luxury Monday, Mar 31 2008

“… the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
Act II, Scene ii – Macbeth

I can say with absolute certainty that my jetlag is over, after two very long weeks. I wasn’t sleeping very well my first week back, and waking up at 4 am my second week back was still the norm — but this week, I am cured! And being able to catch up on lost sleep is definitely a good feeling, especially when I feel the most rested I’ve been in ages. My December holidays were spent mostly with Brendan and Arlie — late nights out visiting (or attempting to, anyway) London’s nightlife hotspots and random trips to Sidney Webb, loads of daytime sightseeing — that I was more exhausted (but in a happy way) than I was during termtime. But Brunei — Brunei is luxury. Getting driven around, airconditioning, TV, having food prepared for you, no laundry woes whatsoever… Oh, and a king sized bed too, even though I probably sleep on one-third of it, which is a smaller area than my bed back at Bankside! As of tomorrow, I have 24 days left in Brunei. I recall thinking that six weeks was a long time before I arrived back in the country, but time definitely has a knack of speeding up when you least expect it to.

Today, I got to catch up with my fellow Law scholars- okay, we were all friends before we each decided to read Law at university, but considering the initial purpose of this afternoon was to have an “official study session”… Well, that didn’t go according to plan anyway! Hung Ming and I were first at Excapade, with Angeline joining us a bit later because she had errands to run. After a very cheap (I still can’t get over the fact that good food isn’t pricey in this corner of the world!) lunch where we pigged out sushi, sashimi and each had our own rice dishes, we headed to The Mall for a round of K-box-ing and a $4 afternoon movie, where Hung Ming showed an affinity for rom-coms and 27 Dresses! Though The Devil Wears Prada was better, Katherine Heigl made the movie work. I love movie crowds which participate during the course of the show, booing and hissing where necessary and all that — and that doesn’t happen very often in London cinemas — so it was refreshing to hear someone yell “OW!” when x slapped y during 27 Dresses, and we er, giggled at her. I’ve already seen what I consider to be the best flick of the current season, The Other Boleyn Girl, so I have nothing to look forward now, unfortunately. Gary and I are meant to be catching up sometime this week, if he ever does call, pfft. But the holiday is officially over and I need to get cracking on proper Tort revision… or face the consequences. ):

While I was in Bandar last week, I decided to drop by Standard Chartered to have a quick catch-up session with some of my old colleagues… which turned into a visit of nearly two hours! The bank has changed somewhat — new rec room with ASTRO, a microwave and toaster which I definitely would have appreciated, and my old Corporate Affairs gang has left entirely in the space of six months — but there were many old faces and I was really happy to see them! It does feel like an eternity since I gave up working life for university, but walking in still felt right — and hey, I did spend the best part of six months with them, working full weekends sometimes, so I guess I can’t be blamed for that.

I’ve been utilising Skype more often these holidays. Don’t underestimate the power of a good Skype session. (: If there’s one thing that I’ve appreciated about this Easter break so far, it’s really having the chance to concentrate on the people that termtime renders it impossible to really have good, long conversations with. And when we go back, it’ll be time to concentrate on exams, so I’m getting my fill now.

Play Scramble with me on Facebook, by the way!

You know you love me! xoxo.

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little moments Saturday, Mar 29 2008

This video by Brad Paisley gets me every time I watch it.

“She knocked me down two flights of stairs. When I got out of intensive care, we got married. That was fifty-three years ago…

… and I still fall for her everyday.”

Little Moments – Brad Paisley

Enjoy! It’s one of my Top 5 Brad Paisley songs of all time. (Thanks, KCS!)

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unwritten Saturday, Mar 29 2008

It occurred to me just yesterday, when I was attempting to update this journal, that I had nine unfinished drafts autosaved on my account, dating back to December last year. I’m often whimsical when it comes to writing — I pull up WordPress on a browser window when I have the urge to speak my mind or translate my feelings into words, but more often than not, I can’t seem to bring my thoughts to completion.

