~ the road is life ~

24 hours

I broke my own personal record yesterday/today -- I stayed up/awake for 24-hours round the clock! I never thought the day would come. But well... here it is man. I thought it was quite an impressive feat.

Was in a semi wake-sleep state since 8am the day before (Sunday), officially got out of bed nearing 9. Then went to school kind of studying till 5-6 am + the next day (which is today). Caught the bus home at abt 7, reached home, cooked some food for breakfast, then hit the sheets at 8+ nearing 9.

Woke up again at 1.30pm +. Not because I actually wanted to wake up so 'early'... but cos well... couldn't sleep man.

Anyway... feel quite happy.. not so much cos of the studying.. but cos this just reminds me of the glory days of RJ, staying over in school to finish my Art project and study.... we had the run of the school then. This time I was in the Brunch Bowl with Nishit and Farhan. It isn't half as nice as school with the nice wooden benches (which have been replaced by yucky plastic ones) which could be moved around to 'construct' a a custom-made living space. And the stupid bences at BB aren't only fixed, but metallic as well, which makes it really cold.

Hmmm... I have quite a sad life to be so chuffed abt stuff like that! ;p TOo bad.

...says i on Monday, May 26, 2003 at 05:00 p.m.

I should be doing Finance instead

Hmmm... just read Xinmin's blog.

I can't really believe I won't be staying with Ludham girls next year. Carol, Mai, Xinmin... it never really struck me that we'll be living apart somehow. Throughout the entire accommodation fuss... I just made my own plans... and didn't think that much I guess. The reality of what-might-be next year didn't really sink in. I'm like... okay... so now I'm staying with *two* couples next year... something everyone predict will be a horror for me. - Will it? I mean... I was just like: Okay, I'll be staying with 2 couples next year. Next.

By the way... XINTY-MINTY LOH! I do not "just simply like() bouncing around"! I object to that!!!!

I don't know.. maybe it will be shit next year for me. Maybe not. I reckon I gave the least consideration to accommodation among the entire lot. I was perfectly happy to stay on... with the 4 of us. I like the whole girl-y thing you know. The dress-up sessions, the bull-shit sessions, our moaning abt jian3-fei2ing (losing weight)... our occasional guilt-induced or crazy-enthusiasm-induced craze for jogging... for ONCE in our entire Ludham history, the 4 of us went jogging yesterday. - Why didn't all this happen earlier? Why didn't we do more house-things together? Why, only at the end? Let's ignore the answers staring blatantly at me. Those were rhetorical questions anyway. It started off so wonderfully and perfectly. Ludham was the 'House of Love', so-christened by.. ahem.. Zitong. And we were so happy and cheerful and hopeful.

You learn different things every year I guess. Although I started off somewhat detached from everything.. sometimes it was just so emotionally-draining for me. So I guess when the whole let's-stay-on-together thing fell apart, I just couldn't be arsed to consider any other thing, or to care about anything. Yes, I'm a chicken. Rather than staying the whole way and fighting, and giving a damn, I'd rather choose to run away. The pattern of my entire life. So what? Shoot me!

Sometimes I think I should stop being so ambivalent, so on-the-fence. And I should moderate everything. Not swing between caring so much it hurts, and not giving a flying fuck abt anything. I should learn to stand rooted to the spot and fight for things that matter.

It's quite strange how I gave the least consideration to housing and had essentially one criteria: that it be cheap, and yet I settled everything first. I pretty much don't even really care where or how I stay. As long as there's an affordable roof over my head, I don't really care where that roof is, what it's made of. I don't think I'll die anyway, even if I have don't have a roof for a while. Christians believe that God will take care of his creatures. He feeds the birds and the flowers, so don't worry about tomorrow. I'm not at all a Christian type.. and my understanding of that idea is probably quite approximate. But if I understand it correctly.. it makes sense you know. And in the long run, we're all dead anyway. So what do all these matter?

