Sitting at my desk, reading my ever-interesting AC320 notes, I soon developed a dull ache in my head. My eyes kept fluttering. And I was distinctly nodding off.
I plough on heroically. Surf a little. Read one paragraph. Surf a little more. Read another paragraph. It seems wrong to sleep before 12 midnight.
00:23
I decide to call it an early night. And hop off to bed, comfortably woozy with sleep.
And then to my (unpleasant) surprise, the fog slowly dissipates from my woolly brain. Like nocturnal lovers that have secret rendezvous under the cover of night, my worries began sneaking out from under the duvet. Chatter chatter chatter went my worries. My thoughts leaped and danced. Did somersaults, and cartwheels. And soon, my brain, half-comatose just a few heartbeats ago, became a veritable hive of activity - Singapore Swing during the Millennium; Times Square on New Year's eve; New Orleans on Mardi Gras.
Once more, sleep is hijacked.
I wake up, and am now attempting to study myself to sleep. Currency hedging. Great.
I will be going to Snowdonia, a mountain in Wales, in a couple of days' time. No, I'm not doing some heroic form of mountain-climbing or ice-climbing. It's just a short hike thing.
I should pack some stuff over the weekend. But before that, I decided to do a dry run of setting up the tent.
I remember in my first year, we went on a trip to Surrey, and had assumed that we'd know how to set up tent. As a result, we had spent hours in the freezing cold, with cold-numbed hands, trying to figure out how to build the tent in the narrow circle of our torchlights, only to end up crawling under the desperately improvised half-propped up tent, to sleep with the tent ceiling on our faces.
That time, the tent poles went through the flysheet, not through the inner tent, which is what I'm used to. And instead of the familiar two crossing tent poles framework of a dome tent, we had used a weird cylindrical tent that I had never come across before.
This time, therefore, I am determined not to be caught unawares, and decided to set up the monster of a tent in my living room. The tent is huge. Almost as large as my living room. It must be a 4-man tent at least. But it was assigned to just me and one other girl. And presumably I'll be carrying the tent. It seems such a waste of effort for me to carry a 4-man tent for just two tiny girls.
Happily for me, this was a dome tent. And as I unpacked the tent poles, and slipped them through their sleeves (is that what they are called?), in an old familiar rhythm, I found myself smiling. It's a funny statement to make but, I miss tents.
Yes I'm still very juvenile. I still think of April 1 of every year as April Fool's, although it has been years - a decade, plus or minus a year - since April Fool's has any kind of real meaning.
But for the kid that I was (am), and those who still remember it, Happy April FOol!
Below: Me being juvenile. A sudden whim, upon realising i haven't played an April Fool's joke in a decade:
I remember hearing of it as a child, wanting to watch it. Later on, I read the book version. And as I watched the film, giving an undoubtedly annoying running commentary to my housemates who were watching with me, it came back to me, how I had cried and cried while reading the book. How much pain there were in those pages that squeezed my heart. And I remembered thinking I never wanted to watch the film, never wanted to go through the pain again, no matter how acclaimed the film was.
Fortunately for me, I had forgotten that fact when I had suddenly decided to download the film a couple of days ago.
Perhaps what makes it so painful, is that there are no good guys or bad guys. Just people who happened to be at that place, at that time. A victim of circumstance and the times. I can't remember who was it who said... that we do not get to choose our time. We just get to choose what to do with the time that is given to us. That idea is came across very strongly to me in the film.
During the film, I started out being on Dieyi's side, and condemned Juxian. But as the film progressed, I came to admire her, and feel for her. After all, given the circumstances, she could not have acted differently. She too, was there to save her man, her love, and her own life. And the backdrop of historical China, that spanned perhaps the most chaotic years in recent Chinese history, really suddenly made me realise the profoundness and rapidness of the changes that China has undergone.
Some films are meant to be watched, to be felt, not to be written about. The complexity of the characters, emotions, ideas are such that no review can ever do it justice, and no amount of analysis can convey.
I was walking. Walking back from Safeway, as it were.
The sky was achingly blue. A paler blue on one horizon, then a broad expanse of warm blue that drew me in, that seemed to envelope me in its liquid embrace, which graduated into sunshine white-blue on the other horizon.
It was a beautiful day.
I hate to be cliched... but the fact of the matter is, there is no other phrase that conveys the the simplicity and joy in such a day as this humblest of phrase: "It was a beautiful day".
So, it was a beautiful day. With an achingly blue sky. A pale half-moon hanging high above the sky. I had to arch my neck all the way back to see it, the fragile half-moon in the light of day, not yet in her full rounded glory, that poets sing of, not yet in her element, the night, where she holds sway. The buildings were warm from the sun's rays. The air was slightly chilly, but refreshingly so. For once, not uncomfortable. It felt like Spring, finally.
As I walked along, I felt happy. Lighthearted. Like I was falling upwards to float in the warm blue skies. This day, I remembered why I breathe, why I live, why I love. I did not care about tomorrow, not about yesterday, just deeply breathed in the Now, right down to the end of my fingertips.
