Peaceful, rustic and undisturbed lives

It has been about half a year since I boarded the airplane with utmost relief and ineffable joy to depart from Vientiane, Laos International Airport. Now in the midst of a hard-wrought schedule with "eventful" days and weeks and semesters rolling in like items on an assembly line, I can no longer deny the deepest visceral longing--secret though--for an otherworldly retreat to deliver me out of this meshwork of spinning confusion.

Though my departure from Vientiane was as exhilarating mentally as it is uncomfortable physically, which I will talk more about in future, my arrival was definitely breathtaking. It is hard to depict how it feels like when I was one of those passengers crammed in a budget airline for the first time along with other familiar faces with the sole aim of landing safely, and returning from the harsh, and definitely backbreaking volunteer work unscathed. We had several transitions in between, and I purposely ensured that I was wide awake when any plane took off. The sound of engines roaring, wheels trembling, wings lifting and the sense of defying gravity towards an unfathomable sky were too awe-inspiring to be missed. I particularly treasured the moment when our plane had to wait at the crossroad for the plane scheduled right ahead of us to take off. Watching the huge, streamlined bird gliding gracefully into the cloud and its signal lights blinkering intermittently until finally disappeared into whiteness elicited a rarely experienced feeling about "oblivion", of which we were fully aware that in another moment our carrier would become another dot disappearing into the whiteness, equally internalised by the sky and its embrace.

The transition is Malaysia was brief, yet for the first time in my life I walked into Starbuck along with other, and I ordered nothing since I forgot to change for Ringgit, and the "contingency exchange rate" offered by our suave teacher in-charge was too economically unfavourable. Still, I enjoyed a good time playing board games and smelling the brew of coffee from others' cups. Mosquitoes abound, even in McDonalds, so we remained mainly in air-conditioned areas. When finally we reported at the LCCT Airport, the news about our plane's delay instantaneously knocked us out. We were all so expectant of landing in Laos as soon as possible, to get out of the concrete building and away from all the artifice and luxuries in the duty-free shops.

Our wish was finally granted when a few hours later, peeking down from the small window of our airplane, we could see terraced land, meandering streams, houses with corrugated-roofs and people with shabby clothes draped on their body. Finally we were out of our world.

This new world was instantly to our delight. We were so dutifully acting as tourists when we took shots of everything we saw: English words "Welcome to Vieniane" with their gratifying effect on us non-Laotian speakers, customs officers wearing "army costumes" with stars and rungs on their shoulder pads, dogs crossing the roads, and the motorbikes.

Swim against the Tide

It has been more than one year and I still have the feeling that the phenix is yet to rise from the ashes. Many times I see people around me working harder, striving with fixed directions and bursting with exuberance and wonder when I can be like one of them, confident from within, the master of my soul. I keep my eyes on new hurdles and challenges emerging every so often, but the lethal drive for rebirth is not there. I am not completely my old self, the highly motivated and driven soul who acclaimed to the world at the end of every week:" Tomorrow, I will not be who I am today." I am improving in my tenacity and patience, althoughthe result shows at such an alarmingly slow rate that the old motivated self finds unacceptable. I cannot escape the gloom of comparing with my peers, those who excel, who endeavour till the end, and those who keep reaching for the laurels. Being easily contented with my achievements is my foible. It hurts more when I see with my eyes that the reward for the humble is greater... One year to go before I can get admitted into my dream college, and it is a hard process to pinpoint my strengths, my passion and my uniqueness. I have always wanted to be unique, that is why I avoid the crowd and seek for experiences that distinguish my self from the masses. In Nan Hua, there is no match of me posed by the like of YC, but in Raffles, I have more than a healthy amount of matches who are driven, upbeat, and forward-looking. I seek alternative routes to define myself. Getting into Youth Ambassador Programme, doing backbreaking volunteer work in Laos and Thailand, and tutoring kids in special needs schools, I expect a lot from myself and thus face more setbacks when they do not materialise. The momentum for this year is really peaking up. I can feel the heat burning inside every one of us. Being surrounded by genius is just one adaptation I am yet to accustomed to. Meanwhile, I should start finding mu uniqueness that really distinguishes me as exceptional. For I am extraordinary. And I dare to dream. Still waters run deep. I can prove my mettle. I will. Auspecium Melioris Aevi

Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

Hear my prayer, O Lord;
Give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
Answer me in your righteousness.
Do not enter into judgement with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

For the enemy has pursued me,
crushing my life to the ground, making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
Therefore my spirit faints within me;
My heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old,
I think about all your deeds,
I meditate on the works of your hands.
I stretch out my hand to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O Lord,
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Let me hear your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

Save me, O Lord, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me
on a level path.

For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life.
In your righteouosness bring me out off my enemies,
and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am your servant.

