I don't need to tell you that life isn't fair,
It doesn't care,
It arbitrarily cuts off your air,
And like you, I want someone to say it's okay,
But in the truest part of our hearts everybody's afraid,
We're just, under appreciated and overwhelmed,
Fighting so hard to hide our fears that we're scaring ourselves.

-Slip Out the Back, Fort Minor

I have purposely withheld from blogging for the past two weeks or so, not for lack of materials to write about, for there was plenty of that going around, but simply because I was anticipating an event to happen by which I may write a post to coincide with it. Not that I was hoping for that event to happen sooner just so I could blog, but eventually it became inevitable that that event would soon occur. Now that it has, I now write again.

My paternal grandmother passed away yesterday early in the morning. I wasn't aware of anything amiss until I received a phone call on the landline from my parents at 6.15 a.m.,by which I was completely flabbergasted because I was wondering: Who the bloody heck calls the landline at 6 in the morning!? But it was my parents and I got the news. My parents would and already are in Johor to prepare for the funeral. Owing to school, I'm only going down on Sunday.With the funeral and then Prefect Camp later in the week, my holidays have effectively evaporated just like that.

I still remember the last words my grandmother said to me when I visited her amount almost a month back, when she was still just in hospital for a relatively minor thing and it looked like she would check out of the hospital soon enough. She asked:

Ni you yong gong du shu mah?

Which, if you don't understand Chinese or are unable to get the han yu pin yin, means: Are you studying hard?

She used to ask this very often since a long time ago. Of course, I would never say "No" to her face right? Besides, when I was younger, saying "Yes" was alright, because it was true, most of the time. I may not look it, but back in primary school, towards the later years, I quite often made top 10 in the school, or at the very least, top 20. But as the years progressed, saying "yes" to her question became more automatic and increasingly truthless. So when she asked me that question one last time, I might as well have been completely lying when I again replied "yes".

This is because when the exams were facing me again, I also had to face the truth. There was so much left uncovered, so much that I had to learn in the span of mere days or in some cases, like Add Maths, in hours. So while locking myself up in my study and pouring over endless facts, equations and formulae, it occurred to me. Was this studying hard? What exactly am I doing on a day to day basis that makes me keep trying to commit suicide by books every time an exam approaches?

Failure is not being unable to pick yourself up after you've fallen. Failure is hitting the same bloody streetlamp again and again.

Thus, this exam taught me some very important things.

1. There can be no result without work

Obvious enough. There can never be a concrete result when not enough effort has been put into the realisation of it. No matter how much people tell you that they didn't study and that they slacked off for the previous 2 months, it's all a lie. Or at the very least, not all the truth. If you want it, and you want it bad enough, you have to be willing to grind your teeth and work like a buffalo pulling a heavy load, bellowing like mad with someone to whip you to go as well if that psyches you up. Which brings me to the second lesson.

2. Everyone lies

And I mean everyone, me included. It's simply a matter of how much you're lying. Some people lie a lot less. They say that they didn't study at all when last night they managed to at least plop down for 1 hour with the subject. That's called lying a little. And that's forgivable, because there's still more truth than lies in there. The people who lie a lot will tell you that they've been constantly slacking off every single day, that they complete didn't study at all a single bit and that they're absolutely dead, when in fact they're the ones who've been chipping away at the subjects every day after school, sometimes backing that up with notes and exercises that they whip out during exams and make you wonder how they could've found time to do all that after what they told you. Those are the people who are the biggest liars. They are the ones who are always ahead of you and then screw with the roadsigns along the way to confuse you when you catch up. I don't know why these people keep lying as much as they do. Maybe it's because they're trying to be humble. Maybe it's because they're just pathological liars by nature. Or maybe they just want to screw with you. I once talked to someone and lamented  about how the academically excellent people always manage to stay on top when they always said that they didn't put in effort. And then he told me:

Why would they tell you their secrets to success? They know that if they do, you'll be able to beat them if you tried. That's why they don't tell you how they studied.

I don't believe that every single high achiever is purposely trying to trip you up so that you will always fall.

I just think that they won't consciously and willingly reach out to help pull you up to their level.