It was wonderful in many ways, this year. I've met and made new friends. I've received new influences and hopefully have influenced others in return. I've gotten to understand new, different perspectives. And it wasn't as bad as I had expected staying out to be. The pitfalls I was worried about proved to be no cause for concern, while other stuff came up. And I guess the most important thing is that I felt that we all cared in our own way. Maybe to different extents, at different times, expressed in different ways... but we all made at least some effort, had a go at it. And maybe that's all that matters anyway.

Anyway... something unrelated to the above caused me to think recently. It's not that I want to be pessimistic and say life is sad you know. It's not like I want to feel that there is nothing good left in life, nothing left to live for. I mean... life is good in many many many ways. Depends on your definition of good, and what you take as your base-line or benchmark.

I just think that life is just too full of crappy things that are not actually necessary. Life should be so simple. But people make it complicated. If only people would be more simple, more caring, more open-minded, more generous, more selfless, realise that the ultimate thing that matters is not just this little life of ours that we've all been given to live... but about something else, something bigger and greater than that. I mean... if nobody sweated stuff like image, ideas of what is right and wrong, judgements, bigotry, narrowmindedness... then life would be so much better... fo themselves, for people around them... and everyone would be happy. And if everyone could have less desires.. you know... be more like: go with the flow...

I'm not saying that I'm like that. I'm all so good and enlightened and above worldly desires and crap. I'm not. But that's how I *should* be... by my own definition and no one else's. I mean... love should be simple. Life should be simple. I'm thinking, if only I didn't want so much to travel, to go out into the big world and see what's out there beyond Singapore... if only I could be contented with love alone, and not have other desires within me to do something else, live a different life... who knows that I won't still be happy, loved, and in love right now? If only I didn't feel a need to prove myself... to be somewhat successful (by other peoples' definition) career-wise... I might then be able to do what I want instead. If only people didn't care about small things which don't matter, people could get together. Life should just be about living simply, being happy, making everyone happy... and everyone can be one big happy family. I mean... so many people... probably every single person on the street is in pain, or has been hurt before. We're all walking wounded here. Why? Cos we've been hurt, because of stupid shit that don't matter. And when that happens, we care a little less, become a little colder, withdraw a little more into ourselves... and we hurt others in return, and the circle is neverending. There's this Chinese phrase which says "every family has a hard book to read" (maybe not 'book'... but something else)... that's true of everyone. I'm sure most people have their own story to tell. Each one of us is an individual... and if only we treat the person as ourselves and be kinder, life would be better. Fewer people will hurt.

That's how I think sometimes. At other times, I think we were all born into the world to learn a lesson, a different one for each of us. And that's why we have to be hurt and go through trials and tribulations, cos that's our entire raison d'etre. And at least life is interesting and ever-varying. One undergoes the entire spectrum of emotions, explore the breadth and depth of human experience. Is that not a worthy goal to pursue in itself?

I'm still in two minds abt the issue of life. I somehow believe in both simualtaneously. I want to live deeply, yet want people in general to be happy. But who knows that maybe they themselves crave emotional gymnastics... after all... what does not kill you only makes you stronger. And strength is always good is it not? At other times I'm just tired and think this entire circus and big hoo-hah is just quite pointless. Maybe it's not even to live deeply... after all... if you've been very happy, and very sad, been in love, been out of love, been idealistic, then cycical, lost God and found him again, have desired things greatly, won some, lost some... well... shouldn't that be all there is to explore? The rest of life should be merely a repetition of the above in different contexts and at different ages. But well... that's going to be kind of boring won't it? I mean... because the *basic* emotions or types of experiences have already been experienced.

This probably shows I'm very young and stupid. Cos only arrogant youth will ever think itself a experienced travel-weary traveller. Well... so what? I'm young. I'm *supposed* to be arrogant. I'm not even legally allowed to drink in the States yet. Shoot me!

...says i on Thursday, May 22, 2003 at 02:15 p.m.

I'm with you

I really like Avril Lavigne's most recently released single (or there might be a newer one. ah well): "I'm with you". Although I like most of her songs anyway. Quite teenage. Rather angsty and deals with teen issues. But I like them anyway. Firstly I like her spirit and spunk. And I like the music anyway. Finally, I like the content... esp of 'Falling Down' and 'Anything but Ordinary'.

