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I got home, flicked on the light switch, and thought i heard everything in the room heave a collective sigh of relief. My head stopped throbbing; the jeans and tights replaced by trackpants. At close to 11pm, I felt at home. While trying to make a hot supper, my housemate laura asked how my day was – an innocuous question which unleashed abit of a tirade from yours truly (see elaboration below). meanwhile, lets turn to other news on hand.

Singsoc elections was a night of shallow-fried wantons, goreng pisang tots, three (no less!) flavours of fried rice, and my new post as secretary of singsoc :) I’m rather excited about it; familiarity with the members, the nature of the job scope, the various people in the new com – ailin, louis, weezi, lin, cui – all kinda make this post sound somewhat enjoyable. Friday I fell ill, and downed my first painkillers since getting here. Day was spent reading up, and the night at Pitcher and Piano, a swanky joint ala Balaclava in singapore, but swankier, because it overlooks the river while Balaclava is kinda uh, in suntec convention centre no? And then fast-forward to this morning, at 4.30am.

I believe the term ‘unearthly’ hasnt been used so appropriately by yours truly in quite a while. 0430 is unearthly. Today was nottingham day. Notts was worth every penny (of the 22 pounds, not the extra 11 pounds which i had to fork out because i didnt have this railcard). It was a gathering of singaporeans from uk unis, and ostensibly, a sporting event. how people can run cross-country in sub-5 degree temperatures stupefies me. i think they all deserve a medal simply for harbouring the intention of running. Or for giving in to whoever sabo-ed them into running, these poor unfortunate, but healthy, souls.

And it was surreal meeting so many singaporeans at one go; it was an invasion of ‘Lah’s and ‘Lor’s. There were RJ and VJ PE shirts; there was nasi lemak; there were friends i hadnt seen since seeing them off at changi! There was amazingly great catching up, some awkward ‘hi’s, some new acquaintances made known. I somehow had the feeling the entire sports hall was acquainted within three degrees of separation.

And to add some excitement to our day, the rail company decides to throw in some adventure. There had already been a tolerable, and rather amusing, detour on our way to Notts because we hadnt managed to disembark the train before it started moving again – ‘why…uh, why cant the door be opened? uh, hey, the ground is moving. hey the TRAIN is moving. HEY THE TRAIN IS MOVING!’

That was the journey there. On the journey back, the rail tracks decided to call it a day. And so, due to some damage in the tracks, our train was immobile for quite some time, and the journey was, in summary, delayed by about an hour. To compensate, of course, there was entertainment provided, in the form of drunken dudes crooning tunes which they evidently dont know the lyrics of. It was rather amusing, well, for the entire duration of two minutes. After that, the ipod assumed its rightful place.

And speaking of rightful place, yea, we did eventually end up at york. Though during the train delay, which facilitated mind-wandering, i was toying with the idea of simply getting hopelessly lost. So that wld mean, heh, staying on the train, getting off maybe at durham, running into the wall on platform whats-tht-and-three-quarters, maybe ending up in the hogwarth school of magic.

…

Anyway. Yes, it has been tiring. Which was why, when I got home, flicked on the light switch, everything in my room seemed to let out a collective sigh.

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the sun sneakily rose; not even bothering to shine a single ray into my room. and now, before i know it, its midday. so now i try to part the curtains, which are the cause of that eclipse, and the rays surge in, flooding this perpetual eclipse with a reminder that it’s midday. everything looks queer – the whites look ghastly white, the carpet looks more dusty than i had thought it was. a little too much light for my liking though; i prefer lampshades. so curtains get drawn to a close again – it makes a pretty good lampshade really.

thanks to cui for the picture above. its taken from the hours, which starred nicole kidman as virginia woolf. woolf, im adopting as my first ‘favourite author’. i cant decide whether or not its alright to tell people i am empathise with woolf – will they see me as pompous, self-righteous for comparing myself to woolf? or will they see me as a psychotic/neurotic bag of nerves who needs some counsel? and since neither option sounds more favourable than the other, perhaps ‘i think she’s brilliant’ should suffice. (she fascinates me! i cant talk about her without throwing in multiple exclamation marks!)

the bulletin now: its week seven now, and jack and jill climbed up the hill. hm, so much for that spiritual high last week, it promptly receded, leaving a debris of guilt. when does the tide rise again? the carcasses on the shore are looking for cover now.
on a cheerier note though, ive snagged a pretty poster, been happy with the essays, enjoyed the company of people i can now call friends. someone once told me that cynicism is always healthy; that i wouldnt regret this dose of cynicism in me. but right now, i just want to be flooded with those rays, and do without the lampshade!

