The Curve

It's 8 p.m. Friday night.

I just had the urge to be alone tonight, to take time out for… myself. Just myself, this yellow lamp and my dozens of chilled Budweisers in the fridge.

There's no internet connection still, so I open up iPhoto and began playing slideshows of pictures from all those years and months back.

They remind me of many things. The times, the places, the feelings… they do not fade one bit. I can remember them as if it was all just yesterday. I cannot help but smile: the good times were plentiful.

But most obvious of all is the people. Ah the people: some are still around, some having grown closer, some further, some having left embittered, and many, mostly indifferent.

The pictures also remind me of many events and periods of my life, some of which unbearably gruesome, others stirring up feelings of nostalgia, whilst countless others evoke a multitude of mixed emotions.


In many ways, I thought of coming here as an opportunity to (in a way) start life anew. I thought of it as a chance to begin from a clean slate where many of the baggages and unnecessary complexities from my past no longer existed.

I'd be honest: it doesn't feel that way. 

All I feel is this shadowing sense of insignificance; life if you think about it is pretty weird. It's as if all of the sudden, many of the things and the people whom you knew all the five thousand kilometers away no longer seemed to matter as much (if at all) as/like they once did before.

But then there are those of which whom you communicate with on a daily basis, all those five thousand kilometers back when you hardly talk to the people who live a mere five seconds from you. 

We were distributed tons of reading material upon arrival in uni. Leaflets and guides were poured on us as if their cost were immaterial. There was this section where the adaptation process of an international student to the local environment was described as a U-curve: happy and excited at first, one then experiences disillusionment and alienation, then collapsing into misery and depression, which at this period is represented by the lowest point in the U-curve.

Once the person has settled down properly and has gotten used to the place, and new and meaningful and lasting relationships developed, the person begins to thrive and starts to recover, eventually reaching the top of the other end of the U.

I recall telling my dad that I went through the whole curve on the first/second day itself. I recall breaking down like a little girl then --and only then-- and have never seen those symptoms described in the text ever again.

But I can't help but think of what I'm currently going through as some sort of alienation and disillusionment. But I currently have all that I need to survive, and more than enough to keep me happy as a human being. 

So why then am I in this solemn and introspective state of mind?

Sure as hell don't want to go into an emotional hole, I've been in enough of them! =O


(oh and by the way, also written in the guides were advice on finance, transport, use of words/slang/language, culture, safer sex, typical societal stereotypes, mention of tolerance towards homosexuality, where to go to for financial/emotion support as well as support for just about anything and everything! Cool huh? =D) 

The Purge

I think this must be it. ‘This’ the slow, the gradual, and the progressive death to a train of thought that has plagued my mind since…

Since it all fell apart.

Relentless and unceasing, each and every day it comes for me: hiding behind my active thoughts, surfacing from and menacing the times when my brain is idle.

But with each passing day, and with each passing dream, it grows ever weaker, as the threads of relevance slowly unbind and untangle themselves from the nasty convoluted mess that has been the giant thrombus in my head.

The lines between right and wrong converge and intersect, winding in and blurring out into a million eddies of contradictions. The more I see, the more I think, the less I know, and the less things seem to make sense.

You then start to think about how people do it, and why.

And then you start to wonder: were you ever meant for such a thing?

Status Report

It’s been three weeks since I landed in Australia, and life here I must say is pretty good!

Well, there are always two sides of a coin of course.

I’ve almost completely forgotten how it feels like to be in a 25C+ environment. Last week I went by three days without rice. I’ve forgotten how it feels like to drive. I’m starting to like, and be okay with having bread taking up an ever increasing portion of my food-pie. Every time I eat a good, proper Chinese meal, it feels like it was forever since I last had one. And if paying eight to ten dollars -the standard price- for every meal once (or twice) a day was of no concern, then there is absolutely no problem with the food here. From Asian to Western, fast food to restaurant to home-cooked-style food, everything is here.

I think that my chances of finding and developing relationships (of any and every sort) here are more limited then they were back home. I think I will be reluctant all the way up till the very end of my course to tip the scale in favour (or against staying and working) here for a couple more years.

I still keep multiplying prices by three and converting them back to RM, though with food this habit has stopped completely. I’m more or less getting used to walking half an hour to get to my classroom in uni, though at the same time the feeling of annoyance and sometimes that of frustration has not subsided.

And speaking of uni, academic life here is starting to get tough-ish. The amount of material I need to read up on and revise for is already piling up and all this are pretty heavy stuff to absorb.

And last but definitely not least, we still have yet to get the internet connection set up in our apartment. Which sucks, but oh well.

The skies are wonderfully blue almost all the time, and the sun and the sky at dusk is simply spectacular.

I should have much more positive things to write about, and that is absolutely true: but knowing me, and me being me, that just doesn’t really happen much! XD

So that’s it for now folks.

I’ll catch you all soon enough. =)

Questions With No Answers

I can’t help but feel small.

No, I’m not talking about being below average stature wise, but being small as a living being. Humanity is small: we’re nothing but a tiny speck in a vast and giant universe, or a multitude of them if you are so inclined.