Here's the chorus of "I'm with you":

Isn't anyone tryin to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Wont you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
But I... I'm with you
I'm with you

...says i on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 at 01:55 p.m.

Sunday morning

It's Sunday morning, I'm outside the library before the opening hour. A cafe which coincides with the library opening hours is being built. While a small plaza (John Watkins plaza) near the cafe-in-construction, and outside the library door has been completed. At night, the there are diagonal rows of blue light along the plaza, and the glass cubes that decorate part of the walkway is lighted by purple-pink lights.

This Sunday morning, as I walk towards the plaza, with earphones plugged into my ears, I see students sitting on the concrete wall-benches in the plaza. I sit on a low red brick wall slightly behind the concrete benches so I am a bit apart from everyone and I can observe the scene before me as an outsider. Some are sipping coffee, some are laughing and chatting with a friend, some look sleepy as if not fully woken up. Most of us are quietly resting, enjoying a moment of peace, before the library doors open and we surge towards our studies, and the struggle of another student day begins.

Outside the library doors, there are a sea of transparent garbage bags filled with rubbish. I spy a bug GAP paper bag. There are some food wrappers and containers. Too many for a library that disallows food. There seems to be too much garbage for a place of study. From the amount and type of garbage.. it seems like people live here. I cam almost imagine people having a life here... their ups and downs. Which could be true, since some, like me sometimes, stay here from morning till night. I think garbage is interesting. I reckon you can tell a lot about a person's life from his garbage, or you can guess at the story of a place from its garbage.

This is what I'm thinking as a couple of cleaners walk out of the library door, and a security officer in uniform gray blazer and trousers walks up with a slight swagger. Almost as if on cue, the drilling of the cafe-construction starts up. The security man goes to the library building. A girl on a black bicycle with a wide, shallow basket in front, containing her bag, cruises in. She turns smoothly into the plaza, and she swings her leg across the bar, onto the ground and starts walking in one fluid motion as the bike gracefully slow down and stops almost exactly at the bicycle racks. Some of the students have gotten up, gathered their books and bags, and are heading towards the opened doors of the library. I am still captivated by the charm of the early morning hour... the space of time between sleep and the beginning of activity... and choreography of the moment when the library stirs to life and activity begins. On the radio, Madonna is singing 'American Life'.

I absorb this moment a while more, then head towards the library. I turn my head for one last look at the girl with the bicycle: she is locking it up. I walk in and head towards the turnstiles where a small crowd is waiting to get in. Once past the turnstiles, we start dispersing, heading to the different parts of the library that are still in semi-darkness: some walk down the spiral stairs to the computers on the lower ground floor, others to the study areas on the upper floors. On the lower ground floor, some people wait at the lift area, some enter the course collection section, some, like me, head the the study and computer areas. The library slowly brightens as the sensors sense movement and switch on the lights in the different parts of the library.

I sit down at the computer. Madonna finishes singing 'American Life'. And now my day, too, has to begin.

...says i on Sunday, May 18, 2003 at 10:00 a.m.

Econometrics

Between heteroskedascity and auto-correlation, I think I shall go mad. Have been stuck on this dastardly POE for far too long. In between bouts of depression arising from a host of reasons. I really must move on. I am going to achieve my aim. I'm a First Class girl. - I spend so much time being worried and torn by self-doubt... and trying to affirm myself, convincing myself that one day I shall prevail (in this case academically) that I might as well just have worked hard and consistently from the start, rather than doing last minute confidence-boosting stop-gap measures.

Moving on. - I'm stuck between whether I've moved on or not. To what extent is it true that I have moved on? Some times I forget all of my life before the here and now, which is the reality of my looming exams. I don't even really keep in contact with old friends. And it just amazes me how some people do. Which is a very very good thing of course. Sometimes I feel like I've never left at all. At others, the past looks completely alien to me, and I get a really disconcerting sense of deja-vu when I look at it... as if it is something familiar I might have encountered in my past life, but not something in my current lifetime.

- I think I'm just avoiding my books though! ;p

Back to Time Series... which is peculiarly appropriate for my short digression on time. If I am making *any* kind of sense at all. Nvm.

