Why why why?

Why why why?

Here I am, sitting at Macdonalds Restaurant, writing my entry on paper. Its gonna be a long entry full of rantings and negative thoughts of what had happened to me recently. The reason why i wrote this entry in a restaurant is because im bored at home. Hopefully i can meet some of my friends, new and old passing by the busy corridor as i look through the glass panel. Its 2 in the afternoon and it gets pretty crowded during lunchtime.

The last few days had been stressful, negative and terrible to experience. Not only in band but the teachers and friends. Its the holdiay season but i'm still getting all these things. Dont they know what does the word holiday season mean? It means that we get to relax and hangout with friends, away from school as much as possible. Still im going back to school 3 days a week for band. What have i done to deserve this? Why am i getting these treatments? Why am i getting negative feelings? Why am i feeling hopeless? Why am i getting frustrated? Are my principles that i have hold on to for sooo long finally begining to abandon me? Have i change my attitude that drastically? Have I change alot, or is it the environment that im in? Are my choice of friends the right ones? Am i a good leader? So many questions, soo little time, soo little opinions, soo little help.


In band: My-teacher-in-charge will be leaving next month and soon the band will have a new teacher in charge. Again, I have to adapt and make necessary changes to suit the environment. Its barely a year and again i have to make changes and adapt. My present teacher in charge is not very happy with me. For no good reason, she just overreact and shouts at me in front of the whole band. What i think is right for the band is wrong to her. I cant seem to take initiatives on my own without the intervention of the teacher. It seems that i have led my teacher down and also the band down because i have not been a very good leader. Never in my life i oppose a teacher. Throughout my life in school, i always thought that the teachers are saviors who always make the right decisions but now, i just couldnt take it anymore and feel like shouting back at her but im afraid to do it.
She is a stuck up bitch. She even dared ask me whether i was mad at her when she shouted and overreacted at me the day before. argh!!!!!! She is doing injustice to me. Im in a dilemma right now. Being a leader is extremely hard and i dont think i am a natural born leader. Its hard to accept that you are a leader when you have led your teachers and members down many times.

I feel that im not a really good leader and that the teachers and peers have made a wrong choice. Im just too emotional and often take criticism too personally. These negative emotions are really compromising my dignity and principles which i have held up high for the past year. Being happy, proactive towards everything, make many friends, patience, endurance, commitment and working hard as reward is near. These are some of the priciples ive upheld. Now, it dont know whether im principle centered anymore.

This is a story about how a book changed my life:


Exactly one year ago, when i got my end-of-year-results, in Sec 2, my dreams were shattered when i realised that i couldnt get to a better class, triple science, double math. Although i was second in class position, i still couldnt get in because of my math, i failed my math badly. This result in going to another worthless class, with worthless students, worthless subjects, and a worthless future. That was what i thought at first. Some of my friends dont deserve to be in the first class, and some even failed their english but still manage to get in!! Some of my best friends whom i helped them alot in many ways, got in the better class, leaving me with nothing. From that point on, vengeance, hate, jealousy, frustrations, hopelessness and anger sets in. And i indulge into these emotions throughout the holidays. During the holidays, i felt frustrated and hopeless all the time. I rejected good friends' invitation to hangout with them coz they are enjoying it since they are all in the better class, so why should i hangout with them?(vengeance and hatred) I stayed home and did some serious pondering and reflection on myself and quite some reading too. My social life and social interation was a flat zero back then.

Then one day, i went to Kinokuniya and was browsing some self help books on the shelf and came across this book entitled "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens"
I read a few pages and found out that this book will help a teenager change his attitude and become a better teen. It was such an expensive book since it was a bestseller but i bought it and began reading hoping that it could change my life.

2 weeks later, upon finished reading the book, I realized that this book has a lot of life lessons to learn. Its also very updated because the author knows how teenagers are faced with difficult challengers in the modern world nowadays. The book teaches you how to manage time and stress and how to balance your life and renewing your body, soul and mind. They book also thought me the power of writing goals and missiont statements that would reflect you during the year. I began settling down and began writing out a list of the goals that im gonna make the following year when the school reopens, and a list a mission statements that would reflect what are the things that im gonna do in that year to improve my attitude, and improve on a lot of things and accomplishing tons of opportunities are will be thrown to me during that year. It took about 2 hours to really think hard and write a these lists down. This is my mission statement for 2002:

1. Do not judge a book by its cover.
2. Be proactive.
3. Be principle-centered, the best way to get through your life.
4. Set reacheable goals.
5. Never take the simple things in life like friends, family trust and love for granted. You never know when its gonna run out or dissappear forever.
6. Appreciate other people's differences and see their differences as a great advantage.
7. Go for every opportunity.
8. Do something different everyday.
9. be independent. Relying on you friends all the time just sucks! Trust me.
10. Don't be afraid. Just do it. Don't turn back as reward is near.
11. Treat every setback as a road to success and greater opportunity.
12. Use momentous moments to reach your goals and even exceed your expectations.
13. Think win-win, for I am a grape.
14. Be a prioritizer, not a procrastinator, Yes-man or slacker.
15. Plan ahead. Be balance.
16. Seek first to understand then to be understood.
17. Accept challenges and take risk.
18. Take time to renew yourself, your soul, your body and your relationships, with your friends and families.
19. Be a role-model in whatever you are at.
20. Your greatest fears can be your best friend if you know how to handle them well.
21. Don't worry, be at you best.

With these mission statement that I have created and from that point on in my life, it changed my life completely. With that book, it changed my life totally, as if i had been reborn again and about to start my life afresh. Without it, i would not do well in my studies as i have shown it now, due to lack of inspiration from anybody and probably would do many nasty stuff, like breaking school rules and the likes. This book inspired me to reach my goals and do well in whatever im in.

Throughout that year, i perservered and its not easy mind you. Balancing so many things at one goal is no easy task and im amazed that the author who wrote this book understands how teenagers are faced with various problems nowadays as compared to teenagers 20 years ago. I began accepting my fate and began a new journey in friendship making, attitude-improving, principle-centered, academically-successful and many more, rather than to indulge in my past, negative emotions and the mistakes that i have done, since it no use turning back. By the end of the year, i made a lot of friends, stress-free, and basically happy at what i am in at that time. When the end-of-year-results were released, I was amazed! I got 1st in class position!! Never in my life have i acomplished such a daunting task. I must thank my friends who has helped me a lot during the process. Basically, we all help each other to acomplish their task (hopefully we did). All these hard work had been paid off! Statement 4,10,13,9, and 3 really worked well for me. I was so proud of myself and blessed that i made the right choice. During the course of that year, i continually strengthen my principles and spotted many paradigm shifts.