strangely enough

the strangest thing happened to me yesterday. sitting in the design office, i suddenly felt inexplicably sad that it will all be over come monday.

that, if you ask me, is almost as impossible to fathom as our electric arc furnace is.

Postcards from Paris

I ran to a different place so far
As far as I could
And I’m in Paris

The lights burn grey and clouds
I’m happy and feel good but I’m so cold
In Paris

Turning round and round in enchanted spell
bounded alleys swallow me
I’m in Paris

Beautiful buildings you’re old and so noble
But will you keep me warm
In Paris?

I came here to get a bit blinded
Beautiful illusion of mine, try to catch me
I’m in Paris

Getting lost again
Sad dream. I’m famous already
And they know of me
Here in Paris

Now your voice is whispering to me from afar
“I miss you, come back to me already from Paris.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you and..
And Paris”

If it’s so good for me here then why am I crying again
And going crazy
Longing in Paris

Sun awakes me from the window and soon I’ll feel the warmth
The plane is landing and there are no clouds
Happiness percolates into me again
Goodbye Paris

- lyrics from “Paris” by Yael Naim, translated from French

Do you remember sunlight reflecting off oversized sunnies?

It’s a lovely, lovely Saturday today. It is days like these – gloriously clear blue skies and a sun generous with its rays – that bring pangs of sadness when I realise I will be leaving this place for good, so soon. How I will miss watching London from the upper-deck of the Number 14, watching artists sit by their array of paintings along Green Park, people walking their dogs and joggers weaving through the strolling crowd on the sidewalks. The effect of good weather is felt so much more here in London than it ever is back home.

I’m writing because I figured if I don’t do it today, I won’t do it til the Easter break begins, which is more than a month from now. Final year design project has taken over my life of late, to say the least. This past week saw the completion of the Interim stage of our design project and that’s why we’re ever so slightly more laidback this weekend. It’s the first weekend in 5 weeks that I don’t have to be in uni at all! But then.. this is only the tip of the iceberg. The eye of the hurricane. The calm before the storm, as it were.

Expect this space to be a little lonely for the next six weeks or so. I know I’ve been very characteristically lousy at keeping in touch. It’s the only reason I’m resisting the urge to complain that playing one Scrabulous game after another doesn’t quite count as keeping in touch. d=

resonance

the airy tinkling of the vibraphones pierces through what had been silence before, now replaced by some sweet and familiar atmosphere.

somehow the notes of the vibraphones must have picked up the overtones of the strings of this heart. how else can it be possible, that in a moment this longing could resonate at so large an amplitude?

The Weight of Glory

Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

 

The words “weight of glory” conjure up images of the ancient pan scale. Remember the blindfolded lady of justice? She holds a pan scale- two pans, one on either side of the needle. The weight of a purchase would be determined by placing weights on one side and the purchase on the other.

 

God does the same with your struggles. On one side he stacks all your burdens. Famines. Firings. Parents who forgot you. Bosses who ignored you. Bad breaks, bad health, bad days. Stack them up, and watch one side of the pan scale plummet.

 

Now witness God’s response. Does he remove them? Eliminate the burdens? No, rather than take them, he offsets them. He places an eternal weight of glory on the other side. Endless joy. Measureless peace. An eternity of him. Watch what happens as he sets eternity on your scale.

 

Everything changes! The burdens lift. The heavy becomes light when weighed against eternity. If life is “just a moment,” can’t we endure any challenge for a moment?

 

We can be sick for just a moment.

 

We can be lonely for just a moment.

 

We can be persecuted for just a moment.

 

We can struggle for just a moment.

 

Can’t we?

 

Can’t we wait for our peace? It’s not about us anyway. And it’s certainly not about now.

