"perceiving life as a perpetual film."

i sit here in a chilly room with a throat full of hurt and august slipping out of my fingers.

been more than a month home and yet, everytime i see an SBS bus, i'm incredulous that i'm home. it's as if nothing ever happened, that i didn't really go away from 29th december of last year till 26th july of this one. and then, now i'm slowly settling in (bad habits acquired this year have yet to disappear though *winks*) and preparing to don jeans and jacket, people are undergoing transitions of their own. joses flew off today to brown university and he's off to new adventures in a land i've explored for the past 7 months, for example. one goes and one has come back.

relationships. they change. and now i'm a part of peoples' lives... trying to adjust to the fact that now that the price of communication has returned to affordable, i'm back into participation and inescapability from apathy and blankness. sometimes i like being back, sometimes i don't know how to handle the influx of information bombarding me daily. i close my eyes and return to that soft, snowpadded place where all that mattered was my hot chocolate and a warm shoulder to lean on.

open eyes and zzzzt. rewind/fastforward to the present

we're back to being really lost in translation. back to being perpetually sore-throated. there's books to immerse myself in, alien characters forming nests within braingrooves. there's two new PRC scholars to mentor in the art of english (though honestly i feel i might have more to learn from them). there's been a week of trust from my parents in wholly relinquishing the car to myself. there was the early morning speed-drive towards the airport, but it wasn't me leaving. there's my laptop which has, sadly, plunged itself into blackscreened oblivion. there's something nagging at the back of my brain which tells me i'm right about the assumption that all things change, even peoples' feelings for one another, that only novelty and constant change, inconsistency and passionate unpredictability are the things that can sustain loverelationships. and that many have no strength to maintain these qualities... therefore leading to the breakdown.

always being pessimistic means you'll never be let down.
always being pessimistic doesn't mean i don't laugh.

there are good things in life though. that sometimes we all too easily overlook because grey clouds are so much more expressive. haha! i'm full of crap. can't believe my lit blog for the body (see link in right column) is one of the top hits in my lecturer's list. this provides motivation for meatier ramblings in the weeks to come. that although my laptop crashed, i have friends who are concerned about it and try to help. :) that everyday, i have a ride to school (though i live so nearby), and lunch partners, even when i don't have school. i don't have school on wednesdays and fridays. (!!!) that i have a comfortable part-time job and more guy friends who are freshies now in NUS are coming to join me.

life rocks, occasionally.
when you want it to, that is.

in any case. angie my beloved roommate sent over beautiful slippers and victorias'secret thongs (oooh yeah!), and people are STILL giving me birthday presents. being 21 really does last a month. i got called being a 'legally blonde' today despite never having gone blonde before. do people really think that way about me? wearing a short skirt really does invite trouble, doesn't it. i hate how you can't wear whatever you want without being subject to public scrutiny and socially-constructed norms about what's appropriate and what's not. *kicks nearest chair*

i think i talk too much. that's why i'm being punished like this. :(