Amen

On the End of my First Year in Bishan

Eleven months ago, I packed up from Boon Keng's McNair Lodge to come to my new nest. Here in Raffles Boarding, we do not get the grow-ups' freedom that we got in NUS High Residence, and nor do we get the Holiday-Inn-feel we got at McNair Lodge, but it is in such a place that I met my important partner in life and spent an extraordinarily fruitful year. It is always with mixed feelings when we are on the tail of another year, but this year, for the most of the time I was in seventh heaven, bustling with my daily work and basking in pleasure with my new friends. Still a spindle, I spins on my own orbit, but the difference in JC is that my trajectory is bound to intersect with many of others'. New marvels, new discoveries, and new learning points, both pleasant and unpleasant, made up the greatest teacher called "experience" and led me to see what real life holds for everyone: opportunities and challenges, triumphs and heartbreaks.

I used to use a metaphor to dissuade the pessimists: life is not a bed of roses, but it is not a litany of dismay either. For a brave heart the brighter side almost always outbalances the gloomy one and the direction we should look is always forward. Counting the highlights of the year, there were quite a lot of new marvels, and speaking of the mode of life, I must admit that independence plays a very important part in everyday's life. Planning your own schedules, following your own pace, choosing your own activities and taking care of your own welfare as well. One loop wrong, and we may have to think of remedies for that. Here our knowledge about both people and life has greatly expanded and our stamina best strained. Daily life can be tiring but being in a friendly class and staying with people you love can outweigh all the downsides of a frenzy life.

My current work for the Public Utilities Board as an intern makes me further cherish my life as a student. It is indeed the golden years of a being and the time when all the excitement and fresh experiences can build our characters. And indeed, it is also the hard time that we learn about rules and authorities, and handle them with care. Working life can be very different and monotonously straining, but the upbeater is to keep to your goal and always visualise the end.

Christmas is coming and again here I have to spend a snowless Christmas. Nevertheless, it will be a brilliant one, I bet!

Merry.

A Cascade of Waterdrops

She turned on the tap and let the water flow.

Is it an undefeatable truth that an abundance of joy always overflows into sorrow? She hates the looming sense of foreboding, like an over-hanging chandellier of doom, so precarious that the gargantuan glitter could crush down over her anytime, like a bomb without a timer.

There was a timer, to her chagrin.

"Ooz, ooz..tick...tok..."

The water continued to flow, leaving a cascade of reflections in the fog-smeared window, and the grandfather clock never stopped ticking by. Dragging her feet across the creaking floor of her bangalow----a shallow one painted in dark yet gaudy crimson, Eliza sank to her bed and fell asleep the moment she touched the bedsheet. An unquenchable feeling of searing hotness swelled over her sockets; her eyes were burning like promethane flame (God forbid) and she clamped them shut like a stubborn oyster.

She touched a furry coil of softness and clutching hard onto it. That was her sole comfort.

Dizziness. More dizziness. The unwelcomed, much-abhorred debilitating feeling was crawling all over her, crippling her mind, numbing her senses.

She fell into a rabbit-hole.

Unable to reconcile with "the unbelievable", Eliza succumbed to the power of hallucinations as they bagan to gush forth her mind like a quill.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Short-circuit again. And she could not cry "Foul luck".

It was bad luck for her indeed.

As if fumbling to fill up a void in her life, she struggled to fend off the emptiness, yet to no avail. Her mind was assailed by a slate of hallucinations of begone days, yet all they did was add the additional touch of sorrow that afflicted greater pain. She's been tripped.

Flashing smiles, gentle kisses and strides with aplomb. Those impressions seemed so faraway since Simon's departure. She could never fathom why he chose the hard way to get enlisted and join the Army, and she would never realise that he did it for more than a personal reason. All that registered in her jumbled mind was that he was gone, like a cascade of waterdrops, and would never come back the same person.

It was beyond the point of no return.

Her instinct guided her to move on, albeit the gushing-forth of all the tender memories they shared on those fulsome summer nights when they just sat snuggly together at the foyer of her yard and licked ice-cream together. The chill of her tongue was soon tranfered to her whole body and the sensation made her shiver with joy. The moon would always be mystiquely full on those nights, and in occasions shrouded by a simmering steam-coat like a beauty wrapped in gossamer. Simon would wait for her to finish her final lick, and help her wipe off the inadvertent smear of cream on her spectacles.

It was on those nights when sky promised to keep all the secrets that they opened the floodgates of heart to each other. Admiration took a long time to blossom but they clicked as if responding to some unspoken spell, daring and binding, drawing them closer and closer. They were spiralled into a wonderful place where only them two existed.

And now he is gone, taking all her merriment, expectations and spices of life away like some ginie finally deciding to shut the bottle, or Pandora finally claiming back her spell after unleashing tremendous rupture in the Earth. Irretrievable. Unfathomable, and even abominable.