Going through unpublished posts is akin to journeying back through time. That one trip down memory lane in which you come across forgotten feelings — some good, others bad, a few you want to erase from memory completely, many you thought you could share with the world at that point in time, but just didn’t know how to. It can be likened to opening a treasure chest and not knowing what lies within…

Here are some noteworthy excerpts:

- From a post entitled “joy”:

“Hello?
Hey! Have the idiots from your school sold you a ticket for Tuesday night yet?
Yeah, I got mine the other day. Why? Do you need one?
Nope, just helping my friend sell tickets.
They’re REALLY nice aren’t they?
Yeah, incredibly classy, yeah!
I hope they don’t do anything to them on the night itself — punch a hole in them, mark them…
OH MY GOSH YES — or snap them in half!
AAAAAH, as they would a credit card!
Oh, THAT would be terrible!

That little exchange, although regarding a rather superficial matter, ended the day on a good note for me. I like unexpected phone calls, unexpected text messages, cards, surprises… — no matter how small, it’s the thought that ultimately counts, and serves to put me in the best of moods, a tiny, temporarily-inpenetrable bubble of sunshine…”

Note: Do you believe in coincidences? Just when I was feeling out of sorts, I receive a phone call from someone I don’t hear from very often, but whose voice and mannerisms and most of all, sense of (dry) humour and occasional cynicism, cannot help but put a smile on my face. And okay, that conversation lasted two minutes, tops (at 11.32 pm, I still remember!), but it was exactly what the doctor had ordered!

- From a post entitled “invasion, over”:

“Apart from m

The past week has been a rollercoaster of emotions of immense proportions, but everything has fallen back into place now. I love”

Note: I think this post was written sometime in really early February, which explains a lot of things about this unfinished entry. My thoughts were all over the place and I was very, very confused. I couldn’t carry on with what I’d written, I didn’t know what to say… so I didn’t.

And “…everything has fallen back into place now” couldn’t be less true on the day in question.

- From a post entitled “belaian jiwa”:

“I’ve been listening to a lot of really jiwang songs lately. Belaian Jiwa, Rindu Bayangan,”

Note: Listening to jiwang songs at a time when I didn’t need to be jiwang at all! Tash, you are officially a walking contradiction.

- From a post entitled “amie”:

“It has taken me two long weeks to realise that the worst feeling in the world is dread. Dread which consumes you for a split second at the most inconvenient times, the most random times. Dread which keeps you up for just that tiny bit longer when you’re attempting to fall asleep at night. Unadulterated. Painful. Brutal. And you don’t understand.”

Note: I don’t actually know what this post was written in response to, and I can’t even guess as to its context because post ID numbers tell me that this draft was saved sometime in November. Weird. I guess it’s one of those memories that is destined for the metaphorical locked chest of drawers within my mind, but someday I’d really love to know why I’d started this short paragraph…

- From a post entitled “ditch”:

“There are only a handful of people at Bankside I can say I completely trust at this point in time, and [Chyna, Malvika and Serena] are three of them. It has only been a little over a month since we moved into halls, but despite each of our little quirks, differing personalities and backgrounds, we get along really well and have really opened up to one another, including having been really frank with each other on many an occasion. It’s nice to know that three other people have your back, and/or will tell you that you’d be absolutely idiotic to do something before it happens. No bitching, no backstabbing (as far as I can tell).”

“Another little thing which makes me happy: spending time with old friends, and having conversations which flow, eating, taking random gambols around London, just clearing my mind of university and work temporarily. Because, at the end of the day, I do think friends and family are more important than the highest degree classification out there. Not that you should take it to mean that I’ll be slacking off; no, I do acknowledge that a balance needs to be struck between work and “play” — but I will have that two-hour conversation with my best friend in York if I want to on the weekends without feeling guilty about it, because I’d hate to lose her; I will, at the drop of a hat, meet up with a friend for lunch provided I don’t have a shitload of work to do; I will take a break to watch The Hills in between chapters I read in my textbooks because I might crash and burn otherwise.”

Note: I remember this night distinctly, like it happened just yesterday, and what I’d written about being able to depend on friends was in direct response to what had happened and how I felt at that point in time. And human nature meant that my response to the situation was … well, not fantastic, not commendable. There were many reasons why this post remained unpublished, and even now I feel like it should remain buried in cyberspace where it lay before being resurrected. Mmm. So many things have happened since that day in question, enough to render this memory negligible, in fact. Reading through this post just stunned me though, because I’m 20 years now and was at the time… and I would’ve thought that something of this gravity (or lack thereof, rather!) would not have affected to me to this extent.