Therefore, whenever anyone ever tells me that they didn't study, I automatically say in my head: "Liar"

3. "You have to trust someone to be betrayed. I never did"

In relation to lesson number 2, it's better not to trust anyone when it comes to matters like exams. After the gajillion-th time I was left in the dust while those around me who exclaimed the loudest about their imminent doom pulled further away in front, I decided that I can no longer trust these people to share a common sense of anxiety and trepidation. To get ahead, you can only ever rely on yourself. You have to be the one to keep your temptations in check. You are the only one who can instill any semblance or self control over yourself. Other people will always try to keep you down, pull you down or destroy you, on purpose or not. But none of them are going to to prop you up or be your buzzer (the kind in those game shows) when you're wrong, on purpose or not.  The moment you genuinely believe that they will share a common fate of not-so-spectacular results with you, that's the moment you begin digging your own grave.

Alas, many of these lessons, while they first appeared to me many many years ago, I only begin to take seriously now, too little too late for first term exam. First term exam is actually peanuts compared to what we'll be facing later in the year, especially for trials. Now we only have 2 or 3 chapters. Next time it'll be 2 whole books. So if I want to do better and be better, I have to keep these 3 lessons close to my heart all the time.

But for now, I'm sorry grandma.

Wo mei you yong gong du shu.

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I used to have a little bit of a plan,
Used to, have a concept of where I stand,
But that concept slipped right out of my hand, and now,
I don't really even know who I am.

~Believe Me, Fort Minor

I used to love the weekends, no matter what.

Even though sometimes I get inundated with homework, or my weekend gets pulled away by things beyond my control, I would still be very happy, just because.

I don't feel happy just because anymore.

I mean, sure it's cool that there's no school. Any day with no school on is a good day.

But I can't seem to find purpose in the weekends anymore.

I try to catch up on some productive sleep. The kind that doesn't start at 3 a.m. and end at 12 p.m. But I always end up sleeping more or less the same as weekday timing.

I try to finish my homework A.S.A.P, preferably on a Friday. And for the past 3 weeks, I failed.

I try to do anything whatsoever to make me feel like I'm in control of my life, so that I can stop running away from reality like last time. But I still keep running (away).

And sometimes I see how other people are getting along just fine or better and I can't help but feel even more helpless. Why can't I get it right like them?

Some people are going to suggest certain things that I should be doing, and I tell them very clearly now.

That is not a solution. It is not going to help me where I need help the most. It never did, and it never will. It's like pain pills. It takes my mind away for a while before the pain sets back in, worse than before. It's not what I need.

I need to find my new sunshine.

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Today me legs died-ed.

I mean completely died.

I am sitting in a wheelchair as I am writing this. I can use a wheelchair around my house because I have no stairs. Cool right?

Okay fine I'm not in a wheelchair and my legs didn't die. But heck they are sore. Two days straight of running and running and running. With friends, for Rumah Hijau, for PJPK and then with friends again.

I think I'm in for a 'very' pleasant surprise tomorrow morning.

***

On another note, I'd like to bring up something else.

There are few people who I would say I cannot tolerate or who I dislike heartily. There are people who like to point out mistakes simply for the sake of it. There are indecisive people who always still bring up another choice when a decision's been made.

And then there are those who think lowly of what you like.

You may already have met these kinds of people.

Let's say you're listening to your favourite song (let's use All American Rejects 'Gives You Hell') on the radio or loudspeaker or something. Then one of your friends who you know plays the cello or something is around and he/she says loudly

"THIS is what you call music ah?"

In that kind of tone which is obvious to you that they think you are of such lowly status to be listening to such songs and not "proper" music like some Mozart or Beethoven or some bloody composition or another.

And not just in musical terms. For just about anything else at all.

You may know that they're involved in, shall we say, "good" things, like church, or alot of sports or charity or whatever.

I may not be involved in such things. In fact I may have been involved in "bad" things.

(Subject changes to said perpetrator[s])

But you don't have to act as though I were some kinda second class citizen from the Third World with your imperialistic subtle signs of you thinking of your superiority.

