LYNETTE'S 21st BIRTHDAY!!!=) Happy birthday to my dear cg mate=) Thank you for being such a wonderful mate, friend, etc etc=) May you have a wonderful and blessed year ahead=)
Hari Raya gathering at li's house....good food and company.
After which, the group of us met up at ecp for some supper, then more supper near our houses, more snacking at lynette's house....and mahjong & super puzzle fighter..heh=)
slept the whole sat away.....think ill do the same for sunday=P
Life has been slowly marching on......a quick paced routine that never seemed longer than ever.
I see everyone around me---fellow medical students, friends, acquaintences, strangers, adults, and most of them look dreary, like life's little mysteries and curiosities have been sucked dry from them.
Tonight has been yet another night. I know i am supposed to study, there's a billion chapters of ortho that needs to be read and digested. But here i sit, a blank piece of paper with random scribbles and doodles in front of me, (I just ran down to get my pencil sharperner) all this because i happened to find my pencil---which i used when i was in secondary skl. That led me to try and find for my sketchbook which has been kept away for years...didnt manage to find the book i had in mind....but came across another sketchbook. Flipping thru the pages reminded me of how different i was...how tired i've become....
More importantly, of how some things im searching for aren't things that i don't know...or things that has constantly eluded me.....
but more of things that i've lost....
"There's so much to study" "Exams are coming up in a few months time" "I have no idea how I'm gonna cope when the ortho postings come when we have our patho and pharmaco exams" "No you don't understand...there really is a lot to study" "My goodness, *so and so* are so smart, they know everything...i'm really stressed"
So there i was....attempting to draw, while flipping thru pages of a phase/moment/time of myself which i forgot. askin the usual questions...
I got caught up with all the things around me, It's always so easy to get caught up in the moment. I still do...i try hard not to. But how is it possible to not to? We have to wake up everyday at 7 plus, and for now, our days end at 6. Someone in the US reminded me of a post i wrote a loong time ago.....
I just want to sit in my room...or take a walk out of my house to nowhere...with no direction....or walk out of my house and get lost......
I want to stay up with an easy heart and mind..without worrying of the number of hours i have left before i have to wake up again. I want to go to bed and have the freedom and lightness of heart to pick up a book and read myself to sleep, instead of pacing myself with just one chapter a night before i turn to my bedside, reset my alarm and turn the dial to the highest volume...I want to be able to stir in bed and not have fleeting moments of random conscious thots come into my head reminding me of the number of hours i have left, the things i have to do, people i have to meet, chores i'm supposed to do....promises i made..secrets im keeping....prayers i have to make.....friends who turned to me....
I want to wake up to silence...i want to wake up without the nagging feeling at the back of my head telling me that i HAVE to wake up and start on the million and one things that i am supposed to do. I want to wake up to sun's rays.....I want to wake up and just stone in bed for as long as i want. I want to have the peace of mind to drift in and out of sleep for as long as i want.
I want to wake up to the morning feeling all rested...I want to give a long stretch and feel all ready to tackle the day. I want to wake up and walk around in the silence of my house.....with no care of the time of the clocks...with only the judgement of the sun's shadows thru the windows guiding me.
Here we are...here i am.....i know i'm happy with my life. I know there's the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side". It's a saying that i've said to millions of frens numerous times. I'm not disgruntled with my life....I am not unsatisfied with where I am....I am not jaded.
I fought so hard to get where i am today...and im still fighting to succeed and to get further in the direction of where i am heading.
But maybe, just maybe....I am getting a bit disillusioned.
When i was young, i drew pictures...of forests...i doodled of sunsets....I dreamt of vast open fields and a stream.....i grew up playin with sticks and glue....dreaming of designing houses...of building my own house on my own land.
I collected giant tv boxes and made "bangalows"....I built "tents" in my room with my sister using blankets..I sawed my staircase (because i was desperate to saw sumthg when i found a saw in the toolbox, and it was the only piece of "wood" i cld find in my house)...I accidentally painted the whole front porch when i tried painting my "bungalow".....i built an eiffel tower out of tooth picks, string and satay sticks.....
and as i grew up, i slowly built models and sketched....i would leave a bit of wadever came to my mind wherever i went whenever the moment came...be it on a chalkboard....on a dew-covered window.....with sand on the track.....foolscap paper....on my desk....on the lt table...I got a bike and went to the beach almost every day...i cycled in the sun, in the dark, in the rain.....and it was my escape....i folded cranes with wishes/prayers in them and sat on the breakwater prayin that the cranes will carry my prayers to someone who is listeing...or at the very least wash away my woes and sorrows as it fades under the foam.
and older i became...i dreamt of houses....and as time passed, these buildings took a life of themselves... some looked like sails....some like water and wind...some balinese..some were grand and majestic....but most somehow had the sea next to it...with vast open lands...
.................
....flipping thru the book reminded me of the things i held dear..and still do...of the pensive moments...when i feel like im searching for something, somewhere or someone.
And here i am...and for various reasons....I am still in this island, I'm pursuing a course in medicine---of never-ending tests and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge...of an endless 8-6 perperuating routine. Where the uni forbids double degrees for "profressional" degrees--ie archi, law, med, dentistry...etc..not so much forbids..but they dont't cater and wont bother entertaining the thot of it. To go one step further....I am not only bonded to the govt....but to the saf...I never in my wildest dreams would have thot i wld end up bound to a regimental life for half my life.....
