1, Focus your mind on the tired arm

2, Simultaneously - inhale & delibrately tense the tired arm as hard as you can for approx 8 sec

2b*note, It’s important to really feel the tension. Done properly (chances are that this will happen only later on), this tension procedure will cause the muscles to start to shake, and there will be some pain. Be careful not to hurt yourself, as compared to feeling mild pain.

3, Simultaneously - exhale & quickly and suddenly let go (let your arm hang limply)

4, Stay relaxed for approx 15 seconds, repeat the tension-relaxation cycle if you need to.



This can be applied to muscle groups in general for a full-body relaxation thingus. However I think the poor muscles that are suffering are the arm ones (try isolating the hand, the forearm and the arm at different times for more fun relaxed bonuses), especially if

1, You can see this - you have probably typed something in on the computer :o
2, You like to draw/hold dramatic poses for extended periods of time/you are forced to stand for too long
3, You have EXAMS.

Also, my current module is on health psychology, the major topic which is STRESS AND HEALTH. Like wow, who would have guessed? --;

Some of us in 4L will remember a certain poem entitled "The Crab". This number of us are also rather unlikely to forget the ensuing class annotation of the poem.

Presenting One Of The Poems presented to Mr. Ken in "Poems Safe and Shallow", a anthological collaboration between Myst, ZT and I - "The Annotation".

(Myst knows I wrote it in fifteen minutes tops as we hastened to turn in more than 5 poems, since it was, after all, an anthology)

The Annotation

Early in the morning we wrench open a poem;
innuendo bursts out from its phrasing

in dubious associations. The hyperboles attract me:
Thy eternal Summer shall not fade; he says, Sonnet 18 -

don't note the run-on line, stop!
It has no relevance to the poem, irrelevant and whimsical,

until the teacher calls an end to the double-entendre, as he calls
us to look at the other details, forgotten, if we stray too far.

Here are the permitted annotations of the poem.
wholesome in their phrasing of the appropriate themes

and we are safe again in words.
All day the classroom will be wrought with bad puns.

I loved Ets' entries of late. Split sides, guts in a knot, and I can feel my face split from ear to ear with laughter.

Several things that MUST be said here, now, by me:
1. All muggers, get out of here. Now.
2. All people who want to score straight As for promos and keep repeating that fact to everyone, get lost. Now.
3. All those who want to be famous and clever and never actually think about how to use it for good, go ----w yourself, please.
4. Will the person who puts down people less intelligent than you without actually trying to help those people please go jump out of the window A.S.A.P, please?
5. Will all over-achievers please get a life now?
6. All those who keep trying to show your almighty intellect to the rest of humanity please buy a needle to deflate your ego?
7. To all those who want to rub my nose in the mud just so that you can feel secure, feel free to do so and then look to steps 1-6 for a suitable course of action please?

Thanks. Now that that's done, let me get on with the point that I'm trying to make:

Everyone's getting so stressed out over Promos, just like they were for mid-years. I don't quite get the reason for running around like chickens with heads cut off, and soulless to boot. Is it the solution to suspend your own morality, humanity and etc-ity to do well for an exam that's just ONE step of your life? If so... you have no life. Haha.

I'm going to die for heresy, I know. Every one of you (excepting ets). Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're right, maybe you should throw in my face the fact that I got 11 points for my Os but HEY. I wouldn't trade it for YOUR LIFE. I wouldn't want to be that demented all-A student that commits suicide. So those of you who like to keep telling me about the promos, about grades, school work, etc... Go talk to someone else please. I'm not interested.

Why am I saying this? Simple. STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PROMOS. Think of something happy. Have some fun. Talk to your parents. Go to church or something. Stop fretting about the exams. Most of you look like dead people walking, by the way. (Just so you know, anyway.) Don't end up with depression. It sucks utterly.