Your sigh, your rolling eyes, your small "Oh" when you find out what it is I like or do and that conveys so much more in its tone than if you just told me "You have poor taste of whatever, you piece of Third World filth".

I don't have to be a mind reader when I see those signs okay. So what if I am a gamer? (remember: casual gamer). So what if I don't play instruments or appreciate the fine art of classical music? So what if I can't run as much or am not actively involved in sports?

I don't have to be beaten down by anyone. Not in the least by YOU.

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They are very few things that can really shake me to the core.

I mean I know I can get pretty agitated sometimes concerning certain things but I can admit there isn't much that really affects me emotionally.

Until I received a certain comment.

Look I know you were just joking and there was no hostile intention in that but I think I have to make things clear to you and everyone else.

I am NOT proud to be called a crazy gaming freak.

I may have been at one point in my life, and I would've felt all warm inside receiving that comment.

But now when I saw that I couldn't help but feel disgust, shame, guilt and above all intense personal disappointment.

That is NOT a part of my life I want to be associated with any longer. That is NOT what I want to be known as exclusively.

Some people already know this fact very clearly. When they ask me to game like every single week I used to lap it all up and neglect everything else. Now they know the first thing I would do now is shove my middle finger in their face, and I have a long middle finger.

I don't mind being called crazy in other things.

I don't mind being the crazy tastes-for-stuff guy.

I don't mind being the crazy random guy.

I even don't mind being called the crazy retarded guy (but then this depends on the context you're using it LAH)

But I never ever want to hear myself being called the crazy gamer guy ever again.

Of course, gaming has been such an integral and core part of my life that I can never truly be rid of it.

So I'm happy with just being called a casual gamer.

To that person: I'm sorry for reacting way beyond what you would expect but you have to know this okay.

Crazy EDEs FTW!

=D

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WARNING: The following post is going to be one of my longest whatever-comes-into-my-head crap spewing to be written this year. Considering my already pitifully low blog readership, I suggest you should probably go and Facebook or head over to LOLcats.

You have been warned.

See how the title relates to the previous post?

Alas, the end of 2009. What a year.

From all the blog surfing I've been doing since I got back from Egypt, I can see a lot of people already have very strong views about 2009.

I can't believe alot of people keep saying that 2009 was a not-so-good year.

Okay fine it definitely wasn't the BEST year. But comparing it to previous years, I would say 2009 was a GREAT year.

Alot of people were talking about problems with new friends, especially certain people from a certain wild class in Form 3. You know what I think? I think I couldn't have hit a bigger jackpot in terms of new friends in 4S3.

So maybe I may not know the ENTIRE class yet. I'm getting there okay.

We have the most lala bunch of asses clowns ever around (with a name like S3X Gang to boot), we have our own MIC and UMNO (names courtesy of Mr Chan Foi Onn). We have Itanium Solutions 0.5. And we have Yee Jan. Enough said.

4S3 in Genting with some impostors present.

In terms of school, well, okay maybe that's a less sunny story.

Sad to say that I never thought teachers like Mr Wong existed. I always thought teachers were either great, okay, bad or psychotic. Turns out there was one more category. Bitch-ass useless.

Suffice to say our other teachers only ever hovered between okay and bad, except for that one shining period when Ms Koh Esther replaced  Mr Chan for a while and also Encik Ali for Sejarah.

Ms Koh. Best teacher EVA.

How did I do in results? Well, it seemed like my Irish luck pulled me through again for one more time, but it was very obvious that it was beginning to wane. I'm tired of shedding blood, sweat, tears and blood just to get an OK result. I want to sail, not crawl anymore.

What I would say I could have done alot better was the general activities and stuff that happened throughout the year.  I regret always trying to avoid Rumah Hijau stuff the whole time. I regret quitting Interact (actually I'm still mulling this one over). I am a little pissed that I was never chosen by my seniors to organise stuff. I am ticked that most of my colleagues failed and disappointed me. I am disillusioned with teachers and administrators who want to take matters into their own hands and steer things in the wrong direction.

Although the one greatest most awesome-est thing to have emerged this year was Ed Board =)

Yeah lah. I would say that 2009 was a pretty good year for me, when compared to previous years in which I was a complete zombie.

