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its boarding time again tomorrow night. and these twelve days have been simply amazing, chockful of activity and hustle. apologies to those friends i have hardly spent enough time with, im so sorry! as mentioend in Another Blog, there were errands to run, people to meet, family time to be spent, and im really grateful for you guys trying to arrange meetups :)

highlights so far? the 23rd, ministry of sound, narnia, xmas present from mom!, the shopping, catching up with people, and today. peace be with all :)

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well well, so another 23rd has passed. one year older, none the wiser :P couple of lovely pics stolen from chris and cheng; someone, teach me how to make collages.

the christmas shopping crowds descend upon orchard, ’tis the season to be jostling-with-pram-pushing-hair-tossing-shoppers. the five of us (we were missing layne!) retreated to a rather low-key united square thanks to our full-fledged driver, jing, and after a good ol’ bitching session, we decided, in the spirit of giving, to part with a princely sum of 2 dollars each, and do a mini secret santa amongst ourselves. thanks guys, for these memories, and for making singapore the home it is :)

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Just minutes ago, i shared a Que Sera, Sera moment with grandma. It was just past five in the morning, and i finally surrendered to a night of sleeplessness. And there she was, as had been for as long as i can remember, cleaning up the utensils, the kitchen tabletop in preparation for another day. And as i looked at the tired face of the lady who said ‘whatever will be, will be’, my worries seemed lightyears away. i dont know what it is about her that makes my worries seem so mundane; so trivial; and i dont even know what it is that just tells me to do as she says. She knows better, this much i trust. And just after our little chat, i felt blessed beyond measure.

So what if i could not sleep; so what if i was tossing in bed at 2.30, 4.00, and finally gave up trying to slip into slumber at 5.20? What are my fears and preoccupations compared to hers? Everything will be fine, because there still is time, and it is never too late.

Sleepless in a not-too-sunny Singapore. The past week had been the best of the ten weeks i had in York: thank you, thank You for most touching christmas cards. they made me wish i could write my cards again, my humble cards which could hardly convey how much these people meant to me. So yes, thank you for your words, cui and ailin especially :)

And now, I cannot wait to see the person, the people whom ive missed so much. I cant wait to see how much you have, or have not changed. How have you been, no really, how have you been…? It’s just me now, and i cant wait.

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chris i managed to screenshot it :) thanks for the link! for the others, wala i created my very own southpark dude at this webbie: http://spstudio.linda.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html

hes a funky, young, poor and struggling artisan who roams the streets of europe – i would be more specific, but i cant imagine what accent my artisan here should sport.

week 10! two more seminars to get through, but my brain doesnt seem to be registering them anymore.case in point: at the end of today’s tutorial, i said, ’see you next term, oh i mean, two terms later!’, upon which my tutor replied, ‘urm actually, i’ll be seeing you tomorrow afternoon during seminar. remember?’

so its seminar, lecture, term-end social tomorrow; spanish test (fátal, people), supervisory meeting, watching my seminar mates’ play at drama barn on wed; before the final seminar on thurs! :)

ive been so impossibly homesick these past couple of days. and so sorry to people whose emails i havent replied. you would think that the homesickness shld spur me on to furiously typing emails to people back home, but no, somehow this jaded homesickness is making me stare into space, drowning myself in the angelic vocals of a childrens choir, and reading the bible. seeking faith i guess, seeking a stability and peace i’d once derived from God. why does church-going inevitably set me up for spiritual lows?

it was a beautiful carol service last night at the minster. i would confess: my mind wandered as the skit went on; my eyes drifted to the ceilings and painted glass windows; but my heart longed to cede control, and when the band played ‘what kind of throne?’ i started mentally penning a diary entry, because i was so afraid of forgetting what this all meant to me. i felt like kicking myself in the shin, and could picture the burning coals when the speaker asked for all who wanted to invite God to their hearts to stand; and i sat rooted and squirmed.

she wore a brown suede coat two sizes too large, and held the single stalk of rose which he had given her. she leaned against the dusty wall along the sidewalk, closed her eyes and sighed as her lips curled into a smile. and right there, standing on the sidewalk, she knew it was home. he loved her! she walked on, and dropped all the coins in her pocket into the hat of the carolling musicians. because he loved her, yes, her, the painfully-shy girl in the oversized suede coat with socks that did not match!

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I reached home today, to find a card addressed to me beside the door. My first christmas card! It was from a housemate – and right then, i realised that it didnt matter if there were only three sentences in the card, and it wouldnt have mattered if the card was just one of those ‘50 for 99p’ generic cards – it all didnt matter, because it brought a smile to my face for just a second; and made it a rather sweet ending to a somewhat tearful day for me. thanks ailin and cui for listening; appreciate it, really did.

Right there in Waterstones, whilest holding The Beatles hardcover, i hit a low; for no apparent reason, worst possible scenarios flashed in my head: what if i never had the chance to apologise to my dad for being this failure of a daughter, this disappointment? what if i could never tell him that i would never be able to look at any picture of The Beatles without thinking of him, what if i couldnt tell him he had not failed as a father, and that i would take back, in an instant, all those things i’d said to hurt.

Hurt works in equal and opposite ways. The guilt you experience after hurting someone, or even after harbouring the thought of hurting someone is punishment enough sometimes.