Hello Holidays

Exams are over!

My mind boggles at the lengthy holidays that stretch in front of me now, and although I know school is a long way ahead in August, I've no doubt that when that time comes, I'll look back at this entry and marvel at the way time went by.

Which is kind of how I'm feeling now. Tonight's the last night I'm spending in this dorm room of mine, that's been my home away from home these past 10 months or so. I rushed a lot of my packing today, so it hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm no longer going to see this particular slice of the night skies anymore.

Heh. I'm looking forward to life back in Singapore though, despite the majority of exchange students all loving exchange life too much. For me the primary draw to going home would be feeling anchored and rooted again, because this past year just seemed too transient for my liking.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Costa Rica for a week with Zhixiang, then when I return my parents will be here, so finally I get to eat well again! I doubt I'll get much internet access next week, so I shall return and post more to make up for lost time soon.

Take care all! Happy holidays! Unless you're like working or something. In which case, er. Happy working!

On Love

It's scary, how romantic love is always justified.

It didn't strike me until some time recently, when I first noticed a common link between all the love stories, love songs, and real-life romances out there. And that was, every romance is somehow completely, unequivocally, unflinchingly justified by the parties involved.

Of course, it's a good thing when people fall in love. But consider that love, as a raw, pure emotion, often relinquishes little control to logic and sense. Could there be situations when love drives one to do what would normally not be right?

Consider the song My Boo performed in the video above. "And though there's another man who's in my life, you will always be my boo."

Consider Romeo & Juliet, which may merely be a work of fiction, but which stands for the oft-propagated message that unadulterated love is worth dying for, worth defying one's parents for. There are perhaps only half a billion other love stories where parental disapproval is similarly shrugged off.

Consider Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher who maintains to this day that she is truly in love with the (then) young boy she abandoned her family for. You can read more about her here, in case you're not familiar with her story.

I think what happens is that people in love suddenly find themselves the living emissaries, the breathing ambassadors of love. Suddenly, against the backdrop of a gloomy world beset by too many painful realities, they are the only shining beacons of what is right, what should be, and they set out to prove that their love can conquer all.

In fortuitous cases, people fall in love without causing too much disruption to the order of the world around them.

Other times, in their quest to see their love come to fruition, people go to extreme lengths. Regardless of the obligations or obstacles facing them, people tell themselves that if they can only love deeply enough, they will overcome everything else, that since love is so rare, they are fully justified to pursue it to its end.

It's a pity then when these obligations or obstacles are ones which when abandoned, do cause very real harm to other people. Marriage vows to the wandering husband are obstacles, and so are friendship ties to she who covets her best friend's boyfriend, and so on.

Funny thing still, eh, how humans are still so very enraptured by watching only the budding love stories? You never read about how Mary Kay's first family are surviving her abandonment and betrayal. You never hear that unnamed boyfriend in "My Boo" sing his side of the story, about how he feels knowing that his love is off singing songs with Usher.

To say that one would always give in to love's demands is selfish, and irresponsible. To say that one would always fulfill obligations before love, is to be robotic, mercenary, cold.

Heh. Not an easy task balancing, at all.

If My Mind Had No Lid II

Reading weeks are not much fun.

It's almost as if you have this big, oversized, humongous, gargantuan behemoth of a Blender, and you chuck in all your days and round round the blades go, until the week rolls by in an indistinguishable blur.

There were times this week when I forgot which day of the week it was, simply because everyday seemed the same. Staying at home and in the library though, I realized that the ice-cream man makes his rounds at 2pm and 6pm, and that forcefully cheerful tune his van emits kinda cheers me up.

The ice-cream man must feel quite different each time he makes his rounds, though. On his 2pm round he's like a celebrated hero meeting his adoring crowds, as the children spill out from their houses and rush to him for sweetened treats. After all, with lunchtime just over, who wouldn't be in the mood for ice-cream?

On his 6pm round though, he must like a recalcitrant homicidal pedophile - on every street that he plies his wares, parents are pulling their screaming young aside, averting their gazes, dragging them away from The Man Who Will Spoil Your Dinner.

I bet he looks forward much more to the 2pm crowd.

Sitting in the same spot for too long seems also to sap the days of colour, such that you wind up absolutely famished for variety of any sort. But you can't really enjoy any guilty distraction either, because you're wracked with guilt for not concentrating on studying.

So it was that yesterday night, I found myself eyeing the bottle of Eye-Mo on my tabletop with my mind completely submerged in contemplation of the question "I wonder... what Eye-Mo tastes like..." I snapped out of it in time, had a good cry, then went back to reading.

Lest you think that I've been studying very hard this semester, please, disabuse yourself of that notion. I'm cramming my entire syllabus in like 2 weeks. For 3 subjects. I think I played too much this semester. And hi mum if you're reading now, this is all just hyperbole.