I would say that the one way 2009 did affect me greatest was that it was Epiphany Year. Like the greatest epiphany (or series of epiphanies) to happen to me. Like imagine Saul on the way to Damascus and it wasn't just A light from heaven but flashing lights coupled with a few flash bangs.

It was this year that I began to see things for what they truly were. People who I thought friends turned out to be, well, not enemies, but disappointments nonetheless. People who I thought haughty turned out to be the most delightful people. Things I thought stupid were actually pretty cool. Things I thought cool turned out pretty stupid.

And after seeing so much, it was then time to accept things for what they were. That particular one was a struggle and a challenge that lasted for the entire year. But now, at the last light of 2009 twilight, I feel a calm and serenity, because I've accepted all the cold hard truths that were in my face all along.

I've accepted that gaming was my Achilles heel. Like pollution, the effects of it were never obvious to me and I like an anti-environmentalist, I denied all the crystal clear evidence. But pollution only ever shows its affects after a prolonged time, and the consequences are usually disastrous. So only now do I realise that gaming was never what I kept thinking, my version of music or dance or whatever important character building developmental activities people were doing. It was my disease. My cancer. And like all cancers in removable organs, it has to go.

I've accepted that everything in the last 15 years has led to the life I lead now, of which I am not proud of. All the chances for growth, development, character building were squandered by my ignorance and as well as what I consider parental negligence to a certain degree.

I've accepted that I've been spoilt, and I didn't take responsibility or take initiative because of that.

I've accepted that my time was wasted, and I vow to waste it no more.

I've accepted the fact that no matter what I do or how much I try to "fit in", I will always only be the Observer, never to truly be a part of anything.

So yeah. 2009 was...big in the sense that I finally took the red pill after 16 years prescription of blue pills (watch the Matrix to get the reference).

Can I haz red pillz?

But at least now my eyes are clear. Now my thoughts are straight and my heart is true. I no longer seek solace in illusions. I eagerly await the truth.

The road will be long and hard. It will be filled with challenges, obstacles, perils and temptations.

But now I am free.

A new dawn awaits.

I tried to be perfect,
It just wasn't worth it,
Nothing could ever be so wrong.
It’s hard to believe me,
It never gets easy,
I guess I knew that all along.
-Pieces-Sum41

Nicholas,
December 31st, 2009

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For about 2 weeks or so, this has been my profile picture on MSN.

For those of you not in the know, this is the Prophet of Regret, one of the main antagonist in the game of Halo 2. He is one of 3 High Prophets, leaders of the alien alliance called the Covenant, that hopes to achieve the Great Journey by activating the Halo rings.

The only reason I used this picture and why this post has any relation at all to him is that I think the Prophet of Regret should rightfully be my new title (following Fuhrer and Kommissar).

There are many regrets in my life, that I've come to realise within the year. Regrets about family, about friends, about school, about life.

However, more often than not, whenever I try to discuss these matters, people just tell me to "forget about it" or "get over it".

What I think they're forgetting to tell me is the process before I get to that point. Acknowledgment.

Because I believe that skipping straight to Forgetting and Getting Over is simply akin to Denial. You don't acknowledge the problem, and you pray to God it doesn't acknowledge you.

We need to acknowledge the past, the remorse, the regrets. Only once that is done can we safely put them behind us and Forget.

I regret not giving it my all

I regret putting off my search for God at one point

I regret not taking chances

I regret being blinded by that which proved to be just an illusion

I regret not being appreciative

I regret not cherishing the moments

I regret not embracing friendships that were there all along

I regret putting off things that mattered most

I regret not finding my own path

I regret the hurt I've caused

I regret the misplaced hatred and prejudice I once had

I regret wanting to move too fast

I regret not taking a stand

I regret hiding

I regret running away

Most of all, I regret not loving

I am Nicholas, Prophet of Regret

And my Great Journey is long overdue.

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As I'm writing this right now, there are only 3 more schooling days before the school year of 2009 is out.

I'm definitely not going to school on Monday, and neither is most of 4S3 because we'll be on our merry way to Genting then. Hopefully no one else will turn up at school so that we can proudly say that 4S3 had 0/44 attendance on Monday.