Catch my drift? Because I swear, if you don't go have some fun (go pick up a copy of Guildwars or something), I will RUB your nose into the games shelves at Challenger. -grumbles-

And by the way, if you do badly for your Promos and decide that your life's not worth living? Feel free to jump off a building- but maybe you should wait till there's a strong wind, you know.

what rode ‘round the edge of grief was a siege
of roses stained in courtly greenfly hue
of haollowee glass a-shielding
from dragon-fire sun
znd fierce blue streams that ice up
zs we were led to drink,
brothers in arms and sisters in merry
all bown down before the worm-wood block
that bleeds cheap gold boils at hinge and edge
that beads in qax curlicues and is buried –

witness the fires licking off
perfectly good glucose, calcium, protein,
pancreas, heart, or wrinkled cheeks,
eyes, bones, teeth, ears, tongue
that should have been hours:



what saved us from everything was just insufficient light.




the coffin pushed beyond the screen,
sliding into the oven like a loaf of dough.
we are prevented from following, we were not allowed to see, and
afterwards no one talked about it:

What went in as a hard white oblong
came out in a little pot,
dust pasted with my grandmother’s face.

The more people around me that fall out of love (or at least what they felt was love), that begin to doubt love, or even search for it for its sake, the more I begin to appreciate the mutual calm affection that exists between my mum and dad.

I say mutual calm affection because I am trying to make myself not-think about something I should not have seen in my mum's dresser the other day. No, she does not have a vibrator.

It's all good, I guess... though it's amazing the way they found each other, courted each other (8 years), got married, had children, and still stayed together for 19 years and counting now (from the marriage date - that would be 27, including courtship, and Faye would say 27 is a nice number).

Even the most ordinary things might seem like miracles sometimes.

So Myst, XT, Ryan and I were walking along the basement of Ngee Ann City on the way back to Orchard MRT, and Myst and I, still talking about Guild Wars, noticed a funny shirt that seemed to declare "World Without Rangers". (The Ranger is a class she's just learning how to play, and which I am still learning how to play.)

Of course, it was Giordano, and what the stupid shirt REALLY read was "World Without Strangers". But we HONESTLY couldn't see the "St" part until we rounded the corner.

Well, strangers, rangers, strangely estranged strange ranger strangers, I honestly don't care. Ha. Ha. So not funny.

(dramatic pause)

What we might need, however, is a World Without Angst.

The benefits of amused reading through the lives of individuals who choose to luxuriate in the sadness of their emo selves aside on blogs, it is more than mildly irritating when when someone comes up to you and says something along the lines of "None of my current friend-classmates like the photograph of the boy from secondary school I had a crush on. I want to cut myself so badly because I am sad and embarassed but mostly upset at their bad taste and I don't know why they are my friends. Do you have a penknife?"

This scenario, unluckily, is real. This person, luckily, is unfamiliar with my online pseudonym, which is also, luckily, fairly common.

Now, if I were to angst about angst in a suitably angsty way, I would be propagating it and hence this post would become a moronic oxymoron. Hence I will have to talk about how angst is sad in a manner not as angsty as possible.

These are three common examples of the angsty muses:
1. Failed romantic pursuits
2. Failed academic pursuits
3. Feeling like a failure

These are three common examples of the angsty expressions:
1. Telling people about the want to harm oneself in various fashions mostly involving bleeding
2. Harming oneself in various fashions mostly involving bleeding
3. Blogging about it in a suitably angsty manner

These are three common ways people respond to the angstiness:
A. Get worked up and try to console the person
B. Get worked up and tell more people about it
C. Associate angst with that person and not get worked up about it

These are some possible results of angsting, as paired with the three common responses listed above.

A. Get worked up and try to console the person
The person who is angsty
1. Receives attention
2. Receives concern
3. Receives some consolation that someone out there gives a damn and there is one less thing to angst about

The person who gets worked up about the person who is angsty
1. Gets worked up/stressed/other form of mood not beneficial to the self
2. Gets upset over all this (insert cause of angst here)
3. Loses sleep (happened four nights in a row for a noob to angst counselling, wound up having to be taught how and why not to get worked up)

B. Get worked up and tell more people about it
The person who is angsty
1. Receives attention
2. Receives concern
3. Receives some consolation that someone out there gives a damn and there is one less thing to angst about

The people who get worked up about the person who is angstyRefer to the previous scenario, except that it affects more people in general.

C. Associate angst with that person and not get worked up about itThe person who is angsty
1. Can't really expect anyone to give a damn anyway, being in that position.
2. Does not reap attention/concern benefits since no one gives a damn
3. Hopefully is less likely to angst since no one gives a damn!

The person who does not get worked up about it
1. Has nothing to lose

But wait, some people will object. What if the angsty person decides there's nothing left to live for and all that? What if they hurt themself?