As I was luxuriating in the simple joy of the moment, I suddenly thought of a conversation I had had with my housemate that morning. I had woken up past noon, and then talked to my housemate Y. I was telling her, that I had to eat my words. I once said I could be, and would be 潇洒. But now, I had to eat my words.
And I wondered why is it so hard to live in the now. To breathe and enjoy each passing moment. As long as it is good for today, as long as today I laugh in the sun, I smile, I have moments that are beautiful and ephemeral like the dancing stars that light makes on rippling water, as long as there are blue skies today. Why is it so difficult to immerse myself in each golden moment and live, just in the moment, fleeting though it may be. Like a butterfly that flitters by, rests on your hand briefly, then flutters off.
Beauty and happiness are transient. That is what makes them so precious.
I want to, need to, learn to just appreciate each moment of happiness that comes my way, like a resting butterfly, and not crush it in my fist, by seeking to hold and capture it .
As I walked along, I also thought about something I else I had learnt over summer. During my internship, I had heard an analyst talk about "blue sky estimate" with respect to a stock. I asked G, the sales guy I was with, "What does 'blue sky estimate' mean?"
And he told me this: that "blue sky estimate" meant the estimate of the stock price/performance, given blue-sky conditions, that everything went well. It was the best-case, most optimistic scenario. The implication being that it was unrealistic, and the phrase I think, is generally used when arguing that a stock is not a particularly good buy. After all, one almost only ever says: "In the best case scenario, this will happen", only to follow it up by an argument of how the best-case will probably not happen, and what contingency plans have to be taken.
And so, thinking of this, I felt a bit saddened. That the blue skies will not last forever. But it merely means, that it is imperative then, to be happy today. To be lighthearted and carefree for the moment. To sing and laugh under the bright blue skies, while the sun still shines.
"After all," to quote Scarlett O'Hara, my favorite heroine: "tomorrow is another day."
This morning, I woke up at 9am, and it seemed like I would not be able to go back to sleep. I cursed my internal circadian clock, burrowed my face back into the pillow, and willed myself to sleep. I refuse to get out of bed before 12 noon.
Since the term holidays started, time and structure have lost all meaning, as the days and night blend into one long seamless space. The weekday/end distinction has broken down. And I could, if I so wish, stay in my room 24/7, without seeing another human soul, without stepping outside, or breathing fresh air. I think that was what caused me to suddenly forget why I live on
Sunday, the 21st of March. With the breakdown of structure, and confined within my own space, I suddenly felt keenly, what I am normally oblivious to – that very often, I am going through the motions of living life, instead of actually living it.
I think human beings (okay... maybe just me), all need some kind of structure, some kind of pattern, within which they function. Maybe that's why we like to categorize people, fit them into neat boxes. There's something reassuring about being able to look at someone, stick a label on them, and put them in a box. It makes the universe so much more organised and orderly. It gives me a feeling of comfort and secruity, this illusion that everything in my universe is known – quantifiable, measured, described. It is an illusion of control, an illusion that I am Mistress of my own Destiny.
Is that not why all (some) of us pigeon-hole and stereotype people? At the very least, we like to categorise people according to observable characteristics. We fit them into patterns that we have previously observed, infer their characteristics, and interact with them accordingly.
Pattern recognition is an important part of learning and cognitive development. Apparently the disciplines of pattern recognition and artificial intelligence are closely linked. And all science is after all, an attempt to impose structure on the unknown chaos of the world. Theories that seem to fit the state of the world are proposed, and then overturned when an anomaly that doesn't fit into pattern is discovered. And science seeks to reveal the order within the physical realm, premised on the assumption that there is a natural order.
Humans are naturally order-seeking. We are driven by the desire to draw patterns.
On one-hand, pattern recognition is a sign of intelligence. On the other hand, the fact that humans require the ability to recognise patterns, perhaps indicate the frailty of our minds – that it is not able to grasp (the word i am looking for is the chinese word rong2 na4) infinite chaos. Our limitation is that we require frameworks within which to work.
The door upstairs swings open. Footsteps pound down the stairs in quick succession. The toilet door creaks open. Thuds close.
A noisy gurgling as the toilet is flushed. Running tap water.
The toilet door opens, the sharp tug of the light switch. Receding footsteps.
Intermitten clicks as I click-surf the net. The occasional turn of the page. The soft gravelly sound of my Staedtler HB pencil scraping across paper.
... ...
Heavy thudding footfalls on the stairs. Pads across the landing, past my door. Down the next flight of stairs.
The sound of the kitchen light being flipped on. Running tap water. Light turned off. The increasing then decreasing sound of footsteps.
... ...
The house phone bleats loudly. Is picked up. Strains of the conversation and laughter is undoubtedly heard through different parts of the house, permeating through the wooden walls and ceilings.
... ...
Footsteps are heard in room above mine. Movement.
Last night, or more specifically, in the wee hours of this morning, I sat at my laptop, looking at the two rounded blue MSN icons on my MSN panel. It was almost 4am, and two of my other housemates were still awake, as was I. The occasional sounds of life reassuringly stirred the otherwise quiet, dark pre-dawn mid-night, as we morphed into nocturnal creatures, and day and night are almost inverted in this pre-exam household.
