AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH

There is a point of complete and utter frustration where you just want  to tell the world "leave me, the fuck, alone." I need one day- one fucking day, without work, without parents. As unlikely as it seems, I have done some sort of work for every fucking day since the holiday started. And I hate it. I needed a break after the whole school, assignments and exam thing, but my parents disagree. I have work due first week back, which pretty much means I need to get it done during the holidays. This is why I despise over-the-holiday assignments. It'd be fine if I had an actual holiday- meaning that I had the actual time to do it. But no, I fucking don't, because when I'm not sleeping or too tired to work my parents seize that opportunity to bother me.

Now with his best intentions, Dad barges into my room every night, trying to make me prepare for my med entrance exams. I don't know how many times I've told him to knock, but common courtesy is lost in all parent-child relationships, it seems. So I'm sure it's okay when I yell at him to “KNOCK BEFORE YOU ENTER AND WHEN YOU LEAVE CLOSE THE GODDAMN DOOR.” Now, the door thing aside- he realises that I find my exam preparations a boring process- so he has most delightfully offered to do them with me. While I flip through the practise questions, trying to figure out the solution to an answer, he would shout, "IT'S C IT'S C, THE ANSWER IS C." Then I'd ask him why, and he would say, "because this option is the one that has the least in common compared to all the other answers." I do not think it is possible to accurately describe the utter agony I felt at that particular moment.

I try to explain that just because one option is different to all the others, it does not mean that it is the correct answer. "IT'S A THEN, CHOOSE A." Once again, I ask for an explanation. "WELL IF IT'S NOT C IT HAS TO BE A," he said. Exasperated, I tell him that intuition is not necessarily the most reliable thing in a multiple-choice exam, and that I never said C was not the correct answer. Now Dad has a bit of temper himself, so he asks me to choose an answer- and being the honest person I am, I admit that I don't know.

"BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER, YOU JUST HAVE TO GUESS AND GO WITH IT." he says condescendingly--- now, whilst that could be an option, you could also work the bloody thing out. So I tell him that. "BUT LOOK AT THE TIME, YOU DON'T HAVE LONG ENOUGH TO DO IT YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO GUESS."

Oh for fuck's sake- the reason I practise prior to the exam is so that I can figure out the answer when I'm not under pressure or time constraint. Then I can get better and work on my speed. I don't know why such a simple thing is incomprehensible to Dad. By then I've lost all patience- and I'd award myself a medal if I could, for holding my temper for that long.  My score is a pathetic 8/15- roughly 50% correct. Ouch. Dad, not missing a single opportunity to make me feel like crap, starts to tell me how I'm going to fail my exams, fail to get into med school and fail life overall.

Then we have an extensive argument about why I don't really give a shit about med school anyway (I guess I'm sort of lying here, trying to cover up for my own failure)- and I told myself that even if I did make it I'd be a psychiatrist and not a heart surgeon like he wanted. However I don't want to tread on that front again. He'd just tell me how psychiatrists are all insane.

I'm already insane from these stupid arguments anyway.

At one point I challenged him to the same set of questions I did for exam preparations- if he can get more than 8/15, I'll curb my ill-temper and pay him some respect. That was his one chance at making me less irritated- my tolerance meter increases to near-infinity when someone who is legitimately smarter than me tries to lecture me on something. Too bad he fucked it up and got 4/15. Exactly half of my score. I now feel justified in hating the world every time he tries to "help" me with these questions.

...So last night, we went to a friend's house for dinner. She asked me what I wanted to be. It was tempting to reply with "I don't know," since it is easier to tell the truth. Instead I told her I wanted to be a lawyer, because that appears to be the only other respectable occupation in the Asian community, apart from being a doctor. I want to be a lawyer as much as I want to be a doctor as much as I want to be almost everything else. Is it such a crime to have no real decision? The family friend then talked to Dad about how she expected me to be a doctor like Dad, and how it's like a genetic thing to follow in your father's footsteps etc. I'm a little skeptical about the genetic linkage relating to career choice there. I would have thought that was more of a cultural thing.

Perhaps next time someone asked me what I wanted to be, I'll come up with something creative. I still remember my list of childhood dreams: I had wanted to be an artist, a scientist and an archaeologist. Those dreams are pretty much dead- artists don't make enough, I now find science boring--- and though I am still fascinated by archaeology, I don't think I can stand to be away from civilisation for long.

I'd once said that my biggest dream was to be the owner of a massive brothel. Though not very respectable in society's eyes... it sounds far more attractive than any of the options I currently have.