...says i on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 at 04:20 p.m.

summer sun

it was glorious weather today! another one of those unbelievably blue, cloudless skies days... the kind you never ever seem to get in the perennially sunny tropical lands.

several things to note about the weather here in London:
1) the weather makes a huge difference in how one feels.
2) the *sun* especially makes all the difference in the world. every time the sun comes out, i feel so happy and cheerful and feel like nothing possibly can go wrong in the world. and the the world is such a beautiful place, all human beings such kind and wonderful creatures, life is shining and hopeful, and there is nothing that can matter more than this here and now and the glorious sun!
3) there are two reasons why sunshine makes such a difference here. one is that it is so rarely sunny. after long, dreary winters with short days, strong winds and grey skies, spring comes as a welcome respite from the season-past's bleakness. but even in spring, while one revels in the longer daylight hours, it is not often sunny. so when the sun deigns to grace us with his presence, one is understandably delighted. another reason is that... the sun here is unlike the sun in malaysia and singapore at least. true, it rarely appears. but when it *does*... not for it the ambivalent, obligatory attendance, nor the quick, fleeting 'show-face' before it hides away again (although these do happen on occasions, more notably in winter, when we're all too grateful for even occasional glimpses of it) of the tropics... but instead it bursts out enthusiastically in all its joyous, all-embracing warmth.

today was one such beautifully lazy, sun-shiney day. endless azure skies with just the slightest cooling air, which prevented the heat from being oppressive. i absolutely couldn't *bear* to lock myself away in the library to toil away for my exam, though God knows i really need all the studying i can manage. it was gorgeous the weather, absolutely gorgeous! it's like summer is here. it wasn't a spring day today... more like a summer one. i decked out in a spaghetti strap top and my denim shorts (bought from the US last summer) and went out with my three housemates.

it was a historic moment. the four of us girls have never gone out together, just the four of us, before. and for once, none of us had interrupting phone calls or appointments to dash off to. we just had a lazy, langourous ramble in Hampstead Heath (and boy was it a ramble, since we rambled ourselves directionless), without a care for time or work or anything beyond revelling in *the moment*. it was the philosophy of living in the moment at its serene and tranquil best.

we wandered into previously unexplored parts of the heath, and it was just amazing. i never knew the heath could be so varied and beautiful. there was this place where a massive tree had fallen. it's mammoth roots were lying in this valley-like gully, facing us. and i was reminded of my peak district trip last year, when we saw scenery right out of an ancient chinese martial-arts epic, except on a much less poetic scale. i love the heath now. there was one part which reminded me of the Von Trapps crossing the Alps in 'The Sound of Music'. And another part when we had to lower our heads to cross under a low overhanging branch in a tiny grove-like space between trees... it was like a secret magical mysterious grove, all the more surprising because the shady 'glade' was in the middle of a sunny slope.

may i have many more days like this one. days of spontaneity. of knowing how to take time out to enjoy. of being able to walk under the sun, and appreciate it. being able to breathe and revel in the act of breathing. of walking barefoot over dried leaves and twigs and stony ground. feeling the cool mud under my bare feet. being to let it all go, live in the moment. and to be thankful that i am alive today.

p/s i had a dream about steff last night. at least i'm not 'zhong se qing you'. i am traumatised by the break-up of a friendship as i am by that of a relationship. i dreamt i was walking along, down a set of steps... i saw steff. she was coming up. and i was like: 'steff... i didn't know your school ended and you're in london! why didn't you call? or tell me? it's good to see you again!' she looked quite awkward, and i felt a bit awkward as well.. cos of what had passed. and i thought she would just pretend not to know me. but she was like: 'yeah... well... anyway... good to see you to. i'll contact you later okay? i've gotta go somewhere now.' then she reached over and we hugged. and i was just really really happy that we hugged. that hopefully if she does contact me... she might have just been saying after all... then it would all be alright. and we could still be friends.

steph... if you ever read this... i care for you and i miss you. i think of you. and i wish we'd still be friends.

...says i on Sunday, May 4, 2003 at 08:20 p.m.