonomy and ecological systems and astrophysics at 11. And then videos of me crying while singing. It didn’t show me crying, but I remember the moment, and I remember I was crying a it was a song about burnout which is quite ironic.
So I just started crying. I just started crying. In most photos I was in kindergarten and I remember. In the photos I look happy but I was performing happiness, I was exaggerating it for the camera because tats what the adults wanted to see, that’s what would make me stand out, that’s what would separate me from those “shy kids”. That was what I thought as the photos were taken. Then in some I was tired of performing. Under the sun, every kid was expected to pose. I was tired. I frowned on purpose while striking the pose and I cried after that and I remember that day I was told I was too sensitive. But I didn’t want to pose or perform anymore, 6 years old, I just wanted to get out of the sun and sleep.
Everywhere I look now, I realise I’m just a performance. I’ve never been human. Not once. Am I even human? I’m not human. I have humanity in me and that’s a defect because I’m not human and I never was. I’m a performance, I’m entertainment, I’m a tool, I’m discardable, I’m expendable, I’m just a walking cinema screen. Everything I do must create useful output, and even as I try to challenge that notion, I realise I can’t, because no matter what, I will create useful output in some way. My drawings, my art, my music, my soul, do I have a soul? My machines, my work, the science I love, can I even love? Do I love what I say I love or do I love how I can feel a brief window of humanity when others notice my useful output from the things I love?
Then that video where I was trying to create a song at 6, I was performing then too, I was performing for my mom. I had a purple hula hoop and I was creating a melody with incoherent lyrics. I was smiling and going through the hula hoop while singing. “Bringing, brinking like a dinosaur, AH!!!!” While laughing. It seems like a regular kid moment but I remember what I was thinking.
In that moment, I thought, “Mom, can you look at me?” So I created a way for her to notice because I realised no matter how loud or well I sang, she wouldn’t listen. So I fell down onto the smaller mattress and said, “Mom, can you please move the video camera?” I asked two times. She said, “Ugh!!! I’m busy la!” Then I went up to the desk where she was at and I started laughing because she would only respond to the laughing child. The crying one was a problem, that wasn’t good entertainment. Then I asked again and she eventually moved the camera when I said, “Look! You ruined my brinking show!” And she moved it to my direction but I kept saying, “No! No, it’s wrong!” It needed to be right. I was getting frustrated but I needed to smile. Eventually she got it right, she restarted the video.
There was also another video.
The context of that video was I found this children’s book at age 7 and my reading level was well above it but it was a new book and I was curious so I opened it up and told my mom to listen to me read it. Actually, I remember I wanted her to read it to me because I would read in books that parents read bedtime stories to children and I wanted to experience that but she didn’t get the hint so I started reading instead. I read the story. Performance again. She was recording me. I thought, “I don’t want her to record me, I don’t want her to just store this as a memory as it’s happening, I just want her to listen to me, not document me just because she finds this cute.”
And I wanted to believe in her. I wanted to believe she was listening while recording, so after the story was read and I realised there were questions at the back, I started to ask her questions about the story. I was cheeky at first. “Who stole Jerry’s pot of porridge?” (Or something like that, I’ll need to rewatch to know the exact question) and my mom just kept repeating “duck” for every question as an answer and at first I was like, “Nooo (in a silly/teasing way).” Or “And what?” While smiling and eventually when she just kept repeating “duck” I got really hurt and it channeled out as anger and I wanted to show her that I was genuinely frustrated so I stopped smiling but she saw it as just another cute mood.
I stopped asking her the questions and I saw another story and I really wanted her to read it to me so I said, “Who will read the next story?” While smiling and I looked at her. She didn’t respond, she was still recording. I gave up. I said, “The end.” And smiled and closed the book.
It’s 1.12am. I’m still crying. I just wanna sleep but I just can’t stop crying.
Why was it always, “She’s so good at reading!” And never, “I know what you read.”? Why was it always, “You’re my favourite poet!” But never, “I understand what you write.”? Why was it always, “You’re so good at singing!” But never, “I understand what you convey.”?
Mayb I’m just spiralling now. I’m gonna wipe my tears and try to sleep.