Im proud of where ive gone and how far ive come...not proud in an arrogant way...but proud in a satisfied way, a way knowing that im not unhappy, or disgruntled......
but somewhere along the way in my life, i've kept so many things within me....and slowly altered my route...thinking that these slight deviations to please someone...to conform to something....to live up to an expectation...to pursue an ideal.....has somehow led me to somewhere which wasnt what i had in mind initially.....
But i know i fought to be here...and i am still fighting...
What I am saying is, i don't know if it's part of growing up....or is it just in singapore...or maybe it's just the moment and people around me are preoccupied, and they do think abt such thots, maybe just not as often as i do.....
I always brush off comments of how there's so much more work to do. I find myself at a loss of words when I see pple discussing their schedules and plans for studying til the end of the yr...or for the next few months....I keep to myself when I see pple stressing out....I hide by myself when i hear of the long lists of things needed to be accomplished...I find myself thnking of words like "there's more to life"..."don't worry, life isnt just abt studying...but check myself, just in case i seem like some closet mugger, or some slacker, or someone who doesnt understand....like someone who just-knows-how-to-play-and-doesnt-know-what's-really-good-and-mature.
Im not sayin there is not a lot to study..i sure as hell know theres a lot..and which is why i find myself being sucked into the whole viscous cycle of endless routines. And honestly, I try my best to keep searching for tt sumthg.....and refuse to let all my time be consumed by studies/medicine/obligations. But that doesn mean there's less to study, or stuff i can leave out..or tt i somehow become lucky in choosing wad to study and wad to leave out....so trust me when i say i noe how stressful and lack of time there is....
....life is now, sure you may be studying for a better future..but only you can live your life. In the future, there'll still be sumthg you'll need to worry/prepare for...something you need to work TOWARDS to. Just as how in primary skl...we worked hard and suffered just so that we cld "enjoy" a better life in a good secondary skl...and then again...we slogged so we cld haf it "easy" in a good jc. and now, we tell ourselves,we suffer just bit more, just so tt we can "reap our benefits" later on.
.....of how we're nearing the finishin stretch....
finishing stretch? right....we're barely over 20....
This is life...life is now....who is to say that we will live beyond 50...or beyond tmr? if we keep living for the future.....when are we going to be truly satisfied. We have to DECIDE that THAT future is NOW.....and live our lives in this present.
...to enjoy....
I fought for this life....but sometimes at night....
"Some nights, when the silence gets to me, I find my mind drifting into a deep slumber. Not the kind of slumber of dreams and subconsciousness. But a slumber of calm un-answerable mysteries. It's like my whole body, soul and mind transits into a totally different state. It's like a twilight zone where my mind becomes alert and aware of every single woe, emotion, feeling and worry within me, where my body no longer remembers the aches, tiredness and time of day, where my soul suddenly connects with the conscious. It is then where time seems to stand still yet pass instantaneously. I do not know whether many will understand wad i am saying, but this is the reason why sometimes i find myself awake even at 5 am, not feeling the least bit tired or spent. My favourite answer to some pple when they ask me if i am okay is....."If the sun's up...im good=)" " All i know is i become aware of certain things that matter.......
I haven't walked thru a forest....I haven't worn an overall, stuck my hands into the pockets and wandered into the vastness of a forest. I haven't trekked thru the deafening silence of endless trees....with literally no soul or building in sight
I havent lived next to a stream.....I haven't walked next to a stream...I haven't sat next on the banks and see the river flow past...i havent taken off my shoes and waded thru a stream downstream.....
I havent gotten lost....I havent walked with no direction towards the unknown, towards unsafe grounds...towards possible danger, not the kind of danger of theft, abduction, abuse or physical threat....but the silence of fear.....the excitement of being alone with noone else...with no map...
I havent stood in the darkness and seen pure blackness with only the stars around me...I havent yet stood alone and gazed up to other worlds with not a single lightbulb, building in sight or noise nearby...
I havent had the time to myself, of having to wake up to a different world.....to a different routine...where all these present obligations dont matter. Where lying on a field doesnt necessarily require me to take mental snapshots of this moment for me to bring back home. Where i can lay in the open fields for as long as i can...and actually live there....
I havent woken up to the above when they weren't just merely moments on a holiday...with just a few hours to spare..
For me....this is what i mean by there's more to life...
And....I'm still searching....
There's more to all this ramblings..but i think ill stop here. I realised that theres a funny thing/way in which i write----i write in a 3rd person kinda way...in tt i talk to myself...maybe its kind of a way of verbalizing my thots...and i guess the best way to do so is to monlogue...or maybe ive kinda gotten used to the fact tt i write to remind myself when i read them again....
Some ramblings..which i'll backdate again....left out some things which i felt/wrote/thought which i thot weren't appropriate for online blogging...Just thot id share some here...
usually end most of these once-in-a-blue-moon posts with a "full stop"---with some conclusion...but i think ill just leave it hanging here....after all, it's all abt the search....and i'm still searching.
anw, if anyone has the song into the forest by aaron zigman..please send me?=) it's the youtube up there=P
and some shopping..=P
