Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Back from a Sabbatical

I got lazy to blog. Or perhaps I just ran out of things to say. Or maybe my life was too boring that I had nothing to blog about. Anyway the deteriorating of my command for the English language demands the survival of my blog. I am simply disgusted with my inability to come up with any decent sentences anymore, and I thought my English was not very good last time. In retrospect, it was quite satisfactory. Will I perhaps find in retrospect in the future, that my English used in this post is quite satisfactory too?

Reading through my previous blog posts, I felt that I was quite poetic, a few years ago. I forgot too, how much I love word play. These days, I never have the flow of English language I used to have. I wonder where it has disappeared too. Did it disappear together with my past when I abandoned my life in Malaysia and decided to start anew in Singapore? If so, I shall sincerely apologise for discarding what I used to have. Can you please please please come back, my love for the language?

Another reason could be because I was experiencing an emotional roller coster then. People often say that poets are very emotional, and they write best when they're upset, or drunk. That is true to me too. I used to write best when I was upset. Of course, I did not deliberately upset myself just to write better. Now, life is peaceful. So maybe the spark lighted for the one last time before the roller coaster retired, never to rekindle.

The other reason I can think of is my perfectionism. It has been bugging me a lot lately. I noticed ever since I came to Singapore, or at least, ever since I scored ok for my exams, I have been waiting for the perfect idea to come every time I write an essay. I will wait for the perfect idea, I will wait for the perfect sentence, I will wait for the perfect word to jump into my mind, which of course never happens. So ends up, I waste half the time waiting, and only have half the time remaining to cram whatever second rated stuff I have rushing to be put onto paper in my brain. I know it is not a good thing to do. Yet I have no idea how to rectify this problem. Until the problem is resolved, I think no improvement for my writing will occur.

Finally, it almost slipped out of my mind how hardworking I was in the past. I used to role play nearly every single day, and try my best to write a poem every single month. Of course, I did write a journal - albeit the traditional paper version, until I decided to blog it - frequently too. All these stopped last year, which coincided with the year I came to Singapore. I am convinced it is not a coincidence now, though I haven't figured out what in Singapore has deterred me from practicing writing regularly, which contributed to my English going downhill.

Of all the reasons above, I think the main ones are my perfectionism and lack of practice. I shall start blogging more often, so that it can help curb my problem of perfectionism, and give me some practice in writing, on top of those given by my teacher at school.