I already don't feel like going to school tomorrow, but I'm gonna go anyway, because it definitely beats rotting at home doing excessive email checking, blog surfing and Facebooking.I'm gonna go to school to interact with the people I've just recently discovered and/or rediscovered, and I want to make sure that I enjoy every second I get with them because I want to make up for all those years that I was a total douche and never bothered to approach these people.

The Form 5 and 6 graduation was last week. And the whole time throughout the entire day all I could think of was "Dang...that's gonna be me next year."

This thought wasn't so disturbing until I realised "Dang, that's gonna be ME, NEXT YEAR!"

I can still remember so much of the yesteryears I spent in CHS, which is more than I can say for my primary school, Kuen Cheng 1, and now you're telling me that I'm gonna be leaving CHS next year?

Son of a gun, I think I'm actually gonna be sad.

I don't think I'm ready to leave high school. Heck. I didn't even live high school. Standing here at the end of Form 4 and looking back, I realise my high school experience was a sham, a walking nightmare, a sleeping daymare (it's a real word). And after one more year I'll be leaving what's supposed to be one of the happiest time of every teenager's life to go into the high-intensity world of college and university.

Every year I'd usually be eager to get out of school. Now, I want to be IN school, if only just to hang out with the people I've come to uncover and reconnect with. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

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You know there's a scene in the movie the Matrix where Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) holds out two pills in each hand to Neo (Keanu Reeves) and he goes:

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I feel like all my life I've been taking the blue pill. Not just popping one or two, but as in Left 4 Dead-gulp-down-an-entire-bottle taking the blue pill.

I tell you most solemnly that this year was the first time I took a single red pill, and that was enough to shatter the "reality" that I had believed in.

It was like overnight, everything that I had believed, about myself, about other people, about the institutions, about anything, almost all of them were a mirage, an illusion that was tangible simply because I had willed it so. More often than not, it was ignorance that made it so, although there were the times when I unconsciously rejected reality and substituted my own.

How did I discover the red pill? Empirical observation I suppose. For myself personally, that was made easier because this year was the year all my peers reached their peak. This was the monumental year, when talents, skills, potential all reached dizzying heights for almost everyone. The fact that I found myself left behind meant that that was the first red pill I swallowed.

Then there was the matter of other people. Again, this year, chief among all other years, I began to really discover people. And from there I found that all of them were absolutely nothing like the impressions I had made about them. They were better than that. In fact, they were the most wonderful, whacky, hyper-high, fun-loving, thoughtful, though-provoking and sometimes most caring people that I had (previously not) met. My second red pill.

But of course there's the other side of the coin. I also discovered that perhaps I had thought too highly of some people and organisations. I won't mention any names here, but one group of people who had formed such an integral and core part of my high school life turned out to be the very ones who betrayed me and my trust. Though I do not cling to suspicion and loathing of them, I still find it hard to look them with the same eyes again. That was the hardest red pill to take in.

There's a scene from Avatar The Legend of Aang where Uncle Iro says to Zuko:

It's time for you to look inward, and begin asking yourself the big questions. Who are you? And what do you want?

I thought I had known the answer to that question. Turns out I didn't.

PS: To those who wrote a thank-you post for the Star Wars marathon, thank you so much for your words =). Feel free to crash my crib anytime.

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There's a fine line between doing your job and making people's lives easier. And there comes a time when you have to know which one you're supposed to do.

For example, a policeman has to almost always do his job. If he "makes people's lives easier", that is, by not stopping speeding cars, not patrolling neighbourhoods or by taking rasuah, then they are endangering other people's lives.

The people who sell cigarettes must also always do their jobs. They have to always check to see if the buyer is indeed 18 and above, by checking his IC and outright denying to sell if he isn't.

Then there are people who should strive more to make people's lives easier. Take for instance, the prefects.

If we were to "do our job" all the time, we would bust your @$$ every opportunity we got. Nails, socks, cellphones, face problem, you name it. If we actually bothered to look that deep, if we guarded the minutiae with an iron fist,  you would seriously not enjoy your high school experience. But sometimes, we just let things go. Like me. If you ever see how I do my job, you will see that I don't particularly bother to enforce every line of the rules on you. So long as it's not outright disruptive or in complete and obvious violation of the school rules, I'll just let it slip, maybe give you a friendly piece of advice.