 

- excerpt from “It’s Not About Me” by Max Lucado

from fireworks to fireplaces/summer stole what fall replaces and now/now we’re people watching all the people/people watching us right back

of course we’d never watched the new year’s eve fireworks together. our time together was up before the year was. in a cruel twist of events today i found myself tracing with my index finger our footsteps along those streets and paths we’d so many times ambled down together. past that intersection point between wardour street and piccadilly which was often the point at which we’d bid each other goodbye and go our separate ways, all of us. you and your flatmates on foot back across the river, and us on our number 14’s. later on things would change. traversing strand, we would somehow end up in front of charing cross station – i could never remember the way. it wasn’t very much further, but just so we could hold hands a little bit longer before i got on the tube, we would walk. some days we walked all the way back to the other side of the river. you’d ask if i’d like to walk along strand or embankment.

and i would invariably pick embankment.

which brings me to the fireworks. the ones we never saw together.

this year as i witnessed the lavish display on the tv screen, you crept into my thoughts again – unexpected and uninvited, as was always your style. in an uncanny way it is your absence that ultimately reminds me most of your presence. who knows when these jarring recurrences will cease? until then i will go on living from one maudlin recollection to another. until then fireworks will always only mean one thing.

Lazy hazy afternoons

were made to be spent like this..

you live, you learn

as i reflect on the year gone by, i ask myself if on hindsight, knowing that things would have turned out as they did, i would still have made the same choice. whatever little pieces and fragments of myself that i have managed to salvage thus far only serve to make me wonder what and who i really am. was it truly so uncharacteristic of me to do what i did? to claim that i wasn’t “being myself” could amount to hypocrisy. denial, even.

i don’t know if that’s to say i regret my decision, per se. after all, so much of the past year and its best memories and joys were built around you, shortlived though they may be. i would like to think that we’re both for the better after this experience. that i’d somehow changed you, and you, me. that we are neither of us merely casualties. isn’t every kind of experience a good experience, after all?

the only way to live and not have regrets, i’ve learnt the hard way, is to live with the ultimate aim of pleasing God. and the wonderful thing is that though i’ve made a mess of things, i know He is helping me rid this emotional debris.

Food, comma?

It’s been one turkey, one leg of lamb and many mince pies ago since Christmas day and I am still feeling fatigued from the festivities. Yew Vern observed – and I couldn’t agree more – that I’ve grown a habit of going into stoning-mode after meals. I believe they call it food coma.

The up-side of it is that, looking back at photos, I think I’ve managed to regain some of the weight I lost over the past three months.

Hot chocolate with marshmallows, a couch and a tv are the perfect combination for lazy wintry nights like these. Last night Amal, Isya and Alvin Soosay slept over. We spent the night watching clips of dumb blondes/Americans/Malaysian ministers on Youtube, and playing Taboo into the wee hours of the morning.

BBC forecasts light snow on Thursday. I’m looking forward. (=

slow down the night

tonight is one of those nights. the ones where i am ever so content to just be sitting in my room listening to my favourite music, reclining from all the doing and going. and just being.

on my playlist right now is Amy Winehouse – her type of sound really does it for me somehow. here a hint of the Supremes and there an Aretha-esque quality, very very unique and distinctive. i just love that. i love the subtle 70’s vibes it exudes. and i love when you can’t put your finger on the genre of the music. it’s probably also the most poppy/mainstream stuff outdated-me has really listened to in recent times, haha.

saw a live theatre production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at the Coronet Cinema in Notting Hill Gate today. nothing spectacular – small stage, music provided by one keyboard, and no amazing props or effects. in fact the cast was made up of but 5 people. but it was a good effort, heart-warming and sincere in its simplicity.

it is 3 days to Christmas day and outside it’s misty. under the street lamp vapour and dust rise like a swarm of tiny fireflies. i’m wondering how much colder it is where you are right now. (=

i wish i could say no regrets / and no emotional debts / cause as we kiss goodbye the sun sets / so we are history / your shadow covers me / the sky above a blaze that only lovers see

he walks away / the sun goes down / he takes the day but i am grown / and in your way / in my blue shade / my tears dry on their own

[tears dry on their own - amy winehouse]

Far from the madding crowds?