When I’d initially thought that I’d left this journal to gather cyber-dust since late last year, I now have a backlog of posts to prove me wrong. However, why let the focus be on the past, instead of where it should rightfully lie — on the present? On the exams I have to sit for in two months’ time; on building on the friendships I’ve nurtured since the beginning of Michaelmas term at LSE; on making the most of my six weeks back in Brunei? And while that may be true, it cannot be denied that there exist certain things which are difficult, sometimes impossible, to forget at the very least.

I’ve been listening to a lot of country music lately. Country musicians are the ultimate balladeers in my eyes — there is no one topic or a situation that a song from this genre has not covered; you are bound to find a song which perfectly encapsulates, almost exactly if not to the tee, your current state of mind. I grew up with Dolly Parton’s voice soaring every Sunday morning about being there for her lover “until [his] last teardrop falls”, and Anne Murray (amusingly) telling her partner that “[he] needed [her]“ – before the Dixie Chicks, Brad Paisley and The Wreckers took up from where these country greats had left off. The one conclusion I’ve come to is that life is really what you make of it — it can be the longest road which takes you on the most winding, confusing route to your final destination, splits up into multiple pathways of which you can choose only one… but at the end of the day, we have ultimate control over how we go about this journey, don’t we?

So why am I not entirely convinced by my own rationale?

I have a feeling I’m rambling on about nothing in particular, so I’m going to call this a post … and a night! Good night!

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monday Monday, Mar 24 2008

I feel a tad like Izzie from Grey’s Anatomy after baking up a storm in the kitchen yesterday: a too-rich butter cake, blueberry and banana muffins, and butterscotch cookies as an afterthought, only stopping when I realise I’d gone through half a bag of self-raising flour in the process. It feels good to be back in front of an oven again, when the only things that consume your life are how the way you fold is going to affect the consistency of your baked items, and how long they have to be in the oven for to come out just perfect. We have far too much at home to consume, even after distributing what was baked among people! And we still have random tidbits left over from Chinese New Year to polish off too.

I was insanely jetlagged last week, to the point where waking up at the crack of dawn was commonplace, and my dad no longer found it strange that his once bum of a daughter was trotting off to use the internet at odd hours of the morning. However, the jetlag is gone! I woke up at 10.30 this morning feeling quite refreshed and restful, and I’ve begun to dream once again. Granted, they haven’t been the most wonderful of dreams — not of candycanes and unicorns and fairytale weddings, in any case — but they are at least a mark that my body clock is finally set to Brunei time once again.

Brunei has been good so far — what with marathon Gossip Girl-watching sessions, and a Grey’s Anatomy one about to follow, and seeing family, friends and relatives once again. And then there’s always my brother, who can be depended upon for a spur-of-the-moment laughing session! We’ve been playing the guitar together lately (haha, I refuse to call it ‘jam’ when it’s evident I have much to learn about the art of impromptu guitar-playing!) and I’ve since mastered the easy rhythm guitar to the songs Chasing Cars, and Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. Okay, I have years to go before I can possess even half of John Mayer’s talent, but one thing at a time, I suppose!

You know, as a literature student, one learns to ponder and to analyse, to read between the lines where necessary, and to make an educated judgment after taking all factors into consideration. Sometimes, it becomes hard to disassociate this skill, now so inherent in one’s nature after sitting through so many examinations, so many unseen-passage oral commentaries and written assessments, from real life situations. There are metaphors and conceits to be found in everything — but the question is, how many of these are figments of our imagination, and how many are actually construed?

I yearn for simpler days sometimes.

You know you love me. xoxo.

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so this is my new freedom Tuesday, Mar 18 2008

Twelve and two hours after boarding my first flight out of Heathrow, I’m finally back in Brunei! Ali and I had breakfast at Heathrow together when I arrived — correction: I watched Ali eat — which subsequently made him a tad late for his flight back to the Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures. Oops. But karma bit back when my plane was severely delayed out of London, what with the abysmal weather conditions causing 14 planes to be in queue for takeoff. Had I realised that I had to make an incredibly tight connection at Changi, I would’ve been worried, but the fact that I’d only had 2 hours of sleep the night before meant that I passed out before we even took off! ‘Twas a good flight though; I sat next to someone who only clambered over me to use the bathroom once, and the food was fantastic, and I managed to get a good 8 hours’ sleep. (: I had to rush to make my connection at Changi, dashing from T3 to T2 in record time, but all in all I had a good journey back home and it felt SO good to step off the plane and be immersed in Bruneian culture after 6 long months, and to see my family again!