So, in essence, everyone should know where they fit in the circle of duty.

But the people of Golden Screen Cinemas have forgotten their place.

GSC once knew it's place and duty to make people's lives easier. That is, if you bought a 18+ ticket online, you wouldn't have to be checked to see if you're 18 and you can just waltz right into the cinema to watch a good movie that the idiot Malaysian Rating Board decided was "too violent", "too steamy" or "too religiously/politically dangerous" for minors to watch.

Now however, they've begun to do their job. Big mistake. Because they made what was supposed to be a joyous day hell.

The first sign of trouble began when the ticket counter lady asked us if we were all 18 and above when we collected the ticket. Uh-oh. I didn't remember them doing that last time. Oh well, maybe that girl was just putting on a good face for her boss or something. Okay then, tickets collected.

Wait, she's taking a stamp and chopping a big, circular 18+ on the tickets. Why are you doing that?

Nah, I'm sure it's nothing. Let's go bowling (for 3 games!) and have lunch at Carl's Jr (yum!).

Movie's about to start! Let's go! Wait, let's smuggle drinks in in a bag. Okay. Now let's go!

So we reach the counter with the ticket-tearing man. The dang LC sonofagun just looked at our chopped-tickets and went:

"Show me your IC. All of you."

"But we didn't bring our IC."

"Then you cannot enter."

Those of us who did bring our IC showed it to him, just to try, fingers crossed.

"93....you're not old enough."

...........

F%@#

Since when the heck did they start enforcing their stupid age policy anyway? And on a more personal level, the guy didn't even seem apologetic about it. Not saying sorry even once, like how a good employee who deals with customers should.

So now what? We have 11 useless tickets. But we still want to watch the movie. What do we do?

Well, buy another not-rated-18+ movie tickets of course!

At the end of the day, we paid twice the amount of money just to see one movie. And that movie wasn't all that nice anyway (so sorry guys).

It's moments like this that tip the balance between doing your job and making people's lives easier. By doing your job when you should have just let us in, you have implanted a bad memory of GSC and its age policy enforcement in me. From now on, I'm not gonna bother trying to buy 18+ tickets anymore. I'm just gonna get a (pirated) DVD. Or better yet, download.

You're asking me to deal in piracy, is that it? Okay then. What choice do I have? You won't let me in to see a legitimately paid-for movie.

It's not me. It's you.

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Today, besides being the birthday of our "dear" Ketua Pengawas **cough cough**, Mr Fan Ray Aun, let us also remember the lost ones of 9/11. The innocent people and the heroes who never gave a thought to themselves as they tried to save them.

A moment of silence in your hearts please...

...

...

...

Okay.

I just learned a very important lesson today.

Dominoes' Pizza Chilli Flakes are ACTUALLY spicy. Like really really spicy.

Unfortunately, it took me 8 packets of it on a 2 X 2 inch piece of pizza for me to realise that.

My mouth felt like someone had poured napalm in it and set it alight.Or as a Bangladeshi guy once described about their indigenous chillies.

"It feels like DYING"

I went through 1 cup, 1 can of Sprite and a Slurpee before it went away, and mind you I was sipping the whole time.

So that, Ms Koh, is why I looked tired in the canteen. Because my mouth had stopped dying.

---

As of today, I still haven't begun immersing my head in the sea of studies.

I guess I'll have to wait for the jolt to come before the message hits home.

Remember Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth? A frog, when dropped in hot water, will immediately leap away. However, the same frog, when placed in water that is slowly heated, will remain there, until.....someone saves it.

And now, I am the frog.

Why do we always have to face a sudden threat before we react? Why has evolution given us this system, which worked okay when we were still not at the top of the food chain, but is really bad in the modern world with its abstract threats and what not.

I could if I would and I probably should.

[:/LOCKDOWN SEQUENCE...INITIATED]

....

If I, let them go I'll be outdone. But if I, try to catch them I'll be outrun.

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