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the thing about winter is it could be 12 am (as it is now), or it could be 3 pm, and you couldnt tell the difference. its just as dark, just as cold. the days run on without arbitrary leaden circles dissolving in the air; night blends into day into night – you rely on what people do and say to make the markings on your calendar instead because the dates arent that good a gauge anymore.

i rely on relative time now, because dates are such hollow markers. this afternoon, for instance, took me right back to square one – telling enqi that the environment had not changed me one bit, that i had not unloaded the baggage, that perhaps, just perhaps, i should indeed retrace the steps because this road leads to a dead end – it just threw me off-balance.

and this evening was session number one for me at james CU. frankly, i still am rather impressed by my resolve to make it there; i’d wanted to give the self no excuse to feel guilt later on. walking there, with hands stuffed into my pockets, all i could think of was: why am i doing this? why am i trekking across campus in the c-c-cold!

it turned out to be less intimidating than i had imagined, although, once again, i was the only asian there. that shouldnt even be an issue, pep. anyway, the session was alright, though i couldnt help feeling, as i always do when in contexts like these, that i couldnt be at ease; that i couldnt ever be perfectly transparent in a setting like this bec ause i simply am not so devoted, not so energetic, not so single-minded.

i admire the way the devoted make things sound so simple. you dont choose, he does. and there i was making a five-year plan, only to be told to Stop Trying and let go. ironically, it is so much more difficult to let go; holding on is comparatively a piece of cake. life is a breeze then – eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, forgive the intolerable, say ’so what’ to every vestiege of nagging self-doubt and shard of envy.

(i am so tempted to ’select all’ on this page and click ‘delete’. but that would fly in the face of the ’so what’ to self-doubt. so here goes!)

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what a plunge! what a blah. its as if my EQ has taken a nosedive. how am i so insensitive, so blunt, so unkind, and so paranoid at the same time!

there are those who put up with all this though:

i am glad i could finally speak my mind, bluntly, while chatting with huimin today at macarthurs. i hadnt planned to go into that – i hardly had a chance to get to know her well enough. but it feels so cathartic to release some steam; and unriddle some of those question marks which i had thought would have been exclamation marks for everyone else.

and then there is cui,louis and ailin, who never fail to crack me up. cui – the choc-chip girl who cuts a great elder-sis figure, whom i think is one of those few people i can sit comfortably in silence with, and and randomly quip something without feeling silly. and louis – the malteser who has the One Bathroom to Rule Them All, certified slacker who somehow always seem to have the answers when you least expect it, and who always seems to make sense. and ailin, who can say the sweetest things one minute, and the wittiest, most ri-dunku-lous things the next; whom you cannot stay mad at for long.

sigh.

on an unrelated note now. alanis morissette sings: it’s like meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife – this is just the sort of thing that would happen to me. it isnt as elegant as juliet’s tragedy, but it is altogether frustrating, disappointing, and so ironically laughable at the same time. so ironically laughable – oh the hilarity is bizarre – my mind feels an utter shame for the foolish foolish heart. this is my fault, its like meeting the guy of my dreams, and i just pack my suitcases, and run as far as possible. a little too ironic.

so stop; slow down here pep; covet less; all you have is all you need you blessed girl :) really. all you have is all that you need.

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verbal diarrhoea ahead.

dont you wish you didnt have to mince your words or hold your tongue or censor those words that just come tumbling straight from your head to lips simply because you dont want to be thought of as random, neurotic, selfish, narcissistic, pedantic, critical, pessimistic, or gee, common? i just want to grab a blanket, pull it over my head and blend into the background; but not before being that carelessly laughing girl who doesnt give a muttering hoot. honestly though, i uh, give the hoot. i do care, maybe not enough because im just looking forward to pulling that blanket one inch nearer. not so much out of selfishness though, nor out of a lack of empathy, but more so because i love feeling that numbness which the blanket gives me.

under this blanket – figurative, figurative – i would lick the sauce off my fingers, throw my coat on the carpet, leave the clothes unfolded, put my feet up on the table, hide dirty laundry in the corner of my bed, stare into space, play cheesy songs of the days of yore, go on a voyeuristic, blog-surfing binge, and flip through the photo albums. there arent any laughs under this blanket – it doesnt know what laugher sounds like – but i love it all the same.

-clutches blanket closer-