I haven’t done much since I got back, which isn’t all that surprising seeing as I took a record-breaking four-hour nap as soon as I got back. KCS and I have been marathon-playing Scrabulous on Facebook, and it’s nice being fed and watered and pampered and talking about random things with my brother, knowing I can watch E! with just one click of the remote control… I guess the one thing I miss about London is my bed back in Bankside! My duvet here isn’t as fluffy as the one back in London, and my mattress here seems to be harder, somehow…

Has much changed? Not really. There’s a new $xxxx guitar lying around the house, but my room is exactly the same way I left it in September.

September. September 2007.  I was looking through old WordPress entries, and chanced upon this paragraph in my first post in London:

“While waiting in line for our medical checkup at Heathrow, I engaged in a pretty good conversation with a Singaporean girl who is off to Cambridge to study Medicine (and who subsequently made me feel inadequate, ha ha!), and ran into a Singaporean guy who’s reading Economics at LSE. I have never felt so chatty at 7.00 am before.”

Fast forward to the present, and it’s odd to consider how different things have been since then. I didn’t think I’d run into this guy (incidentally, Kenny!) again, but now we have an inside joke about the number of Fridays in a row he’d see me and Jiang Yue along Kingsway at 6.00 pm after we’d return from an afternoon of shopping. Similarly, it’s also crazy to realise how many things have happened since I arrived in the UK six months ago. I realise I’ve tended away from my WordPress during these months that so many of these incidents have been left undocumented, but they live on in photos, and in my memory still.

Syaz and Hung Ming are back today, with Amal and Jei coming back in a week’s time. Hung Ming has promised me Coffee Bean Law-cramming study sessions, and Syaz has promised me dim sum! Mmm. It’s funny how at every Bruneian gathering, all we seem to talk about is what we’re going to eat when we get back home, and how I’ve promised certain people that I’d eat at various places for them. So far on my list: Ideal, Jing Chew, Capers, Excapade (for my abeh!) and I’m also craving for the dim sum at Phong Mun.

Okay, I’m off to be a couch potato!

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murphy’s law Wednesday, Mar 5 2008

In the past few days, more crap has happened in my life than at any one point in time ever. Boiler maintenance has severely disrupted the hot water supply here at Bankside, but in addition to that, the light in my shared bathroom has decided to blow on me, which meant that I had to drag my shower things to the other end of the hall to take a shower in another friend’s room tonight. Not pleased, especially when I realise I may have to take a shower in the dark tomorrow morning.

And also, I’ve lost my suitcase key and crapola has ensued with regards to my internet banking account, which means a futile search for the former and a meeting at the bank for the latter.

Ooh, and last night, I awoke at 3.45 am, glanced at the stuffed Eeyore Brendan gave me before he left London this year, and in my sleep-deprived state, thought it was a severed head. ): And then 15 minutes later, an idiot-who-will-remain-unnamed (although a select few of us know his identity…) set off the fire alarm on the sixth floor of the hall. It was freezing cold outside, possibly close to zero degrees out, and it didn’t occur to me not to wear thongs (i.e. flip flops, guys!) during the fire alarm. I did grab a coat though, and thank goodness I had trackies on… but it was still freezing, and being outside in the cold disrupted my sleeping pattern horrifically. ): I had about 4 hours of incredibly broken sleep last night, and a 10 am to 6 pm day today, and I don’t know why I’m still up at this unearthly hour. Hmmm.

I can’t wait for the weekend, for Brunei Night at Imperial. It’s going to be a high school reunion yet again, as all Bruneian events in London go, and it’ll be a night of great fun — I hear the dance(s) are amazing, and that the play is really good. And of course, the food; if the title of the play is anything to set expectations by, there should be pulut panggang somewhere…

Okay, crisis averted. Off to bed I go! (:

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