How quiet the house is! Coming through the main door this afternoon after returning from a spot of Christmas shopping alone, it felt as though it was 3 in the morning rather than 3 in the afternoon. Although, to be fair, the house is probably more lively during the wee hours of the morning when Lance and Yew Vern start gaming (and I am asleep). Alan and Melissa are still in Morocco – I’m so jealous they get to see camels! Just about everyone is travelling this winter, I can’t help but feel slightly resentful of my research project which didn’t allow me to join them in Morocco.

If and when I get round my aforementioned problem of erratic swaying between wanting to be alone and wanting to be surrounded by company, I’ll probably check out some jazz clubs in town. Do some spring-cleaning. More shopping. Give my books a little more lovin’ – oh yes, that Margaret Atwood book has been lying around collecting dust for nearly 2 months now.

I hope it has everything to do with my research project workload and job applications that I’m not “feeling” Christmas so much this year. And that it isn’t the beginning of a lurking cynicism in me. While walking down a crowded High Street Kensington today, I caught myself silently grumbling in my heart that Christmas has become a curse (and I mean the commercialised version of Christmas that the mass media sells) more than a blessing, and we’ve all unwittingly become victims. Stressing over getting addresses of this relative and that to send cards to. Joining with the mad throng of last-minute shoppers stripping the Sainsbury’s shelves of every last turkey, chicken, duck and pork leg. Trying to do all your Christmas gift shopping in one day without tearing your hairs out or getting trampled on in stores, and rushing to the post office to get it all mailed off, only to be told that it will only reach in the new year… Everywhere it screams at you “Spend, spend, spend!”. I’m suddenly beginning to wonder why it never used to bother me! And it scares me. I remember telling Eng last year that Christmas never fails to make me feel like an eight-year-old all over again. This year it seems to only serve to rub in the fact that I am getting old!

The various ways with which I annoy myself

That each time I eventually do my laundry, I forget my socks, which inadvertently collect in a small heap under my desk.

How I erratically sway between wanting to be alone and wanting to be surrounded by company.

The frequency with which I chip or break my fingernails.

How I can never find it in me to throw used plastic bags away. Just. Throw. Them. Away!

How my hands don’t do what my mind tells them to. And do what my mind tells them not to.

That I do well keeping a tab on my emotions, only to inevitably fall into relapse.

Dear Ben-with-the-blonde-hair-and-soapy-smell

I’ve often wondered why you always have this clean, homey scent of soap on you, all the time, every single time. It reminds me of my father – that Imperial Leather barsoap scent so characteristic of him. I catch a whiff of it in the gust of wind caused by the swinging-shut of the doors you always hold open for me. I smell it in the place you were standing, even a second or two after you’ve moved away. If I’m lucky, I inhale the comforting scent when you kneel down next to me, picking up the broken pieces of ceramic fibre I’ve klutz-ily strewn all over the laboratory floor.

Yesterday we spent 2 hours together (oh, rapture!) snapping these silly fibres in the Mech Eng laboratory. You have this sense of humour I find so cute. You speak of your fibres almost lovingly, fondly calling the odd one-or-two ‘freaks’ when they withstood unexpectedly large loads. You admonish your fibres, calling them ‘uniformly un-uniform’ and ‘rubbish’.

You are so sweet and kind and nice and ohsoverybrave! when you gallantly defy your penicillin allergy to enter a chemical laboratory just to show me where to find the micrometer screw gauge. You know the answer to everything, you are so knowledgeable and so clever.. And oh, so strong too! How effortless it seems when you tighten and loosen these bolts and screws and things!

Alas, you are a glorious PhD student writing a ground-breaking thesis, and I am but a lowly undergrad watching and admiring you from behind these oversized safety glasses. Alas, to you I am simply known as ‘UG’. And our little rendezvous are but work responsibilities to you, perhaps even unwanted burdens…

Oh, will I ever see ‘Dear May’ instead of just ‘Hi’ in these emails, let alone hear my name spoken on your lips?