Foul luck.

"Ooz...ooz...tick...tok..." The dripping continued, so did the grandfather-clock.

Her ebony hair, now disshevelled and entangled, losed all its lustre before, and her smiling eyes grew more and more puffy, misty and dreamlike. Every Saturday, she would go to the train station to check the incoming trains for the next week, and every time she went back in disappointment that no train would come from her expected destination.

She entered into the pupa state, waiting for the awakening that became her hope of salvage. But before that happens, she is a pupa in a trance.

Vascillations~

It is the first Monday that I felt such Monday blues, and this time it was different. I could not get off the "floating feelings" from me and it all seemed as if some sequence has been omitted. Honestly, the day dawned fine when I collected my ICA form for my student pass renewal form through a successful E-Appointment, but everything later seemed to begin to uncoil and entangle me into a big mass of confusion.

The ISLE Election should be the trigger. After a two-day bonding camp, there still seemed to be a giant chasm spanning across us, numbing our senses, preventing us from getting close to each other. The tense atmosphere indeed took a toll on me. I thought that my weakness was that I was not emotional, but the reality was the reverse. I am, irrevocably, an emotional creature and bogged down too much by my emotions. The fact that such blues could not be easily defused showed that I should learn Occlumency seriously.

Now, sitting in this nice Shaw Foundation Library with my best friend, I feel nothing is so terrible that cannot be overcome!

I've got my spirit back, because of you~

Thanks Bianca!

Cappuccino

A sweet day started with a heavy downpour but ended in a fantastic way. The transformation within twenty-four hours from deploration to bliss was simply amazing. The renewed energy is burning inside me. Now, I feel so charged, so hopeful, and so blessed.

It is my best Easter ever. I have never felt so close to God and to my Angel. It is not simple magic. It is great magic, and I feel like part of an amazing organisation that is turning on a wonderful way. Being simply myself with my very own confidence and bubbly nature is so rewarding! I begin to feel empowered and tremendously loved:)

A simple, maybe exaggerated encouragement can spice up my day. That really made me smile! I shall strive to be a better self for those caring for me, supporting me till the end, and those always being there, like a guardian angel.

Good night, Angel:)

A Very Own "Your" water

Confusion keeps emerging every day, every moment, in any form, and takes any part of your soul. Doubts engulf my feelings whenever a strong, really strong opinion is presented. Strong opinions are overwhelming. Some can be really loathsome. I should have had the sense to fend it off, brush is away like any annoying little flies. Like the wise man has said, the opinion can be kept forever, and you sometimes do not need even bother to prove it wrong~

However, consider it a tragedy when a self-manifesting glory is so debased, insulted and tramped upon. Even an overtly brutal generalisation can have an impact. WE ARE...how can "we" be generalised into an "are"? Everyone, every single one of us in this water is unique! It is such a debasing of all of our's intelligence and hardwork to label us "we"! Some are different from others, and within the some, a smaller "some" are different from others. We do have a common characteristic, and that is the very fact that we embrace life with all of our vigour, are proud of ourselves for the right reasons, and content in our own ways. That common trait makes us "us". Period.

I know the awful phenomenon does occur, and I know that something is in its imperfect state and that there is nothing we can do about it, but I do believe that such imperfection should not be aggrandised, overstated, and abused to an extent that the only blemish blocks everything else.

The pessimistic one should know that our world, through your very eyes, is twisted by your very vision since YOU ARE NOT IN IT. The one kept outside the orchard will always hold prejudice against the fruit INSIDE, and the one who has grown up loathing a certain system will end up cursing that specific system till the end of one's life. I permit such strong opinion to exist, but I neither tolerate nor accept it.

Living a fulfilling life is not about choice, only. It is about preferences! I can choose either, but I PREFER this. If much is not realised as much is given, that is my crime; but if much expected is not achieved as far as you are concerned, do you really think that counts?

Choosing something entails incurring an opportunity cost, but this does not mean that you are doing a losing business. Consider marginal benefit, not absolute loss! If there are so many people fighting their lives for the privelege of having to incur that opportunity cost, you cannot possibly say that it is a formidable cost, or a doom~

Reciprocation is not always desired. Our minds are not always heard, but we do not need them to always be searched, either. Some day, one day, I will share my query with a trustable friend, who belongs to part of the prophecy of the doomsayer, and who is smarter than me in flushing off that pessimistic thought.

We are the marvellous fish species swimming in this dynamic sea. We are lovin' it. Seriously, people are created different. You can keep your own set of values, why can't we?

Moreover, since you have known our choice all along, why don't you want us to prove you wrong, for once? Is it due to proudness? Come-on! My self-fulfilling prophecy works better than yours~