This information in the following italicised paragraphs was taught in a Counselling degree-course:
In most cases, if someone actually tells people that they feel that they want to kill themself, enter mode of emo-ness etc etc in front of other people (this also applies to blogs that are not friends-only/somehow locked) - don't give a damn, please. Chances are they're not going to hurt themselves anytime soon, and they're trying to get your attention/concern/dismay out of their own selfishness. These people usually have something that they want to live for.

However, should a person confide in you one-on-one, take it seriously - especially if you have never known it to have happened and/or if the person who is telling you this is behaving "strangely" (that is, showing a side of themselves you rarely or never have seen).

If, however, this person comes to you repeatedly and makes demands of your time -
("Stay up with me. I want you to. How would you respond if you found out I jumped out of this open window right now because I'm so tired of this loneliness?")

or makes other threats in an attempt to guilt-trip you -
("I'm writing this note because I felt that I wanted you to know that I really feel like dying right here, right now. I'm tired of this world and all its pretence. What is love, anyway? It's just an utopian notion that is expressed to so many children, turning them into walking time-bombs when they realise it's about as real as Santa Claus. I've nothing left. If you don't let me (________________), I really don't think there is anything worth living for. I bought a pen-knife yesterday, and I think it's really nice. Hope that you'll help me.")

Well, chances are that the best option for you is not to give a damn at all. Even if you do, don't get too worked up about it. Refer the case to someone you know has some form of influence over angsty person, and hopefully the angst (if not the source of angst) will subside. Or if you yourself are a person of influence over the angsty person, please knock some sense into the person, and be very firm on not giving any ground for the angst-er to threaten you in any way (this is usually in the form of threatening to harm themselves and hoping to get you to stop it. They might go through with it even if you don't, but nonetheless derive less "kick" out of it and will eventually stop out of meaninglessness).

The last thing you should do is to let this person know they have "control" over you, and can puppet you about to their every whim, threatening to cause bodily harm to themselves if you don't do a thing about it. Usually these people will give the impression that they can and will do so.

Please don't care anyway.

When should you be concerned, then?

Be very concerned when someone you know has many responsibilities and does not seem to show signs of stress at all. These people constitute more than 90% of the people who commit suicide - typically high-achievers who seem A-OK with life, no matter what.

If and when these people hit a breaking point due to some major event in their lives, be there for them, no matter what their mood seems to be. Talk to them, eat with them, carry out friendly activities with them for company.

Motivate, encourage, or simply be there to listen - never let yourself become a puppet that can be moved about at will, but make it obvious that you will always be there as a friend. There might not be a World Without Angst, but make sure that the angst gets pushed into channels of people who can take it, and not where it will wreak breakdowns in the lives of people who cannot.

You might just be someone that someone else lives for, unknowingly or otherwise - in that case, that person is your responsibility. The above still applies - never give in to threats of self-harm, and try to guide that person back by dangling precious things to live for in front of them, that they have and happened to miss out on.

*yawn*

Tired, will play my ranger in Ring of Fire tomorrow. And Xiaotong, if you see this, BOTH Lemming and Bella passed THK (missions back-to-back), and there was one lousy monk who couldn't do without BR supposedly (or she got too pampered by Bella). The good thing was that she insisted on following me everywhere (permanent free heals!) so it was all good. Lemming finished the mission with one ironically UBER monk, the other lagged out just before the siege cinematic. We used the two catas, everyone else camp at king style... I ended up with West both times ;D

Lol. Last three missions... Catching up to your 4-girl-team of Uwen, Daelinn, Eitha and Aeryn!

Then I have to finish Factions once more to really catch up ;_; All in due time, Nightfall isn't even here yet.

And after that both of us can drag Myst about on maxxed-level maxxed-game characters, and thoroughly squish Fort Aspenwood with heavily-twinked builds starting the mission on the same second - at the LAN centre even so we have more uber teamwork. :o

Oh right, you have exams. Good luck ;) We'll do that after it's all over, okay? And I'll catch up in the meanwhile, of course... I have a two-week break from now ;D

(Holiday to Tokyo is put on hold, one bastard from mum's company embezzled funds and now she has extra work and can't take advantage of her generous client's free offer. The sadness. But I'm not really sad. Ah well.)