Our existence is only for a brief instant in what must be an infinitely long timeline that stretches (almost) for ever.

Life really is short.

We live, we struggle, we thrive, we fight, we enjoy, but ultimately, we all die.

The religionists will talk of and tell you delusions of an afterlife of eternal bliss -or suffering, depending on whether you bow to their all-so-loving creator, but that’s another story altogether- but the truth is, no one is spared from the fear of death.

I doubt many of us truly believe in that fairy tale.

So why can’t we ever take a step back from it all? Why can’t we ever take it all in and see that our existence, and our lives are pretty much insignificant? Why can’t we stop lying to ourselves?

Are we all really that cowardice to face reality?

Life isn’t perfect. Shit happens. Mistakes are made. Relationships turn sour. Grudges are held. Bridges are burnt. People are shitty. All of us are selfish.

Why can’t we accept all that? Why do we put expectations and apply standards that we ourselves cannot live by?

Why can’t we just live an honest life devoid of pointless pretence, and spare ourselves the hypocrisy?

The Sydney Series Part II

It was Saturday night and no one wanted to be at home (well, maybe it was just me and my housemate, as we still do not have an internet connection).

So out to the city the five of us went (after a long and tiring trip earlier in the day to the other side of Sydney to IKEA). Me and my friend brought our cameras along and had some night shots of the opera house and Harbour Bridge taken.

Have a look:

Kinda impressive, isn't it? But nah. It was really more like this:

If it was in Malaysia, I bet it would be lit properly as brightly as the twin towers.

And the famous bridge looked like this in the night:

...which is a flattering picture of it I must say. Perhaps they're just trying to save on electricity bills?

Oh well. It was a fun night nevertheless. Oh, and the buses here are in service all the way till the wee hours of the morning, unlike the midnight Cinderella public transport back in Malaysia. Nice huh?

I kinda miss home, family, and friends. I'm missing you all!

The Sydney Series Part I

So I'm going to show you 'round Randwick, the suburb we're staying in. It really isn't much, but I guess its a quiet and comfy neighbourhood not too far nor too near (unfortunately) from uni. Yes, I love using the word 'uni' -now that I finally can! Hahahahaha!

Anyway, here are some so-so shots I took the other day on the way to uni. Opps I used the word again =D

Beginning with our apartment's backyard passage:



Through this:

And these: 

And because our apartment is on the third floor, we get to see this on the horizon too:

Though no sunsets unfortunately. =(

And finally:

Half Way Round the World

Yes, yes everyone, I'm in Australia!

It's been a busy week, what with trying to get the apartment we're renting furnished and setting up all the basic stuff (e.g. bank account, telephone line, internet).

It's cold and windy here -kinda nice if you asked me- and in the mornings, the skies are impossibly clear, with a wonderful blue hue that kinda belies belief!

My feelings on the other hand are ...confusing, to the point that even I find them difficult to comprehend.

What I do know for sure is that I miss home, I miss mum and dad, I miss my friends, I miss being able to talk to all these people on a daily basis. I also miss many other things, and other people.

And, I'm troubled by the university's academic requirements/expectations that will soon be laid upon me. I don't like being in the calm before a storm.

I dislike how I now am feel so petite short walking down the street, vanishing into the crowd where before I would have been slightly above average in stature.

I wished it didn't have to be so far from or difficult or expensive to get back home. I wished I could see more of you guys, and be in contact with all of you more often.

But oh well.

Grass on the Other Side

The next time I post, I will be doing so from another continent; all the way from Down Under.

Beneath the surface of appearances, underneath the glitz and the glossy shell, lies a stressful (and costly) academic life that awaits me.

Many of life's luxuries and indulgences that I have become so accustomed to I would have to give up. 

But I think --I hope/wish-- it'll be an enjoyable experience nevertheless, once all is said and done.

So wish me luck. Wish me health and wish me wealth. Wish me all the best. 



And thank you guys so much for everything.

I will miss you all.

Snippets

It is four in the morning, and six days is all that stands between me and that Sydney-bound 747-400. Silence fills this house --this house that has been my home for the past ten years.


A vague, but deep undercurrent of emotion has been flowing beneath me for days now: bubbling over at times, though never for too long at that.


It isn't really sadness. It isn't really reluctance either. A combination perhaps ...maybe even none of the aforementioned at all.


There are bits and pieces that could have been arranged in better ways I think. Loose ends that should not have been left as such.


On the fringes of my mind, the thought of failure --and the reality of having failed-- to make certain things better is an eyesore to my otherwise brilliant skyline.


But alas, there is only so much one person can do. And sometimes when one thinks about it, one wonders if it is even remotely worth the trouble.


More often than not, the answer is a resounding no.


Feelings of excitement and that of elation remain as elusive as can be, having been worn down and drown out by the many months of diminutive progress towards the one ultimate goal of getting me onboard a jet plane.


And thus the solemn, the introspective, and the multitude of other feelings swirl together in an endless spiral: thinning out, closing in, and diffusing into one another to form an impossibly complicated flux of emotions.